The Eagle Who Never Stops Flying

On Meditating With My Eyes Open

Our friends Mandy and Carlos arrive on a Friday afternoon with their two sons, and we all immediately hike down river to the swimming hole. I’m wearing 50+ broad spectrum SPF, a one-piece long-sleeved bathing suit from Left On Friday, Teva water sandals, and a NY Public Library baseball hat. This is my version of sexy sun protection. The boys are playing catch with a bright orange and blue football. We all wade in and swim to the middle of The Deep Hole: a confluence of two rivers.

I can’t help but notice what’s changed: The water is unusually warm for the Fourth of July. A large tree has fallen in and it’s partially submerged. The water is clear and reflects the blue sky and green forest. I float on my back. I look up and all around. I notice a white orb moving in an evergreen tree downstream.

I suspect what it is, and point it out to my friends. Carols and I swim towards what looks to be a giant nest. Are our eyes playing tricks on us? We walk across an island of rocks and shrubs. When we arrive on the other side of the island, we’re roughly fifty feet from the tree. There, four or five stories up, we see giant wings flapping, and birds hopping around in a huge nest. Sure enough: Bald Eagles. I assume the birds in the nest are juveniles, hopping around to prepare for flight.

Our friends Danielle and Adam and their two sons also arrive. It’s early evening. We head back to our house to prepare dinner. It’s a busy 4th of July weekend. The eagles feel far away. I look for the binoculars, but we must have taken them to Miami. The weekend meanders. Wimbledon is on. The kids play ultimate frisbee. After lunch on Saturday, the river is still warm and calm. It beckons. The boys go for a two-mile hike up river. It’s the first year we’ve let them go without adults. We know it’s never deeper than their waist in that direction, but still they have to look out for each other.

They’re gone all day. The World Cup is on. There’s lots of cooking to do. I keep meaning to return to the Deep Hole to check on the baby bald eagles, but hosting and then rain on Sunday detain me. On Monday morning, our friends have left and I’m dressed in yoga clothes. I walk through the yard, behind the barn, over a little ravine, and down to the Deep Hole. I find the nest, but there are no eagles jumping to be seen.

The boys run up behind me. They test the water. It’s cold from the rain, but the rapids look turbulent and alluring. The boys decide they want to go rafting. Ariel and Vaughn trek back to the house, find the inner tubes, and a few minutes later Niko and I hear them yelling out from the cold rapids behind our house. Niko elects to join them. They all head back to the house to try again. I sit, observing the trees, scanning the evergreen expanse for movement, looking for a white orb.

Niko puts on his wetsuit. Ariel finds his stand-up paddle board and a couple of small paddles for the boys. They all traverse down the rapids towards me and into the Deep Hole. Ariel calls out, “Let’s go!” and they take off down the next set of rapids, past the island and towards the eagle nest.

Ariel yells back to me, “Pick us up near Prattsville.”

I say, “When? Where? How?” My voice trails off and I know my husband can no longer hear me over the rushing water beneath him. The boys’ voices are amplified back up to me, but eventually their shouts fade as they flow further downstream.

I’m alone. It’s quiet. Immediately my brain enters a different mode. A familiar mode of concentration. I have a chair with me. I sit down and set up like a meditation. An eyes-open meditation. I find the eagle nest. It’s straight ahead, probably a hundred yards away.

The nest is my focal point. I allow my gaze to relax so I can see as much of the evergreen expanse as possible. There’s a wide and tall stretch of green variations made of American beech, sugar maple, eastern hemlock, white pine. I see mostly triangular shaped trees in rectangular rows. The sky is gray and misty like a fresh idea spilling over with potential and mystery.

For this open-eyed meditation, I’m advancing an impressionist’s gaze—a little more Seurat than Monet. It’s pointillism as meditation. There are varying shades of green, dark brown trunks, and black shadows. The wind and the mist blur the landscape as if the canvas is still wet and pliable.

