The Powwow Eagle

The picture above is of the eagle that was released at the Intertribal Powwow July 2009. The eagle had been injured, rescued, healed, and brought to the Powwow for ritual release back into the wild.

This creature, master of the skies, had survived near fatal injuries and had been given the opportunity to heal. This meant being taken to a strange frightening place by beings with powers and intentions unknown. Helpless in its injuries and status, the eagle had little choice but to endure the experience. Every instinct in it had must have screamed for escape. Wild is the eagle, and wild means not tameable, not in the nest of the humans, but completely free and independent, shackled only by its own instincts and the limits of its mind.

The eagle had no capacity to understand why this all had happened; the injury, the capture, the treatment. As time passed, it succumbed somewhat to trusting its rescuers. It grew stronger as it rested and healed. But there was, in the eagle's mind, only one goal.

So on that day at the Powwow, the cage was brought to an open area.
The elders in full regalia chanted and drummed. The cage door finally was opened.

The eagle swooped out of its confines and flew across the blue sky. Its sense of regained freedom was palpable to all who watched. Master of the sky once again, it flew from treetop to treetop, confused by its new surroundings, shaky in its wings, but free.

This moment lasted about two minutes. Suddenly every raven and gull for miles around were drawn to this new addition to the sky. Usually they would have run in terror from the eagle, the most powerful of all birds. But they knew that this eagle was disoriented, weakened, and filled with uncertainty. They began strafing the eagle, flying right into its face, challenging it.

The eagle looked overwhelmed at first, ducking the attacks, flying from one treetop to another in an attempt to protect itself. But the ravens and gulls were relentless. For an hour they continued their attacks. The eagle fought them off, every one, growing fiercer with each attack.

Eventually the ravens and gulls tired of the game, or they felt the full spirit of the eagle growing stronger the more they swooped at it.

The eagle flew off to places unknown to us humans, to regain an eagle's life. The eagle never could know what it had given to those gathered for the release, to those who had rescued and nurtured it, to any who heard this tale. It could never know that it had become for all who met it that day the embodiment of Eagle, spirit animal and guide.

Did the eagle know that its life had been given back, that it had been given a second chance to stay in this precious world and rule the skies? We can never know. We can only salute the eagle and wish it a good strong happy life, until the moment we all must face, when this life is truly at its end, and its splendid soul returns to more infinite skies.