Pierced by a Scrutiny: Shamanic Journeys

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Pierced by a Scrutiny:

Shamanic Journeys

On the north slope of the forest in the rich wine-keg smell of woodland soil, we raked back oak and maple leaf mould and planted American ginseng.

At the foot of the slope, the trees thinned out into alders along the spring branch which skirted the near side of the mill pond meadow, a meadow which had once been water.

A meandering trout stream had been dammed long years ago to power a grist and saw mill on the property, forming the mill pond. Deep soil had gradually filled in behind the wooden dam, and the meadow was the richest land on the farm.

Looking down from the ginseng slope, sitting quiet, I’d watch wild turkey, deer and fox cross the meadow.

We fenced off the forest to keep out the sheep and cattle, the four-footed equivalents of Visigoths sacking Rome. They were “Feinschmecker” as the Germans would say, nosing out the most delectable herbage.

The fence protected the ginseng, and allowed the gradual return of native herbs and wildflowers, which farm animals would otherwise eat or trample into oblivion.


Galax grew on the forest floor, with shiny leathery leaves that stayed evergreen in the snow, deepening in hue to burgundy-green in the winter months. At Christmastime, I had gathered small bunches of the parasol-like leaves, and woven them into wreaths with red wild rose hips, musky-scented boxwood and cones of hemlock and alder.


Rhododendrons and dogwoods arched overhead in the understory of great trees as I now walked toward a favorite quiet place which lay in a hollow of boulders and lichens.

Squirrels had built a nest nearby in a lightning-scarred tree. A red-headed woodpecker had worked the decayed parts of the trunk, probing for insects, leaving parallel lines of holes encircling the tree.


I settled myself into a granite cleft, and listened—wind, murmurous, soon to be winter-strident; water flowing; creatures moving at stealth in the forest.

I dozed, seemingly, then startled into acuity to see an ancient face in a tree stump and hear a voice, as though a spring rose at my feet: “My heart soars like a hawk.”


At that instant great russety wings soared up through the trees. It was my first glimpse of the red-tailed hawk. In all my years at the farm, that hawk remained a presence, nesting and overwintering.


One winter’s night, years later, I lay awake white-eyed as wind hurled sleet against the north window and pummeled the tin roof. Tree branches crashed in the forest from the weight of the ice. The power was out; no lights, no moon.


I lit a bayberry candle and imagined creatures abroad in the storm—bedraggled birds with their wings indrawn, deer startled by the wild thrashing of the canopy.

In the wanton violence of the night, creatures of mythology seemed palpable: fierce heart-pounding banshees wailing, and titans striding the mountaintops.


Then I slept, hang-gliding through the storm and the cosmos, and woke to silence, and brilliant silvery light. The forest and all the world gleamed crystal. I bundled into layers and on the upper fretwork porch met my Norwegian elkhound, who sat on my foot.


My eyes ached at the loveliness. Pine trees on the hillside were bent with the weight of the ice. 

I heard myself beginning to babble mindlessly to my dog, to fend off the primeval and its monstrous beauties.

I felt suddenly pierced, pierced by a scrutiny.

On the tallest white pine, eyes glittering, the hawk watched. I froze into silence; sat there shattered, all my foolishness rubble at my feet. May I never be plumbed by such a force in human form.


The ice sheaths, loosened by sun melt, falling with the sound of bells. The hawk spread his vast wings, and vanished.

hawk detail