The year I learned how to listen to the birds
Last year I began looking more into my ancestors and lineages. A daughter of two immigrants from Central American war-torn countries, with a completely severed connection to my Father’s side of the family, and limited access to historical records on my Mother’s side made this difficult. This is how I found myself on a Zoom consultation with Katy Swallows (highly recommend) and this is how this journey began.
The woo-woo parts of myself are intrinsically tied to how I navigate the world. I started having visions and foretelling events before I turned three. Obviously my parents were convinced I was losing my mind. Every time my mother would take me to the bathroom to potty train me, I would point to the skylight and tell her that a “man all in white” was going to come through the skylight soon. When they looked up, nobody was ever there. My father started climbing to the roof of our home and waiting up there before my mother would take me to the restroom. He never saw anybody else on the roof even when I would insist there was a man up there. My parents began looking for child psychologists. Then, one day, we came home and found ourselves victims of a burglary. I declared that it was the “man in white” who had come in through the skylight. When we got to the bathroom, that is exactly what happened. The police eventually found the man – a house painter.
Afterwards, my family gave me the nickname “la brujita” or “little witch.”
I see things. I know things. Just yesterday I knew that the way my cousin looked at his mother across the table meant his wife was pregnant. Later that day my grandmother was watching TV and asked me to pass her her cell phone because my mother was going to call. That’s exactly what happened, and yes my cousin’s wife found out she was pregnant two days ago. When I picked up a tarot deck ten years ago I found that reading the cards came quickly and naturally, even before I started studying. But explaining my “knowing” to people has always been difficult, usually impossible. Especially when speaking to my American, western-educated friends. I have stopped trying.
However, today I find myself sitting next to my grandmother as she rests and hides from the midday sun in her room, surrounded by four altars. She lives in Nicaragua, close to the mountains. Her connection to spirituality and the cycles of nature are still strong. We’ve recently had long talks about ancestor veneration, spirituality, and omens. She reminds me that knowing and seeing is a gift, even if we never fully understand it. Because of her, I was raised by a mother who rarely doubted my own gifts.
So, last year when Katy told me she saw my ancestor holding up a cream and brown raptor, with its head cut off, I didn’t doubt it. “So you know where to look,” she said.
Less than a month after my consultation with Katy, I was in Plant City for a concert. While my lover and I walked back to the truck a barred owl swooped down and perched on top of the lamp post and stared directly down at me. “Follow the birds.” At the time, I was living in an older apartment complex overlooking Biscayne Bay in Miami, surrounded by banyan trees and live oaks at least four feet in diameter, as well as the largest known seagrape tree reported to the American Forestry Association. It was a bird paradise! I watched the vultures, blue herons, ibis, pelicans, and cormorants head to their roosting islands at sunset everyday, or as often as I could. My lover bought me a pair of binoculars. We set up bird feeders. I watched the hawks build their nests around the apartment complex. We kayaked out to the islands to watch the birds up close. I was putting out a much bigger call into the world. “I am listening.”
Two months after my reading with Katy, I found myself in Peru, for my friend’s wedding. One day, my lover and I were leaving the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru and walking over to the Larco Museum. While walking on Simon Bolivar Avenue, I felt someone walking closely behind me. I turned around to find a stray dog. We let him pass, and he turned around and paused and looked me straight in the eyes. “Follow me. This way.” But the GPS was telling us to keep going straight. I dismissed the dog and chose to follow the GPS. Eventually we realized that the path the GPS was telling us to follow was blocked due to construction. In the end we had to double back and make the same turn the dog had insisted we originally take.
Last December, I was weighing a life decision. I was in Lake Martin, Alabama* staying with my lover in the family’s fishing cabin, which used to belong to their late grandfather. On one of my walks I noticed a blue heron who was wading and hunting, and closely watching me. It reminded me of the dog in Peru. This went on for a week. The heron led, and I followed. One morning I woke up, and this time, my heron friend was right in front of the cabin. “There’s not a right choice or a wrong choice. It’s one step at a time.”
This May, I found myself in a similar position. Overwhelmed by three civvy career choices and the pull of my craft. This time I was in Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. Surrounded by thousands of acres of bright red Aztec sandstone outcrops, petrified trees and petroglyphs. The red rock formations were formed more than 150 million years ago when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth! While driving through here, my lover pointed out the statue of a bighorn sheep. Eventually, the juvenile sheep opened her mouth to chew, while staring at us. Once again, I knew that this beautiful creature was not there by accident. “You’re chasing mastery and that takes time.”
Today my grandmother told me the story of her late dog. One day, as she was crossing the courtyard her dog turned around and stared at her. As she kept walking he started to bark at her. She quickly realized that he was warning her of a lizard which was about to fall from the tree and straight onto her head. “You wouldn’t believe it! It was like he was human. It was like he was speaking to me!” Of course I believed her. I am filled with slight dread and sadness because she is 2 days shy of her third Saturn return (an omen in and of itself).
Hawk of Hawk Astrology refers to omen walks as “learning a language, one that God can teach.” Please don’t run away at the mention of god. This can refer to a capital G god or you can replace it with spirits, higher power, the universe, nature, the order in chaos, or in this case the sheep. I refer to myself primarily as a diviner because I know that reading the stars, tarot, playing cards, tea leaves, bones, or birds is at its core the same thing. The key is in the seeking. It’s in the willingness to slow down and listen with an open mind and a wild heart. This year, there were swallow-tailed kites, night herons, great-horned owls, ospreys, and many more who reached out to me. At the risk of sounding cliche, when you seek you will find.
*I would be remiss not to mention that Lake Martin is built over Kowaliga, a black town started by William E. Benson. At its peak, the town was home to the first black-owned and operated railroad in the US, as well as the Black school Kowaligia Academic & Industrial Institute. William was the son of John E Benson, an enslaved man who was freed and traveled to Florida to find his sister. Together, they made their way back to Alabama and started a thriving, short-lived, black community. Eventually, in 1926 the Alabama Power Company built up the Martin Dam and flooded the town.
**Hawk’s substack post about the omen model of astrology is fabulous.I won’t summarize it but I highly encourage you to read it, especially if you’re struggling with the questions omens and astrology bring up regarding the concept of free will.
