About two weeks ago, I was working on two poems - poems I had originally put on Twitter - wanting to combine them into one. One of the poems came about due to a plate I have hanging in my kitchen of a lynx in snow with a rabbit beneath its paw, a plate my mother once had hanging in her kitchen. It was a gift from her sister, who had traveled to Norway. I was thinking about finding an image to illustrate the poem on my poetry blog and thought how nice it would be to have my own photo to use. I had never seen a lynx but had occasionally heard them in the woods near our farm when I was a very young girl, a bone chilling cry as though the cry of a baby lost in the woods. I thought even seeing and being able to photograph footprints would be nice although from where I was sitting it didn't seem possible. I let it go.
A couple of hours later, I just got up from the computer and walked over to the window that looks out over my back yard. Right at that moment, a lynx came from the old chicken coop/garden shed and moved across the open space into the pine trees at the meadow's edge. I could hardly believe my eyes. I watched, hoping it would come out of the trees so I could see it again and make certain it was, indeed, a lynx, rather than a bobcat. I knew it wasn't a cougar, as it was definitely spotted with a shorter tail. Just as I wished for this, I saw it come from the edge of the trees, walking towards my woodshed. By this time, I had fetched my father's field glasses and got a closer look. It definitely had the longer legs and tufted ears of a lynx. It disappeared into the darkness of my woodshed, probably looking for a meal of mice among the wood. I watched it lie just inside the shed, behind the snowbank in front of the doorway. I went online and did some research on them, and felt relieved that it was very unlikely to bother Buddy, who was tethered at the front of the house, although I did keep a very good eye on Buddy while he was out there. I went back to watching it for a while, but don't know when it left; eventually, I had to get on with my day.
I might have thought I was seeing things, except I just happened to look out the next day and there it was again, leaving the area by the woodshed and moving back across the open space to the coop/garden shed. I grabbed my camera and got two very poor images, my own personal evidence that I hadn't lost my mind. I wondered if she might stick around, maybe even give birth in the shed among the straw bales. I sure hope so. I decided to not let my curiosity get the best of me, but to stay away and let her have her space.
The significance for me has not been lost. I'm not certain how the world works, what the true nature of reality is, but I do wonder ... was it my own manifestation, was I seeing what I needed to see? Did I create it in that moment, as I suspect we do with all our moments? Was it a message from my mother, or perhaps even my great grandmother, who has brought me messages in visions/dreams before? I do know something quite wonderful happened and I don't need to have answers so much as I need and want to be grateful. It has been the springboard for healing, both emotional and physical. The strength and grace with which the lynx moved gave me the insight I needed to walk in this world with the same sense of strength and grace. It showed me what I needed to see and it provided me with a deep sense of caring and love that the world itself brings to us when we simply ask.
Here is the micropoem which brought me to this wonderful experience:
http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2014/03/along-river.html
The photograph of the chicken coop is mine.
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