Ravens, Eagles, and the Long Way Home

There are moments when the land speaks clearly—not loudly, not theatrically, but with a precision that leaves very little room for doubt.

Yesterday was one of those days. Dakota and I caught the Noon ferry out of Edmonds and proceeded to make our way to Highway 101, for what started out as a quest for views, turned out to be something quite different. 

It started at Crescent Lake, where the smell of evergreens permeated the air and the water so clear it felt less like looking at something and more like looking through it. No wind. No surface agitation. The kind of clarity that doesn’t perform—it just exists. Crescent water doesn’t rush. It holds. It reflects exactly what’s there and refuses to embellish. And silence. The sort of silence that creeps up on you and steals your breath. 

That was when the ravens appeared.

Two of them. Identical. Silent. Close enough to register as intentional rather than incidental. Ravens don’t need to announce themselves to be felt. Their presence changes the temperature of a moment. They don’t circle for attention. They observe, and they wait to see whether you’re paying attention back.

I was breathless. These were RAVENS not crows. And identical ones. Thought, and Memory. IYKYK. I stood there watching them a mere foot from me in awe that they were that curious of us. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I realized I’d done something odd.

I had saved the top of my orange cranberry muffin.

Anyone who knows me knows this is not my normal operating procedure. I inhale those things the way my cats go after Churu—no hesitation, no restraint, no survivors. And yet there it was, sitting untouched, as if some part of me knew the moment wasn’t finished yet.

So I broke it in half and tossed a bit to them. I took a bite myself. When you're communing with the AllFather, you do it right. 

The ravens came closer. Not aggressively. Not nervously. With interest. With confidence. I shared the muffin with them, and they accepted it without drama—clearly pleased, clearly unimpressed by ceremony, clearly satisfied with the exchange.

And it was in that moment—quiet, ordinary, unperformed—that something settled.

The presence I felt wasn’t abstract. It wasn’t symbolic in the vague sense. It was specific. Familiar. Old. A recognition that carried peace instead of demand. Clarity instead of pressure. And something I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying the weight of until it was gone.

Forgiveness.

Not asked for.
Not bargained for.
Not spoken aloud.

Simply given.

There was no sense of judgment lifted because there had been no judgment standing. Just the understanding that the work, the choices, the endurance, and the long loyalty had been seen. That what needed to be released had been released.

Later, a random cloud puffed across the blue clear sky, and for a moment the shape of a salmon emerged—clear enough to be unmistakable. Not decorative. Not symbolic in the abstract. A salmon shaped by this place, by these waters. A reminder of return, of effort, of work that moves upstream not for glory, but because it has to.

Salmon don’t ask whether the journey is hard. They simply do it.

By the time the day bent toward evening, I found myself on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. The sunset didn’t perform either—it deepened. The light thinned, stretched, softened, outlining a lighthouse on a rock in the distance. And near the beach below, an eagle moved near its nest, present without spectacle. Eagles don’t demand reverence. They accept it quietly when it’s due.

There was something profoundly settling about that moment. Not euphoric. Not emotional in the dramatic sense. Just right.

As if the day had resolved itself properly.

We motored our way from the scenic bluffs of Highway 101 that overlook the ocean, through Quinault territory and Hoh territory before we found ourselves in Aberdeen for dinner.  

The 2 and a half hour drive home from Aberdeen felt lighter. That’s the only word for it. Not shorter. Not faster. Just lighter. The kind of lightness that comes when something inside you stops arguing with what you already know.

No grand conclusions were drawn.
No declarations were made.
No promises extracted.

Just a sense of alignment—the quiet kind that doesn’t ask to be shared, but feels honest when it is.

Some days aren’t about revelation.
They’re about confirmation.

And sometimes the land doesn’t ask you to decide anything at all.
It simply lets you feel the weight lift, so you know you’re still exactly where you’re meant to be.