Eagle Medicine

Animal Messengers.

A few years ago, when we lived on the remote and wild frontier of eastern New Mexico, Aaron and I had a day off so we hopped in the car and drove, not really having a solid destination. We decided to drive to the tiny town of Cimarron because there was an old unexplored antique book store there calling to me.

Before leaving town, we stopped into a few stores in Raton, never having taken the time to adequately investigate. We were brand new in town, freshly unpacked from the moving van. In one of the stores I bought a beautiful set of Native American totem medicine cards. It was a cloudy Autumn day, a rarity for New Mexico, and we set off for Cimarron while I thumbed through my new divination deck. 

Opening to the currents of the unseen. 

At the time, over the past week, Aaron had twice been graced by a face-to-face encounter with a grey fox, so I pulled the fox card and read him the medicine which he found to be insightful. We were quiet then, contemplating what we had learned, enjoying the softly grey day while speeding down the desolate highway with nobody but the antelope and buffalo for company. I shuffled the cards two or three times, fanned them out across the dashboard, cleared my head and asked my higher guidance to help me pick a card. I asked myself, what medicine could I really use right now? What do I need at this exact moment in time?

Closing my eyes, I found that quiet inner space and picked one, smiling as I turned it over. I chose the number one card- Eagle Medicine -which signifies a great spiritual connection to the All.

At the time there were so many changes in my life.

We had just moved across country from Minneapolis to an extremely remote little mountain town in New Mexico. I had left a twenty-year career in veterinary medicine and had just started a Master’s program in psychology. I felt more than a little shaky on my feet, to say the least. When I picked the Eagle Medicine, I felt an immediate intrusion, the question, “Am I worthy of this card…?”.

Self doubt is the constant companion of great change.

I was drowning in both. 

The Great Mystery.

Deep in thought, I was pulled away from the card’s attention by Aaron furiously patting my leg while he drove. Silent, eyes wide, he gestured up. Above our car, an enormous bald eagle soared in circles.

My heart was beating out of my chest. Unable to speak, my body wracked with electrical chills and covered in goose-bumps, I silently showed my card to Aaron, without taking my eyes off the eagle. He nodded, having already seen it. 

We watched the majesty of this spirit gliding across the expansive New Mexico sky until he soared off out of eyesight, the magic of the moment fading. Breaking the awesome silence, Aaron said, “I wish I could replay for you how that eagle manifested. I mean, he came out of nowhere. A hole opened up in the clouds, a perfect circle just big enough for him to squeeze through, and he dropped down right in front of us. This feels so unreal.” In my head was the voice of my friend Susan, who had recently traveled this road with us. We were talking about the prevalence of Bald Eagles in Minnesota. “It’s too bad, but you rarely, if ever, see them here. Especially out on the range like this.” I remained speechless for quite some time, thinking to myself that moments like are my reason for living.

They’re what tell us we’re always tapped into the Universal current…the place of total interconnection and spontaneous manifestation. In the car, basking in the peak experience of the eagle medicine, I thought to myself, these moments are my “Why”.  At that moment my higher consciousness chimed in this time with the words, “You are worthy of the Eagle card.” And after such a gift as this experience, how could I not believe it? 

Much Love, 

Kristy 

P.S. ~ If you’re curious to know what led me to leave my twenty-year career, and move to the remote mountains of eastern New Mexico, please read my award-winning memoir Stark Raving Zen.