Back in 2019, I spent several months in the United States, and enjoyed the opportunity to get to know a different land than the one I’d lived in for so long. There were only a couple things I missed, and one of them was my Hawk feathers.
Hawk is an important member of my Spirit-Kin family, and we have many grand adventures together. She accompanies me on all my travels to the Otherworld, and I always know that when Hawk lifts me up under her wings, that we are about to go somewhere special. When I used to do group healing journeys for others, Hawk would fly me far, far across a wide, flat ocean to the Isle of Healing, and it was always such a joy to fly with her wings that I would swoop and glide and dive in sheer joy.
One evening during my trip to the US, I told friends how much I wished I’d not had to leave my hawk feathers behind. These feathers are always on my altar, and I use them in several different ways.
Were I lived in New Zealand, hawks were everywhere. It was a rural area, and there were hawks patrolling every few hectares of land. They’re gorgeous birds, and more than once Valerie and I stopped the car to drag a bit of roadkill from the middle of the road so that the hawk eating it for lunch wouldn’t get hit by the next oncoming vehicle.
In the US, where we stayed in the Pacific Northwest, I saw hummingbirds, woodpeckers, red-winged blackbirds, crows and ravens, and even bald eagles. It was wonderful! But I hadn’t seen a single hawk.
Two days later, I was up in the morning making coffee, when our friend came in from an early stroll, and in her hand was a feather. A hawk feather, a nice big, flight feather, just like the ones I had at home.
She’d found it, just the one large, single feather, lying on the ground right outside our front door.
I took it and held it, grateful beyond belief from the reminder that Hawk travels with me wherever I go, in all worlds.
Later, when I went upstairs to draw my daily card from my Wildwood Tarot deck, I drew – of course – the Knight of Arrows, who is Hawk.
Hello, my old friend.
And then it wheeled around, wings outstretched, and she felt its feathers brush her face, smelt the salt-soaked scent of them, felt the wind under them, and the gull was nipping her shoulder with its beak, snatching hold of her clothes, and lifting her.
And she was in the sky, the thick beating of wings above her.
and then they were her wings, and she flexed her feathers, admiring her black wing tips and the graceful way they lifted her higher and higer into the wind.
Katherine Genet is the author of the Wilde Grove mythic/visionary fiction series, as well as complementary non-fiction. She has been walking a pagan path for 30 years and is a shamanic Druid, spirit worker, and priestess of Elen of the Ways.
I live on Vancouver island (Pacific Northwest) and while I see most of the birds you mentioned every day, even eagles, hawks are rarer. Although we do have a Merlin who nests every spring just up the street and I have also been blessed with a Cooper’s Hawk who weathered a snow storm in a cedar tree on my property.
I believe in, and pay attention to, the messages of birds with owl being my spirit bird.
Thank you for sharing your hawk story and your memory of my neck of the woods.
The bird life was wonderful where we were, but in the whole eight months I was there, I only spotted a hawk once. Another reason why the gift of a feather was so magical.
We did see owls though, and I’ve seen them only rarely, so that was thrilling.
The bird life was glorious! So many that I’d never seen before. We had some lovely encounters with owls – what marvellous birds ?
I have lived all across the US, MX and now back in Scotland. Yes, it was probably more the region you were in as there are many hawks in the US. How special to have your friend find that hawk feather while you needed it so. What a lovely story.
Thanks for these books. I’ve been a witch all my life but had conflicts because of my religious upbringing. These books help me fine my director to the right path. The conflict is now gone after searching and learning gaining more knowledge and turning to spirituality and Druids I’m come full circle will keep on learning and teaching the Druids way. Safe the earth, mankind from it self and the worlds as well.
I have always had a love of grizzly bears, snow owls, foxes, sea turtles and stags. No idea if any are kin but I feel a kind of amazing wonder when I see them on the telly. Obviously the only time I’ll get to see a bear would be in a zoo due to living in the uk. I’ve see n owls and foxes where I live and a dear but again sea turtle would be in a zoo.
I’m lucky enough to see hawks almost every day, but there are no snakes in Aotearoa, so it really makes no difference if your kin are animals in your vicinity. When I’ve journeyed for people to call their kin, all sort of animals have turned up, from black panthers to antelope. I’m betting at least one of those animals you’re so drawn to are your kin!