black feather

Her face was white milk in a deep onyx bowl; smooth, still, cool. Her eyes were grey steel; liquid and radiant, powerful and penetrating. She was mystery; opaque with a trace of reflective shadow. He knew her well but still felt that she was a stranger to him. He was an intruder upon a world of secrets he could scarcely hope to comprehend. She respected his eagerness to learn, and loved him for it, but nonetheless, he could not escape the uneasy feeling that he was dancing on the edge of a precipice from which he could fall into ultimate void. Security and safety were shadows of his past now—shackles he could no longer willingly wear.

He was resolute in his commitment to the quest. He would know her. He would learn from her. He would hear her song. He would walk the edge and reach out into the chasm of deep unknowable mysteries.

He had spent his whole life until now with a very self-central point of view. When he had loved a woman it had been with his own performance and accomplishment in mind. It had always been his desire and obligation and assurance to create and sustain and nurture love out of his own base of strength and skill and charm. He had sought to please woman, to love her, to inspire her love, to fulfill her needs, and in it all he had sustained and fed his own identity and self-worth. He was acceptable and good and strong because he could love a woman and give her reason to return his love. There was safety and assurance in this way, and it kept him firmly in control of his own heart, and his capacity and potential for love. But now it was no longer good enough. Now he understood that this form of love is self-serving and shallow. He could no longer bring forth love to prop up his own identity and self-worth.

She wore black feathers in her hair. Black feathers framed and matted the proud strong lines of her clear white face. The black feathers were broad and strong and glistening with blue iridescence and deep shimmering luminescence. He could not distinguish the black feathers from her soft dark curls and flowing hair. They merged and blended and wove spells all around him.

His own identity and self-worth! These had all been so intertwined with his ability to form and sustain loving, committed intimacy. His world had utterly shattered when he could not rescue his own marriage. Shards of razor glass lay irreparable and hopelessly damaged where his heart had once beat strong and confident. No longer could he be the master and controller of his own intimacy. Now, as he began to heal from the crushing blow, he must learn to be the willing and humble servant of intimacy and not its master. Now he would stand with Black Feathers—awakening. Now he would learn from her, and perhaps she would learn in the teaching as well.

_____________

It was the same hill where the red tailed hawk had plummeted from the sky for him months ago. Today he walked again, alone, hungry to hear from her who spoke softly to his heart whenever he walked among the hills. As he rounded the hill, a thousand black wings flapped a syncopated rhythm hovering close to the leeward face of the hill to minimize the force of the wind against their flight. Slowly the great flock of crows danced their waltz around the side of the hill until they turned face into the wind and soared upward awkwardly on their big wings; wings better suited for flapping than soaring. Their blackness in the sunlight was stunning. Their cadence was communal and cyclical. The leaders were soaring over the windy crest of the hill as the stragglers flapped along still far back along the leeward side. The black feathered birds were magical with an asynchronous unity and rhythm and random order that seemed to accentuate their participation in the movement of the flock. He was transfixed in the middle of the path, caught in the beauty and grace of this sacred movement of crows. He had disdained the crows all his life.

He had never seen this beauty and grace before. But now it had passed before him, undeniable and unmistakable.

White milk in a deep onyx bowl—opaque with a trace of reflective shadow. A thousand black wings flapped a syncopated rhythm reflected in the white milk stillness.

And there before him in the path lay a black feather. It lay in the grey-brown dust, perfect and clean. He picked it up and walked with it while it spoke to him of Black Feathers and her mystery. It gave him her name. It spoke to him of his poor simple heart's journey to know itself and to meet Black Feathers with respect and love unhindered by his old desperation to control and own the heart of his beloved. It spoke to him of the grace and ecstasy that already had begun to permeate his new found discovery— that the highest calling of the masculine heart is to release and protect and nurture and honor, and yes, to serve the awakening feminine heart. The black feather spoke to him as he walked, and he listened to every enchanted word.