Photograph by Medford Taylor
Last evening Jack and I were driving to a friend’s house for dinner and had gotten into ”discussion” about moving. Jack owns an antique store/gallery and has been there for 20 years. I want to believe that he can close his shop, or sell it, and move easily to a new town/life, and he says that he wants to and yet, when things don’t seem to be moving (at all), I find myself blaming him for dragging his heels. As much as I know (in my head) not to blame others, and that all answers are within, and how disempowering it is to look to someone else to make things happen, I still do it…
Last night, it was under the guise of, “I’m trying to be helpful here.”…giving him all sorts of, what I considered to be, helpful suggestions and he was sitting there mute. I could feel the frustration building inside me, (which should have been a clue to check myself but I didn’t), so I pressed in even more.
Suddenly he said, “I just saw a peacock back there!” I thought he was talking about a sign with a peacock on it, or some other dumb thing, and just said “What? Where?”, “Turn back, there really is a peacock walking on the side of the road.”
I turned around, a little begrudgingly, and sure enough, on the side of the road was a peacock. We got out of the car to see if we could get near it. Where on earth did a peacock come from? I tried to call it to me, and had visions of myself sitting in the backseat holding it…bringing it some place…where?… as Jack walked around behind it. At that moment it flew right over the top of my head. We tried to find it but could not.
That has to be one of most unusual occurences of my life and I knew that it was a sign. I was more than a little stunned as we got back in the car and said, “Maybe that was a sign that if we can see a peacock in Rupert, VT, something so impossible as this, then Jack Metzger could move.” We both laughed, but I also appreciated how that startling bird helped me to re-direct my own critical thinking.
When we arrived at our friend’s home, and they were introducing us to good friends of theirs, Judi and Roger, and we told them what we just saw, Judi said with a big smile on her face, “That is a sign!” …I loved this response and knew instantly that we would hit it off.
Driving home from a very lovely, magical evening, I looked up the spiritual significance of Peacock and it said, “The call (of the peacock) has a kind of laughter quality to it, as if the peacock is a reminder to laugh at life.” pp 182 Animal Speak
“Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind – listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody“. Eubie Blake
This weekend it might be fun to “listen to the birds” or watch them…see how they show up to help…I would also love any stories that you would like to share about birds in your life.