I notice a small light spot in an otherwise dark tree. I let the aperture of my eyes adjust and zoom-in on what appears to be a white orb. The orb could be a patch of leaves, light shining through, or a head. Beneath the orb is a dark patch of leaves, or a shadow, or an eagle body.

I take out my camera and adjust the f’stop and exposure so my lens aligns with the light of day. I zoom in and in on my cynosure—zoom-in—and the impression of an eagle comes into focus. I’ve tracked a bald eagle. He’s perched to the east of his nest. I assume it’s a young eagle taking his first flight.

Carlos and I had seen this same bird jumping around in his nest on Friday, along with another larger bird. We assumed they were jumping around because they were preparing for their first flight. I assume this bald eagle I’ve just tracked is that same juvenile, and he’s made his first flight, which was more like a leap down into this tree. I assume he’s jumped out of the nest and now he’s trying to figure out how to fly back up. I’ve made up a whole story. I’m like a soccer mom, who doesn’t know much about soccer (or eagles), but she’s standing on the sidelines to cheer on the success of a young, wild creature.

Suddenly, a huge bird, not the one I’ve been watching, but a different eagle flies out from the forest—towards me—then u-turns up into the nest. I watch the bird flapping its wings as if celebrating, or perhaps saying to the one I’ve been watching,”Wings! Wings! Use your wings!”

In this scenario, I imagine the bird in the nest is a big sister or a mother. The one I’ve spotted in the tree remains perched. It’s been an hour since my family left. I should attempt to find them. How am I even going to find them? We’ve never really scoped out this route to see if there’s a good place to meet up and retrieve them from the water. My husband has been fantasizing about rafting this adventure for years. But the water hasn’t been high enough, and perhaps the kids weren’t old enough yet. But today, the conditions were inviting and the spirits were willing.

As I’m driving towards Prattsville, it occurs to me how dangerous their expedition is. We like to joke we’re river people, but really we’re city people. Perhaps we’ve become both. I wonder if there are any class five rapids on this river. Were they able to stay together? They didn’t even take life vests. This is ridiculous. Are they ok? The gorge is fifty feet deep. How am I going to rescue them?

I quickly interrupt my worries, and I decide they’re fine. I’m going to operate as if they’re fine, and I’ll track them down, and it will all come together. I often like to remind myself we’ve solved every problem we’ve ever encountered.

I drive slowly along the 55 miles-per-hour route that snakes around the Schoharie River. I pull off at an emergency parking lane, and I walk along the edge of the gorge to look for them.

I don’t see them.

I can’t tell how far this is from our house. Would they have made it this far yet or are they long gone?

I drive further northwest. I pass a bridge that traverses over the water.

I turn around, go back to the bridge, and park.

At the top of my view I see—and hear—a trio of floating objects coming around a bend upstream. They’re yelling. I wave from the bridge. They’re approaching some rapids. Vaughn is singing a made up song.

They’re gaining speed and moving closer to me.

Niko yells out, “Can we go?”

Ariel, on his stand-up paddle board, heads into the rapids first while the boys wait for the thumbs up. My husband grants the water permission to take him on its fastest path. He traverses through the rapids quickly, slows at the bottom, and paddles out of the current. He floats and maintains a position nearby to watch over our children’s unfolding independence. He waves to the boys, and one at a time they surrender to the current and find their path downstream.

The boys race through the rapids and towards me. I’m four or five stories above them on the bridge. They are beyond happy.

I point out a good place, a little further downstream, where they might be able to climb out. They maneuver to the bank, and they each take slightly different routes up the gorge to meet me.

Vaughn comes the way I point out, which turns out to be the steepest. He’s holding his inner tube. I’m able to grab the inflatable from him so he can make it up the steepest and slipperiest part. He grabs the guardrail and pretends to slip. I yell out. He’s still holding the rail and laughing. Niko and Ariel make it up a less steep and slippery way much more easily. They all thank me for bringing extra towels.

