Eagle Canyon
The woman approached Eagle Canyon with a heavy burden on her shoulders, the kind that rounds the back over and furrows the brows. The flat, beige southwest landscape stretched out before her, wild in every direction, no roads or houses to be seen. She didn't wonder how she got there, she had been there often and never knew how she arrived. It was just something that she accepted.
The canyon opened up under her feet, the place where a river emerged into the sunlight. This place never changed, a deep hole in the earth filled with clear water and cupped in by smooth sandstone. She remembered how she had first come here to swim, the creatures rising below her in the water were strange and frightening. Over the years they had become smaller, more like manatees than like whales, and she didn't need them to show her the way anymore.
The wind whipped her sandy, brown hair around her face as she descended, and she pulled it back behind her ears in a gesture she was no longer aware of. The canyon dust had stained her sandaled feet a light shade of brown to match the tan that was forming on her face. Normally, she hid her face from the invasive sun, but now it was warm upon her skin and always before her upon the landscape.
The woman knelt down and placed her hands into the water, palms down towards the gravel. This water was never cold, the rocks never mossy, as if it had lain fresh under the never-setting sun. Her reflection was never as she expected it, never the image she saw in the mirror, but lean and essential. She leaned forward and dipped her face in, washing away the bitterness that had stung her eyes. This place was always renewing to her. Finally, she slid belly-first into the water, and as she was immersed the thought occurred to her that she could not swim with her burdens intact and allowed them to loosen and slide free.
A creature came up underneath her, supporting her with it's buoyancy. At first she had swum into the cave in fear of them, now they conducted her there, half-seen messengers. The sunlight faded the farther they swam in, but light still rippled up off the surface to make lights dance on the walls and ceiling of rock. When it became too shallow for her escort she swam, then walked, up onto the cave floor. A robe was waiting for her, as she knew it would be, and she wrapped herself into it as she went on. The interior of the cavern was alive with creatures painted onto the walls, fossils impressed into the rock, a legacy of lives come and gone a million times before her.
A shaman was seated here, waiting for her. She knew that he had always been there, even when she had been too afraid to explore the caves. He had the look of one whom the passage of time only makes patient. He was one who had made his own passages long before her. Here was a place where she could become disconnected, shed the earthly bonds that she had tethered herself with, and rest her spirit. The message that he told her was always the same - you need to find your wings.
The top of the cave opened-up behind him and allowed the light to filter in. She went past him and up, into the daylight, and found herself standing on top of the boulder that overlooked the water. The wind met her full force here, shoving her earthbound body backwards, roaring in her ears. She unbuttoned the bottom portion of her shirt and allowed it to blow directly against her solar plexus. She spread her arms and fingers and heard her back crackle as she raised her shoulders. The wind scooped her up into the air, holding her above the rock, and she instinctively braced against it.
A golden eagle, its nest tucked into the crevasses of the canyon wall, spread its wings and rose up to meet her. She watched as it hovered before her, then dipped and wheeled almost without effort, only its fanned tail moving. To be born doing this... she wondered. Why not fly if one had wings? Why ever come to earth? Which, of course, eagles rarely did, choosing instead to perch on the highest point around - distancing themselves from it.
When she came down she looked over the edge and into the canyon. Her burdens were still by the water's edge where she had left them. Leave them, the thought came as she was turning to go. They'll only hold you down.
End.
"Eagle
Canyon"
©
Nadine C. Anderson 1998
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© 2000 NC Anderson