A long time ago, when my life was at a very low point, I was looking for just about anything to believe in. I needed something to make me believe that everything was going to be all right. It seemed that every morning as I boarded the Massachusetts Turnpike from the Millbury/Worcester entrance, I would see a Redtail Hawk sitting on a lamp post looking down “at me”. My brain knew he or she was scanning for breakfast in the circle of grass created by the on ramp, but it always felt like that Hawk was looking at me. On the mornings I didn’t see the Hawk when I first got on the Pike, I would inevitably see one further down the road soaring over the morning comuters, her tail flashing a rusty orange red as the sun caught in her feathers. I remember thinking, “I’m going to make the Redtail Hawk my spirit guide. Everytime I see one it will be a sign from God that everything is going to be all right.”
Whenever I told anyone, I always said it tongue in cheek. I’d tell them, “Well, I see one everyday, and everyday I need some reassurance, so why not pick it as a spirit guide?” I’d laugh and play it off as a joke so nobody would think I was too weird, but the idea was becoming a belief inside me.
A few years later when my life had worked itself out (not in anyway I’d ever seen coming!) I found myself in Palm Desert California. It was night, my traveling companion had fallen asleep in a lounge chair after our evening swim in the hotel pool, and I wanted a drink and some conversation. There was a cabana bar by the pool with only the bartender and another gentleman sitting at it. I sucked up the courage (I’m not good at socializing with strangers), ordered a Pina Colada and waited to see what would happen.
The bartender didn’t disappoint me. She asked where I was from and when I told her Connecticut, she told me her son lived there. The gentleman next to me commented that Connecticut had some of the best Pow Wows in the country. He had long gray hair tied back in a pony tail and the unmistakable features of a Native American. He introduced himself as John Redtail.
I have one friend who seriously believes in his animal spirit guide, the Bear. I was at his house one day when the phone rang, it was a Native American friend of his from California. His wife explained to me that the two men had met seemingly randomly and it turned out that the Native American fellow was someone important in his tribe and he had confirmed my friends choice in spirit guides. I then told her about my choice of the Redtail Hawk. She poked her husband and told him to ask his friend what the characteristics were. Our jaws dropped at the conicidences he relayed to me about my choice, it fit my personality perfectly. We all laughed and still, I thought of it only as fun.
Remembering this conversation, when John Redtail told me his name, I was intoxicated enough to see it as fate. I boldly plunged forward and told him about choosing my spirit guide. I laughed, as I usually do when I tell it, and said, “I figured since I see one just about every day, I might as well choose it.”
He said in all seriousness, “How else do you think your spirit guide would find you?”
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I am at an important crossroads in my life right now. There is a reason I need to be in Las Vegas this summer, though what it is, I don’t know. I only know that the part of me that believes in Spirit Guides is being tugged in that direction and I have a strong urge to follow it.
The last two days have been filled with angst and doubt about how I’m going to make this work. I have $200 in my bank account, no job, overdue bills, and it costs $50 a tank to fill my car. My friend who was going to help me get out there was just hit with unexpected expenses himself. We’ve been on the verge of canceling my trip and the stress was bringing both of us down.
This morning I was woken up early by my parents talking outside. They’d come over to take my Grandfather (I live with him) to the Casino. I remembered today is my Dad’s birthday, so I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled outdoors in my pajamas to say hi. I wished him Happy Birthday and made small talk with my folks until my Grandfather was ready to go.
As they were leaving, I heard an unmistakable noise. At first it went in one ear and out the other (I was hardly awake enough to really pay attention) until I realized that all the birds in the yard at the edge of the woods behind our house were calling up a storm and making a huge racket. I stood alone in the back yard, watching as gold finches, starlings and robins flew from tree to tree, completely agitated. And then, out of the woods came the comparatively large body of a Redtail Hawk. He flew down low from a tree into our yard, then turned and soared back up over the neighbor’s yard and back into the woods. Bold and angry robins escorted him out of their domain and returned as he disappeared, our yard growing relatively quiet again.
I haven’t been out driving lately, as a matter of fact, since school ended I haven’t really left the house at all. The part of me that believes in these things knows that God got me into the yard this morning so I could receive my message.
Everything is going to work out. Everything is going to be OK.