I’m eager to return to the Deep Hole to check on the eagles. It’s easy to go to the river on a misty day, take one look, say, How beautiful, stay for an extra breath, and return to the house. Any more time requires intention. It requires active patience, a focal point, a desire to see Bald Eagles.

I perch on my own two legs and watch. Same as before. I have the centerpiece of the nest, and I allow my depth perception to broadly spread. I spy on all planes of existence simultaneously: the vertical, the horizontal, the luminous, the undertones, the chromatics, the stillness, the sounds of river rush, song birds, crows, and the hush of wind in the trees.

I’m a motion detector.

He’s difficult to spot at first, but then his head turns and it looks like a giant bowl of ice cream. I see: the bald eagle where I left him. At this point, I still think he’s a juvenile gumptioning up the courage to leap home. I’m watching. I’m observing. I’m open. I’m hoping for a big reveal. For flight. For success. For my patience to be rewarded.

My body can no longer concentrate standing still. I bend my knees. I reach my arms in the air and open them wide. If I were in a yoga studio I’d look like I was doing utkatasana and garudasana. Out here, it looks like I’m conjuring the wind, the water, the powers of the eagle.

I drape my right leg over my left, and my left arm over my right. I find my balance. I imagine the eagle: poised. I think of the myth of Garuda; the golden eagle who never stops flying.

I switch my standing leg and the cross of my limbs. I watch the forest. Then it happens: A leap. A swoop. Swoop. Straight towards me. The Bald Eagle is coming straight towards me. Over the island, then a sharp u-turn downstream, and up into his nest.

Wings flap. Crows call out. The water flows from the West Kill River into the Schoharie River in a current of interlocking infinity loops. The birds settle down. The mist thickens. The scene resumes a flowing homeostasis.

I wonder how long I should stay at the Deep Hole. My attention is waning. It’s hard to stay, but it’s also difficult to leave. To go I must convince myself to stop wondering, What next?

I return home and do a little research. My assumption was wrong. All juvenile bald eagles have mottled-brown head feathers. It isn’t until they’re three that their heads are more white than brown, and not until they’re fully grown after five years that they have the signature bright white orbs.

A main difference between male and female eagles is that the males are smaller. I had assumed the bird I spotted with the white head, the one in the tree, was the youngest. The one who needed cheering on. But it is more likely he’s the dad.

The dad who takes on the vigilant role of protecting the eaglets. Who flies ahead to scout the area, to show his young how it’s done, and who then stands guard to fend off crows and ravens while the juveniles take those first leaps into independence.

Independence: freedom from control, influence, support, aid, or the like. Independence: competency.
Independence: self-rule, self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy.

Independence = in+de+pendere+ence

in - ‘not’

de - ‘down from’

pendere - ‘to hang’

Independence = the state of not hanging down from

The word independence is quite young as far as words go. A little eaglet of a word. Independence is spreading its wings and making its way. Independence entered English from French as the idea to be free from authority and control.

It’s hard to let go of control. It’s hard to trust a younger generation. Especially if they seem to be scouting out different routes to take than the one we, with our experience and maturity, would advise. But at a certain point, their survival depends on us standing back, fending off crows, and trusting them to make their own way. Eventually, it means no longer standing guard. Maybe the next generation learns how to make friends with the crows. Who knows.

It’s Tuesday morning. I’m in my bedroom doing yoga. The windows are open. I’m in malasana, a squatting position. I see two huge eagles circling in the sky above our house. Circling each other. Circling me. Circling the mountain, the river, the sky.

It’s Tuesday night, I’m in bed. I’m reading Zadie Smith’s book of essays, Dead and Alive, published in 2025. I consider how much the world has changed in the last year. The trajectory of freedom. The amount of control. I wonder where the center is now. What’s changed about the confluence? I wonder where the rapids are taking us. I quickly interrupt my worries; I decide everything will be fine, and that my job is to meditate with my eyes open, and to teach my children how to use their moral compass, to love their planet, and to trust themselves.