The Hawk of Gold

After "the last two weeks'" posts about hawks, reading poems about hawks and different beliefs and representations of hawks in nature and in ancient cultures, especially studies in the ancient Egyptian culture, along with the poem by Aleister Crowley who saw the hawk-god Horus as one of the foundations of his religious theory, I had to wonder about a visit that turned "a golden hawk against the turquoise heavens" from lore to legend yesterday just outside my door.

Previously, when I was taking a semester course about Edgar Allen Poe I kept having a large black raven that came and roosted on the street lamp post that stands next to where I park my car in front of my apartment. He would especially like it when my phone would go off while I was checking my oil and it would play "Electric Feel" by MGMT. He would flap his wings and make a lot of caw-ing sounds. He even tapped on my window one morning which woke me when I overslept and I would have missed class.

I wanted to feed him, but when I checked on the habits of crows and ravens, I found out from Wild Birds Unlimited in OKC that if you make the mistake of feeding a crow, they will return with lots of their friends and can become pests and even destructive if you don't supply them all with food! So I thought I'd let nature take care of itself and enjoy the visits while they lasted.

However, yesterday was the first time I have had a golden hawk appear roosting at the top of the same light post. He watched with huge golden eyes, looking down on us as we passed him, and only when I got excited about the unusual occurrence and squealed in excitement that a hawk would appear so close to my house inside the area where I live did he decide to take flight back to the tree tops.

In the years I have lived in Edmond, it is the first time I have seen a large hawk, the type that is usually only seen in rural areas and not the small urban dwelling gray Georgian hawks. I was amazed when our eyes met!

I don't believe that things happen by coincidence, which made me think, "Are we being watched?!" Maybe only the hawk-god Horus or Mr. Crowley knows for sure! But look at those amber-colored eyes!!

The Hawk and Mr. Crowley

"Hawk Roosting" by Ted Hughes is a contrast in modern style when compared to the poem by Aleister Crowley, "The Hawk and the Babe." Hughes' poem is more direct, like the flight of the hawk, and shows a more modern approach to the subject of his poem and it's reference to humanity.

Although the poem by Crowley depicts the imagery and nature of the hawk, the language is more ornate and ornamental, of an older, romantic style. His language identifies him with the gold and turquoise of Heaven as seen in his studies of ancient Egyptian religion. Welcome to the magical world of Aleister Crowley.


The Hawk and the Babe by Aleister Crowley
[Dedicated to Raymond Radclyffe]

I am that hawk of gold
Proud in adamantine poise
On the pillars of torqoise,
See,beyond the starry fold,
Where a darkling orb is rolled.

There, beneath a grove of yew,
Plays a babe. Should I despise
Such a foam of gold, and eyes
Burning beryline, so blue
That the sun seems peeping through?

Did I swwop, were Heaven amazed?
With my beak I strike but once;
Out there leap a million suns.
Through the universe that blazed
Screams theit light, and death is dazed.

In my womb the babe may leap;
Seek him not within my eye!
Nor demand thou of me why
I should plunge from crystal steep
Like a plummet to the deep!

See yon solitary star!
What a world of blackness wraps
Round it! Unimagined gaps!
Let it be! Content thy car
With the voyage to things that are!

Nor, an thou perchance behold
How I plunge and batten on
Earth's exentrate carrion,
Deem torquoise match midden-mould
Or deny the Hawk of Gold!

"Hawk Roosting"

In the Native American tradition it is recognized that the eagle and the hawk function in a somewhat different way. The eagle uses his ability to see the whole picture or general area, then movement, then he finds his specific prey. The hawk is more specific, sees his prey and goes directly for it. The difference in seeing the whole picture compared to the more specific approach is demonstrated well in the following poem by Ted Hughes. The poem uses the personification of a hawk to consider in human terms what can become a predatory nature when a view is adopted that separates one from cooperative evolvingness or community, in shamanistic terms, one who becomes separate from their community can become inadvertently or purposefully harmful:

"Hawk Roosting Analysis" by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsyfing dream

Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.The convenience of the high trees!



The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray

Are of advantage to me;

And the earth's face upward for my inspection.My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

Now I hold Creation in my footOr fly up, and revolve it all slowly-

I kill where I please because it is all mine.

There is no sophistry in my body:

My manners are tearing off heads-The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct

Through the bones of the living.

No arguments assert my right:The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.

My eye has permitted no change.

I am going to keep things like this.

The Ancient Egyptians used the symbolic form of the hawk as the most powerful representation of the sun god Ra, also known as Ra-Horakhty, Ra - Lord of the Horizons. The hawk form of this deity represents ruler of the sun, sky and horizons which are symbolic of death and rebirth. Ra is considered to die in the west every evening, travel through the underworld in the belly of the sky goddess, Nut, and be re-born every morning, younger than the day before. He represents renewal and many other realms, such as Ruler over all the other gods and keeping them in line, ruler over the Pharaohs, over property, and much more. The pharaoh was also associated with this deity, as his representative, and he held the kingdom in his grip, much like the hawk in Hughes' poem as he held the bark in his grip or rotated the whole creation in his foot as ruler over all.

Ra-Horakhty


My eye: as the Eye of Horus/Eye of Ra