LOVE FEATHER
By Char Easter
Today I woke up and the first thing I noticed was the feather above my bed, the one from a few years ago that Dax had stuck in the corner of the picture frame. According to some, all eagle feather acquisitions have a story. Mine goes like this.
I found the feather on the beach at the dam boat launch. Dax was visiting from out of town and asked to visit my parents’ tree farm in southwest Washington. It’s a three-hour drive south from Seattle and located in the most beautiful country in the world. That’s what I concluded after a year traveling in Europe. After turning east off I-5, you drive through rolling green fields, framed by the steep cut of the Lewis River Gorge and some of the best timber growing land in the world. I know it well from my teenage years, a time when I wanted to be normal and suburban. But there I was, in the thick of rural and hick, where the weather is as dreary as the economic climate. My parent’s place sits below majestic Mount St. Helens and 2,000 feet above where the gorge opens into Lake Merwin. The road past my parents’ turn off continues to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, to what used to seem the end of civilization.
We decided to take a day trip to a small town to give Dax a grand tour. Dad drove us in his Buick LeSabre. Puma is a typical backwoods roadside stop on the way to the deeper woods. The only place to eat is at a log cabin tavern reminiscent of a David Lynch Twin Peaks set not cleaned up for TV. The place is dense and dark except for a red-and-white gingham curtain hiding the kitchen entry. It smells of dirt under the fingernails and grease from the hash browns and steak and eggs on the grill. A moose antler hangs over the entrance setting up the hunting and logging theme throughout that is not meant to be chic; it’s the lifestyle. My stand-up comic friend’s bumper sticker may have fit among the hick-themed tchotchkes: “HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS. Text if you want to meet him,” except there is no cell reception. Some logger or biker or out-of-work guys are drinking beers at the bar. The waitress is a tough chick who lives below reproach in this community of folks who chose to live off the grid, or maybe at some point they just let the paddles go to stay adrift and far removed from the riptides of the city.
After Puma, we stopped at the dam recreation area. I didn’t know until that day that my father and his brother, Uncle Bob, had built the road that goes into the park. And my dangerous days in high school had never taken me this far from home. The park mostly serves as a boat launch, but it was off-season and very quiet on the water. Dax and I were walking along the thin stretch of rocky beach separating the deep lake and forest when I noticed a feather on the ground. As I picked it up, I noticed another and then another until I grasped the scope of feathers strewn before me. Perhaps it was the result of an aerial combat, or a large bird was shot from the sky. “These are eagle feathers,” I said to Dax as I gathered them up, but he disagreed. “Seagulls,” he suggested. Dax is a biologist, but I believed they were eagle feathers. And my uncle could verify.
Uncle Bob operates from a mystical force. You can see this by the twinkle in his blue eyes that is alchemized from mischievous and defiant sources. But his earthly orientation is less lofty, more tunnel person. As you go up his driveway, the terrain becomes increasingly cluttered with rusty artifacts from every genre of manufacturing and life at large: retired backhoes, graders, tires, automotive parts, bird feeders, chocker setting chains, possibly more than one travel trailer, a mobile home, and junk cars all blend in under the organic cloaking devices of moss, dirt, and vegetation. There is so much stuff, the eye can only register a tip of the inventory. But if you keep your gaze steady, items reveal themselves in hidden layers.
And there, at the end of the drive, sits a mammoth log cabin. The super-sized pioneer home was hand-built by Uncle Bob and his wife Molly, at least built to the slightly before finishing stage. Although there is evidence of Home Depot contributions, the rustic, makeshift factor is ramped way, way up. “This is the only door in the house,” Molly offers in her up-tempo voice while demonstrating the lone door in action. Most of the rooms are not lived in; their doorways are covered with blankets and curtains to keep the heat in the main living area. A rock fireplace, on the same massive scale as the cabin it is tasked to heat, extends to the ceiling. An old couch and easy chair strategically face the fire for warmth and the TV for entertainment. All life revolves around the fireplace. This is the heart of the house.
Uncle Bob brought out three bottles of champagne that my sister had mailed him last Christmas when she signed up for the Korbel club. “I like to let the cork fly where it will,” my uncle added to the discussion on the best way to open champagne. That sums up my uncle. He dips into superhuman pathways that we, with our smartphones, can’t see, but that the Native Americans lived by. He knows me in a way that I will spend thousands of dollars and a lifetime trying to discover.
When I asked him about the feather, he had the same mystic twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, yes. These are definitely eagle feathers,” he confirmed. His theory was that the eagles dropped their feathers while making love on the wing. Many of Uncle Bob’s sacred observations lead to sex in one way or another. “See those pink specks?” he asked pointing to a feather, “That’s eagle love juice.” He gave me the feather and said, smiling a little too broadly, “Keep it. It will be good luck; if you know what I mean.” Even if he wasn’t my uncle, the “romantic” reference seemed inappropriate. I’m looking for a wholesome, sustainable romance, not a smutty sexual escapade. I smiled and took the feather. When we got back to Seattle, Dax stuck the feather in the picture frame above my bed. And there it remained.
