"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