Ritual 𓅂 Bald Eagle Baby Watch 𓅂

location: pyscho morph central mall aka Big Bear Valley

Last night I had an epiphany about this eagle obsession and am feeling loved about it. 

On the first day I saw the Bald Eagle Nest Cam I think Pandit Ravi Shankar was playing.

You can imagine this or experience this for yourself - you are listening to the sitar and looking at the nest of two precious eagles.

These are life’s simple pleasures: a heavenly view of birds of prey and the lush background drone of a sitar.

For the past month I have been ritually watching the Big Bear Valley Eagle Cam each day as I type away at my computer. Most mornings I can catch the sunrise. Usually, Jackie is sleeping in the nest, and Shadow is sleeping on a branch below her.

It’s Jackie!

Around 9AM Shadow usually shows up for his shift.

Isn’t it romantic?

I find the whole thing so precious. I find myself watching Eagle Cam Highlights (such as "Shadow brought a blanket for the eggs") rather than old tv shows when I can’t fall asleep at night. This decision to swap television for wildlife cams feels important. Sometimes there are silly moments, and sometimes they have to work together to keep intruders out of the nest. Rumor has it Jackie once spent 62 straight hours protecting her eggs.

what sweet devotion

I thought this place of eagle watching was a random pleasure to ground into, but last night I had an epiphany about this obsession. It’s not random. I remembered an encounter with an Oracle several months ago.

The Oracle’s Parrot

A few months ago I was invited to a party at a friend’s family home. We were getting together to eat pizza and drink wine at her mom’s place in the woods. I can barely remember what season this was, but it was warm enough to sit on the deck in the evening and feel great. There may have been a blueberry buckle and vanilla ice cream. I think a few people went swimming.

There was a woman there who was close to my friend’s late grandmother. She is known for having prophetic dreams and is clearly an Oracle, by many accounts. That particular evening she was talking to me about her beloved cockatoo, who she had recently discovered (after more than a decade) was not actually a male.

How did you find out? I asked.

She laid an egg. She said. But the egg got stuck - I had to bring her to the vet. 

I learned it was unusual for a parrot to be as old as she was when she laid her first egg. It surprised the vet too. It was going to be an expensive surgery and the bird wasn’t likely to survive. The Oracle brought home her parrot and the trapped egg, uncertain what to do next.

That evening the Oracle dreamed of her darling parrot. She saw the egg, gently provoked, ease itself into the mortal world.

The Oracle then told me how she cried and cried and cried to her husband to help her pay for the surgery. She is going to make it, She told him. I just know it.

The vet was skeptical when she returned, but the Oracle assured her the bird would live.

Everything is going to be all right. My bird will make it. 

Hours later the Oracle received a call from her vet. I’m so sorry she said

I’m so sorry I doubted you. The egg came right out.

Of course, the Oracle knew this would happen.

That same evening I would return home and pull a tarot card. At that particular time pulling a card meant flipping to a random page in Jodorowsky’s The Way of the Tarot and trying to glean some kind of lesson for myself. That night the book plopped open to page 145: The Emperor. 

Seeing this after hearing from the Oracle, I lost my mind.

In Jodorowsky’s description:

The restoration of the Tarot has made possible the rediscovery that the Emporer’s eagle is sitting over an egg. This detail, which has been erased for centuries, is of fundamental importance to understanding Arcanum IIII. Just as the feminine Empress has a male core, the Emperor is accompanied by the receptive eagle, in full incubation. Is he absorbing her power, or is supporting himself on her?

A message was returning to me.

Since the death of my grandfather back in 2022, I have been regularly drawing Arcanum IIII: The Emperor.

Moments before my grandmother got the call that my grandfather had died, she awoke with a start. She turned to see the clock to see it read 4:44 AM. The phone rings. She knows.

My grandfather, the emperor, has died. 

Time warps.

I try to describe everything a four could mean and I just hold myself and weep. One, two, three, four. Four mountains surround an alpine lake, supporting that which mirrors the sky. Like an inverted table standing up from the heavens.

I miss you and yet I can remember.

I begin to grieve, I hold my arms close to my chest, cradling my heart like a little glass lake. A glass egg. Four points surround my heart when I hold myself like this. Protector. Protect me.

After a month of watching these eagles, I start to notice that “pip watch” is about to start. This means the day when the eggs will start to hatch is coming - February 29th. Tomorrow. I started to imagine a fun way to announce pip watch to the Mall of Love The Mall of Love supports free advertising for Eagles Nests. Obsession gives momentum and I love them eagles. I thought about writing a love poem. O devotion o love o sunlight on the lovers’ tower. I thought with a lot of urgency because the anticipation of the eggs hatching is cute and fun. Then I was eating noodles and realized I had seen these eagles before - on the emperor’s throne, sitting on an egg here.

Is he absorbing her power, or is supporting himself on her?

What perfect archetypes - two beautiful animals, terrifying in size and strength, working strategically to protect their nest. Mission-driven. Focussed. Jackie is three feet tall with an eight-foot wing span - Shadow is slightly smaller. Terrifying. Broad. Imagine them flying - it must feel amazing to sail along.

Another line I love from The Way of the Tarot:

Emotional storms will not distract you from your work; pain and illness will not prevent you from feeling your power, nothing will be able to break your concentration.

What perfect emperors they are. What teachers!

Pip watch starts February 9th- you can keep watch here.

In the meantime, I will leave you with more Jodorowsky yum for you.

You can imagine this is written by an eagle, which it more likely was:

Neither your intellectual reservations, nor your timidity, nor your identification with the victim role, nor past sufferings, nor the pro self-image you have will prevent you from finding me, your Emperor. If a toxic equation or a system of destructive values have imprinted false laws inside you, sweep them away! Establish your rules, your work system, your actions, out of the laws I reveal to you. I am there, I appear, and behind me there is an entire army - the sun, the stars, the galaxies. I protect you and urge you to exhort your strength. 

I am your inner warrior, the one who sees your weakness and does not weaken.

I see you, Pop Pop. Big love.

Xxxxx

Bixa