Today I woke up alone as usual and wondered why the holy, love-blessed eagle feather was not remedying my single status. I considered that the charm was too strong or blatant and possibly producing an inverse effect. To quantify that hypothesis, I tried to recall the romances I have had since the date I obtained the feather. But what does it matter? A little love feather was not going to make or break my fate when it comes to finding a life partner. I liked the feather. My uncle liked it. Then I forgot about it until later that day.
When I got home from an errand, a plumber was in my bathroom. I’d never seen him around the building. He was probably not a real plumber, but one of the Mexican handymen my landlords hire to save money. With barely an accent he asked me about the leaking pipes to confirm his theory on the problem. How would I know? I wanted to say but didn’t to be polite. Instead, we stared together at the gaping hole in my bathroom ceiling, and I said his theory sounded good. Before he set to work, he mentioned the feather. He seemed very impressed that I had one. I felt like an insider, connected to his culture by this little feather bridge. He said that having an animal cleanses the air of humans’ negative thoughts. Animals absorb the bad vibes like trees absorbing CO2. This also pertained to feathers.
His name is Diego and he’s from a tribe in Mexico. His people united their tribes in a courageous showdown to defeat the Spaniards. He pronounced the word “Mexico” in a strange accent, explaining passionately that it was the true name. He told me his sacred, surreal stories while standing on the ladder in my bathroom. The stories were woven with numerology, astrology, science, animal lore, and family history. His grandfather taught him a lesson by cupping his hands together and asking the young Diego to describe what he saw. Diego saw nothing. So his grandfather smacked him on the back of the head. This confused him. He tried again, but his grandfather’s hands were still empty. Then he saw a shadow. The lesson was that we are people of light who can create dark.
I took off my glasses while I listened to this holy handyman in overalls with a black, braided ponytail. I tried to sense him on other levels than my eyes. I thought I could see a light glow on the right side of his head. Maybe I am seeing his aura, I thought. I felt I was in the presence of a mystical guide. Was it just a coincidence that I thought about the feather this morning of all mornings?
Diego lives a double life: one in the real world as an underpaid laborer for my white landlords, and another as keeper of his rich family heritage. I think he is a shaman. I know a gay marketing executive in the building who was training to be a shaman. But Diego isn’t getting a shaman certificate from the university extension program. He won’t be leading trendy ceremonies for people like me. He’s a handyman who is more tuned into the spirit world than the local chapter for plumbers.
He fumbled with his iPhone as he talked. I was cool with device distraction. Maybe he was answering a text about another job. Then, holding up the phone, he summoned a photo of an eagle headdress that his father had made. “There are different types of feathers. That is a tail feather,” he explained. The feather was a large, flashy centerpiece flanked by gray-brown supporting-actor feathers, like mine. The headdress sat atop a skull. He and his brothers were featured wearing traditional garb, like Native Americans, adorned with beads and sacred talismans. One of them was bare-chested under the leather and stone accessories. He said that was his older brother.
Diego told me the eagle is significant because the spirit and soul split when we die. “Did you know that?” he asked. “An eagle is white and black, signifying the two parts.” He explained that there are thirteen steps to the above and nine steps to the underground. But the above is not better than the underground. It’s just different. Oh no, I thought. This is where it gets dicey, if not iffy, for the newly dead moving to the next realm. As I was taught, one rises to the divine realm if all goes well in the transition. If not, you either descend to hell or get stuck between haunting people due to an event you can’t let go of or a missed opportunity that stills haunts you. People go to counselors, lawyers, and self-help sessions to try and get over these things. What are the chances it’s not resolved when you die and you have to stay and haunt around till eternity? I guess that is why Catholics have the opportunity to surrender to God in their dying breath. They also nixed Purgatory.
I hoped Diego was going to say the eagle feather helps one fly safely to the next non-preferential realm, but he didn’t give more detail, except to add that the nine steps down weren’t necessarily bad. He explained that the number thirteen is from the thirteen anatomical sections in our arm and shoulders. Then he did some numerology math wizardry to derive the number 52, and then 104, a number coinciding with the solar system—or was it 108? I grabbed a notebook and asked, “What about the nine steps that go to the underworld?” He interrupted, “Not underworld. Call it underground.” He stopped talking and turned for the first time to work. I asked about the thirteen joints, but he didn’t answer. I thought maybe he didn’t hear me, so I repeated. He stopped and explained sternly, “What I say to you is my gift for the moment. It is not meant to be written down. Just take it in.”
