Where eagles ascend
THREE magnificent eagles flew over me this week while I was walking a coastal trail. I was strolling on the gentle bush track that winds along the water’s edge behind the boat sheds at Lewisham when the first white-bellied sea eagle swooped from nowhere to take a closer look at me.
The huge bird of prey glided, without a hint of movement from its wings, down to about 10m above me where it hovered momentarily.
It looked me in the eye before ever-so-slightly tilting its awesome 2m wing span and, in just moments, rode the gentlest of buffeting northerly breezes to perhaps 200m high in the sky and a kilometre further down the estuary.
Its effortless flight was majestic; as uplifting to my spirit as the breeze to this regal creature’s graceful aviation.
I don’t always listen to music on my walks, preferring the worldly sounds around me, but this day I was wearing headphones and, in an awesome synchronicity, the 2010 song Lost and Found by John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension was playing. The sublime bass of Etienne Mbappé and drums of Mark Mondesir were the perfect soundtrack to the eagle’s soaring beauty.
Still smiling in wonder at the vision of the eagle in flight, I walked for a few minutes farther on the bush track to be faced by another two sea eagles. I could barely believe my eyes.
Perhaps one was the same one I saw earlier, I can’t be sure.
The pair kept 30m apart, with one appearing to mimic the slowly ascending, spiralling flight path of the other as they rode higher and higher before turning their heads and racing down a steep shaft of air like a surfer sliding down the face of a monster wave. They flew in loose formation to a tall, old gum on a headland and landed together on a high limb that perched out over the water.
I lifted my pace to get to the base of the tree for a closer look but by the time I arrived they had departed on aerial adventures beyond my gaze.
It’s not the first time I’ve looked an eagle in the eye.
About 10 years ago I paddled my kayak to Woody Island, about 5km farther up the estuary from where I saw the birds this week, when an extraordinarily curious sea eagle appeared just metres above me. It was almost still it was gliding so slowly.
There was no shyness from this grand creature. It met my glance and held it with an audacious self-assurance.
It was a surreal encounter as we silently engaged each other in the middle of the bay – me floating on the water, it floating on the breeze – and I couldn’t help but think the eagle was in as much a state of wonder and awe as I.
Being acknowledged by an eagle is uplifting. To hold its glance seemed an honour. I felt special, blessed, fortunate.
Eagles have a potent presence. Their piercing gaze is noble, their comportment elegant and graceful. It doesn’t surprise me they are totemic of freedom and power for many of the world’s indigenes.
Since I saw the eagles this week my mood has lifted.
I had until then struggled to shake a vague and unnerving sense of pandemic anxiety; a difficult to define feeling of deep unease that was hard to attribute to any one event.
On top of that, one of my assorted jobs, the one that pays most of the bills, came to an end in recent months, and I’ve been too proud to go to Centrelink to apply for JobSeeker. I am unofficially one of 650,000 Australians to have simply disappeared from the employment statistics in recent months; casuals and part-timers whose shifts have dried up. Many Tasmanians face the same anxious wait, and I feel for them.
For me, it happened incrementally over three or four months as my work hours for this particular job slowly dropped to zero. However, I wasn’t too worried after I signed a contract for casual work with a new employer a month ago after attending a videoconference, filling myriad forms, supplying a resume and birth extract, and bank and superannuation details.
I received congratulatory emails welcoming me aboard, but barely a word since. Each day I check the roster but not one hour of work has come my way. It’s distressing, dispiriting.
The daily disappointment and dwindling finances have festered with my general lockdown malaise to have me questioning my own worth.
Am I good enough? Am I needed? Am I of value? Am I worthy of respect? Am I too old? What happened? I felt worthless and disposable.
More than half a million stranded workers like me are wading waist-deep through this pandemic quagmire of uncertainty and anxiety. Little wonder phone helplines have been overwhelmed.
Despite the fact I feel smarter, wiser, more capable, more competent and more cogent than ever in my career, the self-doubt and self-pity have bubbled away like pools of toxic sludge under the surface and, in recent weeks, I have to admit feeling unusually tight, angry and stressed. Until I saw the eagles. The birds of prey lifted my spirits and reminded me of English poet William Blake’s monumental Proverbs of Hell from his 1790s book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
It’s something I’d like to share with all Tasmanians in my predicament.
“The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil’d,” Blake reassures. “When thou seest an Eagle, thou sees a portion of Genius, lift up thy head!”
Blake is saying we should delight in eagles. No matter the challenges at the door, we should enjoy and appreciate the beauty around us. “The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest,” Blake writes. We should graciously savour each drop of delight.
“To create a little flower is the labour of ages,” Blake goes on, urging us to be patient when growing the things we cherish, before cryptically and playfully advising us: “Damn, braces: Bless relaxes.”
We clench jaws and fists when challenged. We fortify, stress, tighten and brace for the worst. But, calling through 230 years of history, Blake reminds us to relax, smell the roses and delight in the genius and joy of an eagle’s flight.
We are not only allowed but well advised to smile.