25—Droppings

To: Friends and Family

Subject: Droppings

From: walden@intermind.net

While being lucky in Vegas means a big win at the casino, good luck here in Netarts often involves some sort of encounter with wildlife. Several days ago, for example, I came upon a woman peering back and forth between a brown booklet and the ground around her woodpile. Hearing my footsteps, she greeted me, commented on the sunshine with the enthusiasm of Noah receiving the olive branch from the dove, then invited me into the yard to confirm her observation that there were two types of scat. Intiially, all I saw were small piles of black pellets. But careful observation revealed that, yes, the pellets in some piles were slightly larger and rounder than others. 

Deer: Internet Center
for Wildllife Damage Mgmt

Elk: Internet Center
for Wildlife Damage Mgmt.

“Elk!” exclaimed the woman, showing me the scat diagrams in her booklet and beaming as if showing off pictures of a new grandchild. 

“Deer,” she cooed holding the book along side the smaller, more oval pellets. 

With that settled, we introduced ourselves, and a genial conversation ensued about the blessings of living here. As I walked on, my new friend called out a reminder that I could pick up one these handy scat-identification booklets at Rainy Day Books.

Reports on wildlife sightings here are part of daily conversation: 

An eagle stirring up mass hysteria among the gulls as it glided over the bay. 

A coyote crossing the highway at about 7:15 a.m. down by the antler house, the antler house being a ramshackle cabin decorated with, yep, antlers. 

A bobcat glimpsed in a rearview mirror on the road to the dump.

A red-tailed hawk hanging out on the telephone line above the first dip in the road toward Tillamook. 

Two raccoons ambling down the main street of Oceanside. 

A kayaker at slack tide surrounded by seals. 

A whale in the cove up by the lighthouse. 

Antics of the Pearl Street darlings, Edgar and Allen Crow. 

Chester, the gull with the deformed foot who flies about town, limping forlornly across railings and decks to get snacks from the hands of the compassionate.

I’d begun feeling left out until the other day when walking to Oceanside, I rounded a curve in the highway and found myself barely ten feet from a doe browsing in a grassy patch alongside the road. I stopped, expecting her to flee. She remained, motionless, unafraid. Not even the least bit wary. Fog hung suspended in the crisp air like a held breath. “Hello,” I said, finally breaking the silence. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch.” The doe replied by nipping off several more salal leaves. “Looks tasty,” I went on. “I had salad for lunch, too.” 

As she continued to nip and chew, I saw not a brown deer but a sentient being with a grayish brown coat, a couple of patches worn thin and ragged, lithe legs, big perky ears shaded in various tints of black, brown, rust, and pink, the entire ear edged in white, a narrow face sloping down into a big shiny black nose, and those large dark doe eyes looking into mine as together we shared his singular moment swirling around the universe together on Planet Earth. We were not, I thought, so different—quiet and shy, vulnerable in a world that was not, with our only defense being nimble within our worlds as teacher and doe. I hoped she was more successful than I. 

Not exactly thoughts, these reflections were more like a feeling of something I can only describe as grace. And then with several exquisite springs and leaps, this marvelous animal bounded away into the trees. The sound of the ocean at the foot of the hill had receded but came back as I walked on springier of step and peaceful at heart. 

Time was when people believed animals had special powers for teaching or spiritual healing. In Medieval lore, it was through Sir Gawain's quest for the white hart that he learned the importance of mercy.

Among the Buddhist teachings on compassion is the story of the doe who asked not to be hunted until her fawn was old enough to take care of itself. When a deer king offered to be killed in her stead, the human hunter was so moved by the sacrifice that he let both the doe and the deer king live.

“Medicine” is the term Native Americans gave to the power of animals to teach, heal, and awaken the spirit. In search of such awakening, I passed over the booklet on scat for Animal Speak: The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small. The epigraph by Chief Dan George read, “If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys.”

Photo by Walter Van Campen

from WebBird.org

On the drive back to Netarts, I was wondering how to seek the medicine I needed when I wasn’t even sure what that medicine might be. All of a sudden, the red-tailed hawk that had been observing the world from the telephone wire swooped down and across the road just feet from my windshield. The red tail up close was the color of fire radiating a pure heart-stopping energy transcending all human capability. 

Back at the house, I consulted my new book that contained a dictionary of bird and animal totems. Of an encounter with a hawk, it said, “Holds the key to higher levels of consciousness...teaches the balance necessary to discover our true purpose in life...reflects a need to be open to the new or shows you ways that you may help teach others to be open to the new....”

While I wasn't sure if I believed what I knew deep down to be a kind of healing wisdom imparted to me through these experiences, I was sure that in some way I didn't fully understand my previous life was falling away.

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