Yesterday while on a walk with Grace we found her. One of Magellan's roost members had flown close to the garden to pass away. The neighbor and I picked her up and held her warm but very still form in our hands. We watched her eyes close as she became even more still. It was the first we had been able to hold one of these magnificent creatures in our hands and study the genius of their natural aviation. Magellan was not grieving over her when we found her and so we are unsure if it was his life mate Maria who passed. The evidence showed that she may have been ambushed by a large cat while walking on the ground near the woods and wetlands. She most certainly was alone when the incident occurred. A cat or dog would not have survived the wrath of roost members who witnessed her demise. I thought of her today when working on a sculpture. It is a bioluminescent under a globe atop of nest filled with the biodiversity of nature. Containing some of Oregon's most poisonous flora, such as Nightshade and Letharia Vulpina. It also contains some of Nature's beautiful wonders, such as gifts that Magellan has left me over the weeks in exchange for his meals. Spun within the nest are gift feathers, some brightly colored twigs and mosses he found, and portions of a wasps nest that he found interesting. All of these items spun together, the bright and dark, the beautiful and the deadly. The bioluminescence atop the nest is a testament to our divine or higher self which is a truth above the worldly cyclone of form, function, world, dirt earth, flesh, bone, pain, perception. It's that transition she made yesterday that had me transfixed. The warmth of her form in our hands seemed to be the energy of remembrance to sheer genius of her mechanics. The energy of flight. It was a profound thing to experience. The neighbor buried her in the woods near the wetlands as two roost members stationed in the trees witnessed her return to the earth. What an incredible phenomena. Nature.
