16 July 2020
Dearest Fazal,
Standing on one’s hands! What a perfect idea. Standing on one’s hands with a friend is an even better one—with an audience to boot as these men are barefoot. Joy is oxygen (isn’t it), especially in moments when we think we can’t take one more breath, or another step forward. Why not invert the whole situation with goodness and laughter, when you have an audience like these two? If the world feels like its upside down, then make it so.
This is the Hangman in the Tarot deck, “the twelfth card of the arcana that suggests ultimate surrender, sacrifice, or being suspended in time.”
Just for fun, I turned this photograph upside down. The two young men are now holding up the earth with their hands, each like a modern-day Atlas revisited. Their legs are suspended in air until you start wondering if the boys aren’t now holding up the sky as their legs leap for joy as the roots below are exposed. Who is to say any more what is real and what is imagined? What is fact and what is fiction? And perhaps most importantly, we need to ask the question of where do we stand in a world made of quicksand?
I stand on the solid ground of synchronicity, Fazal. I trust the electricity that comes when the inner and outer worlds merge so perfectly that you can only bow to the perfection of that serendipitous moment when a bridge of connectivity has been made.
On the day family and friends were gathering in Kayenta to honor, mourn, and celebrate Jonah’s son’s life, I received a call from Ken Sanders, who runs a bookshop in Salt Lake City. Ken and I have been close friends for more than four decades. He called me and said that he had just purchased a large library from someone in Arizona and tucked inside one of the boxes of books was a consortium of feathers—he believed they were eagle feathers.
“What do you think I should do with these?” he asked.
I said it is illegal for a white person to possess eagle feathers, or for that matter any feathers that belong to birds of prey. When I worked at the Utah Museum of Natural History, we would call an officer at the Division of Wildlife Resources or consult a Native elder.
Jonah Yellowman came into my mind. I thought of his son who had just passed. I paused. I shared with Ken that Jonah was the spiritual adviser for the organization called Utah Diné Bikéyah and a strong advocate for Bears Ears National Monument. I told him he was also a medicine person for the Diné, and that his son had died from the coronavirus and they were gathering for his funeral as we were speaking.
“Perhaps these eagle feathers are meant for Jonah,” I said. “My instinct says they should go to him.”
I then offered to talk to Jonah. Ken said he would carefully wrap them together and mail them to me.
Today, the package arrived. I called Jonah to share the story of the eagle feathers and asked if he would like to see them or could use them in his ceremonies.
There was a long pause.
“We are honoring my brother today. It’s crazy,” he said. “First my son, then my brother. It’s not fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I am so sorry, so deeply sorry, Jonah.” I asked if his brother’s death was also from Covid-19. He said no, that his older brother had been sick for some time.
“Are you sure they are eagle feathers?” Jonah asked.
“I have only seen a photograph. Would you like me to open the box and verify that they are eagle?” I asked.
“Please,” he said. Jonah knew me well enough to know I loved birds and could properly identify them (unlike the mystery bugs in Bluff, dear Fazal, I know what you are thinking).
While Jonah waited on the phone, I opened the cardboard box Ken had sent with the feathers carefully wrapped in white paper secured inside. I brought the white package on to the table, gently unwrapped it and when faced with the feathers, I was stunned by their beauty and power.
Twelve eagle feathers appeared as a vision. They were large broad wing feathers clearly ceremonial. The shaft of each feather, twelve to fourteen inches long, had been covered at the base with red felt with strands of small royal blue beads attached to white buckskin ties wrapped around them.
I took three pictures and sent them immediately to Jonah. It took some time for them to reach him as our cellphone reception is slow here in the outback.
“Nothing yet,” Jonah said. “Nothing yet. I think you’re playing a trick on me,” he said laughing. We kept waiting together until he said, “Got them.” He looked at the pictures of the feathers and was silent for a long time.
“Yeah, they belong to eagle,” he said, “but what’s that they’ve been wrapped with?”
I described the shaft coverings of red felt and blue beads.
“Hmmm—Go ahead and send them,” Jonah said. “That is so interesting. Yeah, just send them to my P.O. Box in Kayenta.” He paused. “That’s really interesting. I’m going to have to think about this. Thank you.”
After giving Jonah my word that we would send the feathers tomorrow, I sent him my love and told him once again how sorry Brooke and I were for his losses.
“I know.” he said followed by another long silence. “I am okay. It’s just the way it is right now.”
The world is upside down, and we feel turned inside out, exposed. We are standing on our hands to see if another point of view might reveal itself. No, we are standing on our heads because we need to locate joy if we are to survive the darkness we are inhabiting globally, be it a refugee camp, a cage at the American–Mexican border or a national quarantine order to shelter in place.
We can no longer look for leadership beyond ourselves. It is no longer about asking for permission, but rather accepting what comes to us. We can take a stand with others, even if others see us as fools and contrarians during a crisis. We can dare to believe in the messages that come when feathers appear with a desire to fly home.
Missing you,
Terry