I had to share this today! One of my absolute favorite poems by Our Holy Father John of the Cross is:

“The little white dove
Has returned to the ark with the bough;
And now the turtle-dove
Its desired mate
On the green banks has found.

In solitude she lived,
And in solitude built her nest;
And in solitude, alone
Has the Beloved guided her,
In solitude also wounded with love.”

My all-time favorite bible verse is also Apocalypse 12; I’m drawn to “given the wings of the eagle where she will fly into the desert unto her place”. This sounds silly I know, but my favorite animals are cats (yes, I think cats are the best; mainly because I think I have the personality of a cat) and… eagles. Two unlikely favorites, but I relate to the bird analogy with Our Holy Father’s poem and then eagles symbolizing John the beloved, the book of the Apocalypse and the United States of America. When Afra sent the image of the bald eagle, now used for the logo for our podcast, JUST a few days later not one, but TWO bald eagles, have made what appears to be a permanent or temporary nesting ground directly to the right of our balcony. Yesterday I caught them on film.

When I first saw them, I did not know there were two. The female flew by, and I took out binoculars to make sure it was an eagle and directly above her branch I saw a larger silhouette and sure enough the male was so big you could see his white head without the binoculars. I waited and waited to see if I could catch them flying away, but I waited in vain. But here is where something incredible happened. I was finishing up our first podcast this morning and chose the picture with the bald eagle Afra drew and something was telling me, probably the Holy Ghost, I needed to go check the tree again. I got up instantly and when I reached the balcony, THEY WERE BOTH FLYING DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF OUR BALCONY AT LEAST FIVE FEET DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME. I immediately saw the white head and his mate flying close behind; it could not be mistaken with how close they were to me. If I would have waited a split second later, I would have missed them. I was late, but I caught them on camera flying away. One of the beautiful things about bald eagles is they keep the same mate for life and seeing these two “build their nest” was symbolic to say the least.

See video below: