Spirit Animal

When I was nine or ten I had a small smooth amber colored stone that was purchased at a quarry gift shop. We had gone on a school trip to the quarry, the dandelion yellow bus traveling the back roads to South Paris, Maine. New views outside of the familiar rectangle windows. On big bumps some of the windows would fall down, the plastic latch letting go.

The quarry was fascinating because you could keep whatever you found. Of course, the granite hills of Maine didn’t have much to offer. It wasn’t like California hills which glittered with promises of gold. Maine had some quartz, pyrite…maybe a leaf fossil if you were really lucky. But still, that dusty chasm that our bus pulled up to had some mystical promise to it. What secrets had the earth hidden in it’s rocky time capsule?

I was usually a quiet kid, but I mustered up enough courage to ask a question to the teacher: “We really get to keep whatever we find?”

“Yes, that’s right!” Mr. Bridge Koeningsburg said in his enthusiastic and proper way.

The bus pulled up and let us out. We had only 60 precious minutes to search. I can’t remember if we were given any tools. Maybe a small hammer. We got to work.

Most of the kids lost interest after five minutes. They started playing tag which degraded into rock throwing. I’m sure to Mr. BK’s eyes “the quarry” started to seem like the upcoming title to a Lord of the Flies sequel. I chipped away, disappointed at my efforts. Bits of stone crumbled in my tiny kid hands. I knew that the allotted 60 minutes was quickly coming to an end. Maybe not on a conscious level, but there was a part of my child unconscious that knew that kid chaos would soon result in Mr. BK calling off the dig early.

I tried to conjure up a remarkable find to no avail–straining with every inch of my subconscious. Time was up. I looked at my best friend Tommy whose eyes mirrored my same disappointment.

“Let’s go to the gift shop!” Mr. BK announced.

My committed and generous mom had joined us on the trip. She had always been involved in my elementary school years, somehow finding the time to help in the classroom or join on a field trip. This worked out in my favor, because a money source was readily available.

“You can pick one thing,” she said as we walked to the small hut of souvenirs.

I floated around the shop, looking at the shelves lined with craggy stones. Golden pyrite, deep purple geodes, boxes of arrow heads. A smooth amber stone attached to a hard cardboard paper caught my eye. It have small streams of white running through it. I picked it off the hook and flipped it over. On the back was a list of animals with characteristics for each. If you held the stone in your hand it could somehow tell you your spirit animal. This was my choice.

I didn’t know that you could have a spirit animal until this point. The card hinted at a deeper world of magic under the surface–one that many writers and artists have tapped into over the years. The fantasy world that lives just out of sight and can be accessed if you know where to look. It was ingenuous really. Make-shift astrology for kids. My friends and I took turns holding the stone in our palms, concentrating on what signal it would give us. It’s satisfying roundness finding a home in our hands and emanating its message. In the end I settled on fox. I’m not sure what Tommy picked or if he even bought into the whole thing.

On a recent morning run, I slogged along in the breaking day. The shortening daylight hours had timed my run perfectly with a sunrise on the backside of the oreum that my route hits every morning. There had been some rain overnight, and the concrete was stained darker. I moved my body over the oreum’s peak and turned the corner for the back, looking at the clouds that were brightening with the rising sun. And then in the path was a panicked deer.

The deer’s antler’s had been caught in a farmer’s net. It couldn’t fathom the invisible force that tugged on its scalp as it strained its entire body, neck taught, grunting and whimpering, it strained as hard as it could in one direction, and then realized that the only way to go was back. It tumbled off the road, and pulled the net in the other direction, a small cry of hopelessness emitting from its tired lungs.

I tried to untangle the antlers, but it was too dangerous. The deer was freaked, and when it saw me it became more nervous. I needed a tool to cut the fencing. I booked it home and grabbed my scissors. Jumped into my car and drove back. Within a few minutes I had the deer almost free. Only a few strands of plastic netting remained. The deer pulled hard and looked at me intently. If it came forward it could do some real damage. One snip. It continued to stare, a little deeper. I looked hard at the antlers which suddenly seemed a lot sharper. Grabbing the rope I pulled for extra tension. I climbed up a little, trying to get as close as possible. The deer kept staring, blowing warm air forcefully through its nostrils as it pulled in the other direction. Second snip. It staggered back and immediately bolted into the forest, some excess rope dangling from its antler. Then quiet.

A few weeks later, the incident was repeated. I rounded the same corner and was greeted with a wild beast. Jeju deer are on the miniature side compared to the white-tails of Maine, but this was bigger than usual. Up close his muscles quivered with electric strength. It barked when it saw me and flopped over the side of the road into the bushes. I knew what to do this time.

When I arrived with my scissors, the deer still struggled, wrestling against the invisible force. I sloppily chopped at the net, just trying to get it cut. He bucked and grunted, eventually getting stuck behind one of the larger trees on the oreum’s embankment. I hacked at the fence like it was a mythical hydra, and managed to get it down to one strand as before. But I couldn’t get close enough to cut the rope short. He looked at me with anger and confusion, emanating unpredictability. I cut, leaving a good two feet of rope on the antlers.

The deer was free but bothered. The rope dangled from his head and it swung furiously as he bolted into the field below. The rope seemed to be pulling his head down to one side as he bounced through the field. He came to a four foot stone wall, still hindered by the rope’s weight. With a giant vertical leap he cleared the wall and then ran disoriented into the forest.

Another week later biking to work I rounded a farm road corner and looked down. On the edge of the thick Jeju Gotjawal forest was a dead baby deer, perfectly intact. It was as if the forest had placed it there as an offering to the world outside. I could only guess that a car speeding on the back farm road had clipped it. I stopped my bike and looked closely. It’s hazy eyes had lost the wildness that I had glimpsed in the two rescued deer. I didn’t know what to make of this. Was Jeju undoing my work? Were we counting back down now?

Over time, I lost the smooth amber rock from the quarry. I’m sure that in my teenage years, it took on an embarrassing significance and was discarded. There was no more time for magic. These deer reconnected me with that animal energy. Brushing up against the wild had reminded me of that feeling that the gimmicky cardboard had elicited. But this felt more concrete than that. The mechanizations of the universe were coming together in a weird way. I waited for the next sign.

A few days after the baby deer incident on a post-work run, I hit a patch of road leading up to my apartment complex. It was a slight climb that banked left past a tangerine grove and a barn. I was startled to see a man laying on the ground by the barn almost in the road. He was motionless. His head was a melon waiting to be burst by a passing tire. Was he alive? My mind flashed to the baby deer. Was this nature’s balancing blow? I stopped in my tracks for two long seconds, my stomach reacting before my head could.

And then the man shot upright to a seating position and smiled and said something I couldn’t hear through my headphones. I waved and sprinted the last few hundred meters to my apartment.

What did all of these omens add up to? Probably nothing. Life continues its random march through time. But still, I’m more attuned these days as I round the corners. I look up at vague outlines in the morning gloom with curiosity and sometimes horror. The ambiguous shadows taking on imaginary forms.

These incidents are reminders. Small divergences in a routine that show that there can be something new, shocking, or exciting around the bend. The faint flame of childhood discovery is kept fanned.

Jeju’s Gotjawal forest holds some unknown. One of its features is its rocky terrain that has prevented agriculture. Vines and thick trees have formed their way into the rough land. On my trail runs, I sometimes hear the deer barking at sunset, reminding me of the mystery. I peer into the inscrutable forest for a deer with a small bit of rope dangling from its antler. My new spirit animal.

“Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.” – James Wright