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Hawk

You say that you would be a Story Teller?

Do you remember what I told you about layers?

Always look at everything many times; each time a different layer.

Have you heard the cry of Hawk?

First contemplate the sound. It is familiar to you but you have never really heard it before. Concentrate on that sound. Take it inside your head. Examine the tone and the tenor of it. Think about that physical sound. Own that sound.

Close your eyes.

Hear that sound in your mind until you can create it by your will.

Now see Hawk.

You have seen him but you have never really seen him. Keep your eyes closed and see Hawk. With the eye of wisdom and of the heart see Hawk. See the size and color of him. See his talons and his curved beak. See the color of his eye. See the shape of the feathers on his wings and the fringe above his feet. See the feathers that are darker on his back and lighter on his chest. Examine them. The image is in your memory for you have seen Hawk many times although you never knew how much detail you had seen. Fix the image in your mind.

Now see what Hawk sees.

This you do not know. You cannot recreate this from memory. You have never seen through the eyes of Hawk.

See the forest from the sky. See the small animals scurrying in fear of the shadow of Hawk. See the smallest detail as Hawk sees it through his superior eyes. Make note of the trees...from top to bottom...and the grasses and the ground itself. Look downward at the rocks and the streams. Look at your own shadow...the shadow of Hawk...as it glides over the face of the land.

Feel what Hawk feels.

This is the center of it. Know the pride of the hunter who knows that he is superior to anything in his world. Feel the flow of strength in his wings. Feel the wind rushing beneath your wings. Tilt. Whirl. Dive. Soar and drop to soar again. You are master of the air, a rider of the winds. Feel the joy of sailing above and below and beside your mate. Dance the dance of the winds. Hunting together, playing together...part serious predators and part playful lovers. Feel the pure joy of flight. Feel what Hawk feels in his heart.

And all of this you have done from no more than hearing the cry of Hawk.

The old man stopped. He scraped the ashes from his pipe with a twig...refilled the pipe...and lit it from the small fire using the same twig. Out here you wasted nothing. And everything travels in a circle. Desert nights are cold. The fire seemed too small to the young man. The old man shrugged; there were only two of them to be warmed. Why try to warm the entire desert? The young man smoked a cigarette in silence thinking about what he had learned. He had a sense of satisfaction. To be told the way of the Story Teller was an honor. He had a wall of awards and degrees and a new Jeep all paid for by the stories and articles and poems he had written. Some compared him to Faulkner and some to Hemingway and some said that he was something new to literature. Maybe he was the only one who knew that there was something missing...something incomplete.

Then, when I can do all of that, will I be a Story Teller?

The old Navajo smoked in silence for a few moments. He smiled...as much to himself as to the younger man.

When you can do this; this is the first step on a journey.

When you can become Hawk....

then you will be ready to begin learning to be a Story Teller.

The young man nodded. He knew that this was all the old man would say this night. The ground was losing the warmth it had stored from the sun.

Isnala Mani

June 23, 2001

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