Last evening at dusk I closed up the dogs and walked down by the creek to look for a small body. The day before, hearing my four dogs barking in that high whining frenzy that triggers alarm, I left my tasks to go check, additionally discomfited by the helplessness I always feel since my injury now insists on slow caution. Closing near I saw two of my precious dogs out on the jagged ice, one of them with something black in his mouth. I instantly thought of my three black cats and wondered if one of them had triggered a strong prey response as a possible stranger for being discovered too far away from the house. Dogs who live in packs are a bit different than the solitary one or even two. Pack dogs can flip from sweeties who only want their bellies rubbed while giving your face soft-lipped kisses to snarling, vicious fighters who gang up on the weakest one, or the most annoying, or in certain circumstances, on a different species companion animal they regularly tongue-bathe and sleep with.
But I soon saw the characteristic mask of dear Raccoon. My alpha had already grabbed its neck, bitten and shook hard and then his second came in and took the other end as they were already in full prey-drive mode; my other two darlings barking and lunging from the creekside. Both my inner and outer bodies were shaking but I started to sing anyway looking at and calling Raccoon. I know some things, viscerally, about how the animal self may scream, writhe and fight while the spirit consciousness is otherwise occupied. So I sang to the great psychopomp beings who come to escort the dead. I sang to the spirit of Raccoon to praise its beauty and wisdom. I sang to witness its passing and to thank it for its gifts. I sang grief and I sang blessing and I sang farewell. And later.... when the air had truly cleared and quiet had returned to the land I did a death ritual for this small, dear Raccoon.
So last night I went to find its body, but no body was there. No new tracks were in the snow, no signs of her being dragged off, nothing my tracking could detect in any direction. Maybe a large owl swept through the low branches and carried her off during the night. Who knows what happens in the dark on land that still keeps many of the old ways?
I don't walk down by the creek that way much anymore since being injured as it's risky and there's no one to hear me and the light had mostly left. But that's also when it is so very beautiful and I needed that beauty, so walked down a deer path a bit farther. During the higher temperatures this week the metallic flow of water had returned to the center of the creek and with this melting there were large and whimsically carved cantilevered ice shelves just floating out in space over the water. And within this frozen architecture each boulder was draped in fantastical, silver-edged pewter ice jellies. But my real interest were the young hemlocks.
When I moved here 19 years ago there were great stands of grandmother and grandfather hemlocks holding sanctuary for all the other woodland dwellers. The strength and presence they emitted spread out through the spongy forest floor like ley lines covertly guiding one's path to a sacred portal. And then along came the wooly adelgid; a tiny, aphid-like beast from Japan that sucks the life from the hemlocks, killing even the greatest of them within 4 years. As the sticky white clots began appearing on all the big hemlocks years ago I would roam the mountainous 50 acres to lie against them or stand with my arms around them and sing. I sang grief then too as well. And blessings. And gratitude. And farewell. The old ones are all gone now, their trunks drying quickly and falling, smashing mountain laurel, wild rhododendron young hardwoods, ferns and wildflowers.
But there are still youngsters here and there, and last night I saw how fresh, juicy and green their needles were and there were no little white clots anywhere. I ran my fingers all over and through their branches with such pleasure, whispering endearments. And, closing my eyes, repeatedly rubbed my cheeks and lips over the softness of all the branches, thankful for this one day I wasn't watching someone die. Then to my inner eye came the vision of a great Mother Tree. She was the greatest hemlock I'd ever seen and gold light surrounded and radiated out from her. She was not sad or angry. She just..... was. And she showed me one, small hemlock cone. As it hung in front of my eyes, it became deeply articulated with an immeasurable sense of depth and texture. I was falling into it, a world of cones, of seeds, of fruitfulness and plenty. Of grandmothers and grandfathers returning. And it all shone with gold light as well. But if this was a message, there were no guarantees, no promises. I felt she showed me a world of return that was possible, but there was an "IF" as far as this world was concerned. But in that other world, there were no "IF'S," there was only timeless presence, power and beauty. I drank from that cup the Great Mother offered me, and then I walked home to my ordinary life, very ordinary shamanic life, where connection and relationship with all beings is everything.