What is it you were looking at Seth, my darling brother, when I took this picture of you all those years ago? Were you looking up at the quiet stars where you first came from, and to where you have now returned? Or were you catching a glimpse of this time in our far distant future when you would be called to rise up out of your earthly body, and I, and all those who love you, would be asked to let you go?
And why did those five eagles fly over your house the day after you were taken? Did you send them to us so we would know you were safe, so we could trust you were being carried up on gentle wings to the place of infinite peace? Was it your soul rising up as that one eagle circled down low? Was it your spirit that sent me that sacred feather in the high desert fourteen days before you passed over, as some kind of unbreakable bridge from earth to sky to connect us forever across the deep divide?
I can only dream of the answers. But what I do know is that now you have been released from your body, time and space will never separate us again. It was your spirit I felt guiding me in the constellation of polar stars that led me North last week though the wildfire smoke and the tears that would not stop flowing. It was you standing there at the still lake with me that first night back on the road again after I knew to make my way to water. And it is your eyes, that are my eyes, that are our fathers eyes, that have been looking down at me each morning as I wake up to this letting go.
And now here is Mother Moon again dancing in her full glory in the turning skies, as The Full Corn Moon, The Moon When the Deer Paw the Earth, The Moon When the Plums Are Scarlet. She has so many stories to tell us of your courage and charisma, your stubbornness and sweetness, your beauty and your brilliance. And she was there also, just a shy sliver of a girl, two nights before you passed, when I was sharing proud stories of you to friends in the desert. So while I will never again see the soft skin around your eyes crinkle up with laughter, I will look for your smile instead in her silver light above me, and in all her shimmering reflections below.
I will miss you so much Seth. And yet I know that your death is really a birth into ultimate freedom, to the endless horizon, to the place where the stars shine, the eagles fly, and the moon keeps unfolding her wide arms to receive us. I will remember you each time I look up at those faraway skies. And I will feel you with me each time I hold that sacred eagle feather you asked Spirit to send me, against my broken heart. Until one day dear brother when it is my time to find ultimate freedom, and I bring that feather back to you.
~
In Loving Memory of my Beloved Brother
SETH FELLNER
21st April 1971 ~ 28th August 2017
carried on the wings of an eagle