Carried By a Vulture's Wings

            The first turkey vulture sighting means spring is on its way, at least to me. Those silver-black wings bear a birth, a beginning. This isn’t a new idea. In ancient Egypt, the word “Mut” or “Mwt” was the name of the mother goddess—a protector, a nurturer—and also the word for vulture. Queens wore a headdress reminiscent of a vulture to symbolize their role as caring guides. The dead, souls freed at last from bodies, took the form of birds when leaving the world of the living. Often, this bird had a bald head, broad wings, and the ability to eat and digest almost anything. Often, this bird was a vulture.

            I wouldn’t mind that, I think, if my soul when I died could spread silver wings and fly. They’ve reached a state, those circling vultures, they’ve come to some understanding. Up there, they know there’s no reason to hurry. Up there, there’s peace in the sun. I would feel the wind in my feathers, if I could. Become part of the air, and fly.

            In the mountains of Tibet, the monks and villagers do not bury their dead. The earth is stone, and little wood grows with which to build a funeral pyre. The dead are carried up to someplace remote, between the earth and the sky, where vultures tip and soar on outspread wings. Vultures know these things. The sky fills. A blade is raised above the body. The ceremony is private, solemn, joyful. Someone opens the chest of the deceased. The vultures descend to take the offering. They leave no meat, only bone. In Tibet, too, vultures bear souls away, carry them into their next life. Sky burial, it is called. Because the ceremony is performed so high above the earth? Or because the physical flesh has literally been transformed, and given wings?

 A body is a gift from the earth, to the earth. A body must not be wasted.

            It is not true, what they say, that if you die in a dream, your living breath will stop. I dreamed death once. A river flowing upward, the water forgiving and warm. Death was beautiful, and death was the silver color of a vulture’s wings.

            I woke up smiling.