Feathersight and Inspiration

FEATHER1One of my Beloved Sisters, a biologist, told me once that there are two kinds of people in this world: feather finders, and everyone else. She says feather finders cannot help themselves—they find feathers wherever they go.

I don’t know if there is some kind of field biology folklore around the subject, but I, for one, do seem to have this feathersight. When I moved from Idaho to Oregon 18 months ago, I threw out a large collection of feathers I’d found while living in that rugged state. It was a pretty impressive assemblage that included wing and tail feathers from great horned owls, red-tail hawks, and even a raven. It just didn’t seem right to hang onto them.

FEATHER5And yet this morning, as Rowan and I were out on our morning stroll, an idea started pecking at me for my next story. Just an image, really; for one scene. I started to get excited; the edges of the idea are peeling, and I can see glimpses of a greater story beneath that image. Story ideas come to me that way (sometimes). One image comes to me and excites me; pulling me into a bigger world. I’ve come to recognize the trigger now. It pushes all my other story ideas into the background. I must tell this story next (whatever my previous intentions might have been).

Anyway, as soon as the scene came to me, I found a feather. A long and lovely crow feather. Its an omen, I think. Follow the feather.

When I went to add it to the (new) collection, I was a bit taken aback that the new collection had already grown to fill a small vase.

I moved the vase into my writing room.

This entry was posted in 2014, extraordinary, family, fantasy, Feather, fiction, idea, ideas, images, in the beginning, inspiration, magic, omens, Sharon Joss, story, story ideas, story prompt, synchronicity, writer, writers write, writing and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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