How I Got My Wings, Part 3: Ceremony

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Read How I Got My Wings, Part 1: Dead Cardinal here.

Read How I Got My Wings, Part 2: Second Encounter here.

On January 29, 2021, I took the dead cardinal wrapped in the dishtowel and plastic bag out of my freezer. It was afternoon and the impulse to do something with the body came suddenly and strongly.

I gently unwrapped it and began the work. Standing at my kitchen counter, I started plucking out breast feathers, feeling both certain and uncertain at once. Thankfully, Knowing helped me to overcome all the messages that have kept me in unknowing for so long. There is still so much unknowing to shed.

Soon after I started the process, I stopped. What I was doing was sacred work and deserved to be treated as such. This was ceremony.

Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote, “Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. These acts of reverence are powerfully pragmatic. These are ceremonies that magnify life.”

I lit sage and palo santo, blessed the body, blessed myself, and allowed myself to feel the heaviness of what I was doing. I shed tears, perhaps as much to commemorate the life no longer in this body as to commemorate the beauty of the moment of reverence I was living in.

After the blessing I resumed the work. I pulled as many soft, downy breast and back feathers out as would come easily and paused. What now?

I broke the wings off, tears still rolling.

I broke off a leg.

The unknowing asked as it had the previous week, “What are you doing?!?”

Knowing answered, “What needs to be done.”

After removing these parts, it was clear that I was finished with this part of the ceremony. I placed the feathers and leg in a bag, the wings carefully on top. I still didn’t know what to do with them, only that I was to keep them.

I asked Spirit/God/the Universe (these feel like different names for the same Oneness of which we are a part) what I should do with the body. It didn’t feel right to simply throw it away. The answer was to put it in my yard, not buried, but simply placed on the snowy ground, trusting that Nature would finish the ceremony in my absence.

The next day I went back out and something had begun to eat the body. By the third day there was no sign of it.

Life circling death circling life.

How I Got My Wings, Part 2: Second Encounter

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Read How I Got My Wings, Part 1: Dead Cardinal here.

It was January 22, 2021 and I was walking with a neighbor. We chose a route that took us down Frankfort Avenue. I hadn’t walked that way since November. As we strolled along chatting, we came upon a dead cardinal. Though not in the middle of the sidewalk, it was in dirt to the side of where I had seen the body two months before. On that January day I couldn’t remember exactly when I’d seen the first dead cardinal, but I knew I’d taken a picture. When I found the photo, I discovered that I had taken it almost exactly 2 months before. Two whole months.

When I told my neighbor of the first dead avian encounter, she asked if this was the same bird. I had no idea, but I really hoped so, because if it wasn’t, that meant that more than one cardinal had died in that spot recently.

By the time we went on the walk, I had the awareness that birds were going to be working with me in 2021 (incidentally, I believe my relationship with birds will continue beyond this year). I had bought the feather-pattern leggings to commemorate the connection.

Seeing the cardinal, I knew I couldn’t just leave it there. Like the first time, I had nothing with which to pick it up, but I resolved to go back and get it. Why? I didn’t know, but it felt important. Crucial. That bird was there for me.

As I write that, I am imagining some who may read this and think, “The bird was for you? What? The dead bird? That had been lying there for 2 months? Really? Who are you? Also, that’s gross.”

The same doubts and hesitations reared up in me, too. Thankfully, I have had many experiences of being called to actions that may seem bizarre or unwise by conventional standards that have led me down beautiful paths and unexpected adventures. I knew to trust the quiet voice instead of the screaming ones.

My neighbor and I finished our walk. I went into my home long enough to get my car keys and a dishtowel, and drove back to where the dead cardinal lay.

Ever so gently I picked the body up in the dishtowel and placed it carefully on the passenger car seat. When I picked it up, I saw that the body seemed to be intact except for missing eyes. How was it in such good condition after so long? I had no idea.

I drove home and once there, I had a dilemma. I still had no idea what I was supposed to do with the cardinal body. I think that day I pulled a few tail feathers from it. But then what? I knew I wasn’t supposed to throw the body away. I knew I couldn’t just leave it on my countertop until I knew what to do.

I wrapped the cloth all the way around the body, placed the cloth in a plastic bag, tied that shut, and put it in my freezer.

Though at my core I knew I was doing what I needed to, the inner critic voices were loud. “This is nuts. What in the world are you doing? You just put a dead bird in your freezer. What will other people think? You’re vegetarian, for God’s sake!”

A week later I knew what to do.

Read How I Got My Wings, Part 3: Ceremony here.

How I Got My Wings, Part 1: Dead Cardinal

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Sometimes we don’t know we’ve started a new story until we are well into it. It’s only looking back that we realize, “Ah, this is different, new.” Sometimes we simply choose a starting place and tell the story from there. I choose one year ago today as the beginning of this story.

That day I was walking down Frankfort Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky in an area with lots of restaurants and shops. All of a sudden in front of me in the middle of the sidewalk I noticed a dead cardinal. Though we’ve unfortunately seen too many unexpected dead birds in the later parts of 2021, at the end of 2020 it was unusual to see a dead bird anywhere, let alone on a sidewalk in a business area.

I felt a jolt of sadness to see this once vibrant being no longer able to spread wings, song, and joy through the neighborhood. I paused, not quite knowing what to do.

If I had had some sort of cloth with me, I would have very gently moved it off to the side of the sidewalk. More than once I’ve stopped my car upon seeing a dead cat in the road, wrapped the body in whatever fabric was in my car, and moved the lifeless form out of the way of further mangling. I did it to honor the life lost and with hope that this act of care might bring a moment of comfort to the people who had lost a family member.

That day I had nothing with which to move the cardinal. I took a picture, I think to somehow honor this being, and made a mental note to come back to move the body. Then I continued on my way.

I am good at being present...sometimes. And I have lots of good intentions. My memory and follow-through are less reliable. Despite the photo I had taken, I forgot about the cardinal.

At the start of 2021 it became clear to me that I should pay attention to birds. Notice them. Study them. Learn from them. As one way to commemorate this invitation to be with the birds, I even bought leggings with a feather image pattern. Birds were going to be my thing.

Despite this newfound commitment, by the start of 2021 I had forgotten the cardinal on the sidewalk.

Read How I Got My Wings, Part 2: Second Encounter here.