Vulture Magic

This week, when working with one of my clients, Vulture came forward to help with the healing work we were doing.  Vulture had also come to me many times in my own healing and was physically waiting for me with his wings spread wide open to the morning sun when I was exploring a sacred Mayan site a while back.

Vulture is associated with purification and rebirth and is the animal spirit of the CIB trecena in the Mayan calendar.  Since it was the last day of the CIB trecena, I got into my car and went to the zoo to spend some time with Vulture.

The zoo has a Condor, which is a member of the Vulture family.  He was tucked away in a large enclosed aviary by himself. As I walked up to his enclosure, he was standing with his back to me and his wings outstretched – an impressive sight, when you consider that the Condor’s wingspan is between 9 and 12 feet!  He turned his head, and his red eyes looked directly at me, before he went back to sunning himself.

I maneuvered around the enclosure until I was able to look at him from his side.  I watched him for over half an hour, marveling at his size and presence.  He became more and more beautiful the longer I spent time watching him.

He watched me as well, his eyes rarely leaving mine.  I knew we had made a connection when he opened his beak, looked directly at me, and making a hissing noise, “talked” to me. (Vultures do not have the ability to sing, they only hiss.)

I spoke softly to him, telling him that I was grateful for his healing help – both for me and for my client.  I thanked him for the work that he did on a spiritual and physical level. I verbally admired his strength, beauty and sheer size and sent love out to him.  He watched me intently while I spoke.

I looked at his feathers, and, without thinking, said outloud that I wished I could have one of his feathers. As soon as I spoke the words, Condor twisted his head around to his wing feathers, and with his beak pulled one out and placed it at his feet, before looking at me again. The message was clear – the feather was for me.  (If you look closely at the picture you can see the feather in front of his feet.)

While I couldn’t retrieve the physical feather in his enclosure, I knew that I could tap into the energy of that feather any time for my healing work. My heart was filled with gratitude and I thanked Condor for his gift.

It was a magical experience.