Page 135 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

After finishing graduate school, I built a small cabin on the patch of woods, field and stream that I

‘owned’ and in December, the day after I moved in, two male cardinals and a female emerged from

under the two pines whose boughs created a sheltered spot just outside my door. Crimson drops once

again bled into white snow. Each evening at dusk, I involuntarily held my breath as I waited for the

birds to appear.

That spring, the second male disappeared, but the couple raised two chicks here, choosing a densely

branched balsam tree down by the brook for their nesting place. At dusk, I sat on the porch, waiting

for them to come to feed. The adults always announced their presence with staccato-­‐like clicks. I loved

watching the two young mottled nestlings eagerly taking seed out of their parents’ broad beaks,

impatiently flapping their wings as they hopped about under the safety of the pine boughs. The

parents and I communicated wordlessly; they watched me as intently as I watched them, and I sensed

the deep bond growing between us.

During the next few years, the cardinals’ presence helped me deal with the depression that had

gradually become chronic. Each time I heard one whistle or witnessed the parents raising another

brood, I was catapulted into the present moment. I relaxed my vigil around these birds. By this time,

my involvement with birds and animals had more depth and was more intimate than any relationship I

had experienced with humans, with the exception of my children and grandchildren. I also felt brief

moments of what it would be like to experience hope as a possible way of being in the present,

acknowledging sorrow but not drowning in it-­‐-­‐living each day in gratitude and simplicity.

During a walk one lush blue and gold summer afternoon, I saw a fledgling male cardinal sitting on the

lowest branch of a crabapple tree. One wing hung down uselessly. My beautiful coon cat Zoe was

poised to strike again. I screamed in horror, scaring the two adult cardinals out of the nearby pines

where they had been helplessly watching the scene unfold.

Leaping towards the crabapple, I swept the chick into my hands and began to weep, screaming at the

cat between sobs. Both parents, having flown into the upper branches of the crabapple, kept a sharp

eye on me. I got the cat inside and sat down on the steps to assess the damage to the chick. There was

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