{"id":3925,"date":"2018-05-08T08:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T15:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=3925"},"modified":"2020-06-21T18:20:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T01:20:31","slug":"bouquet-for-the-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/bouquet-for-the-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"Bouquet for the Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a long-stemmed yellow flower at the wrack line. I picked it up and kept walking south toward Saddle Mountain. I saw another, red, and picked it up. Then two others\u2014purple and yellow\u2014my collection grew\u2014and I had no idea underlying the inspiration, although I did have a candidate for the bouquet, assuming she&#8217;d accept dead wrack flowers reeking of decomposition of the sea.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I&#8217;d walked another hundred yards, I had gathered almost a dozen flowers. obviously from the same bunch. How in the world they arrived here on this morning in such pristine condition was unimaginable. I could only speculate that someone brought them for an intended proposal or an apology and that proposal or apology didn&#8217;t flower. But why abandon (trash) them so evenly? Why not dump the bouquet in a pile? Ahh, the vagaries of the human condition\u2014they induce and compel me to write and harvest ditch dandelions to decorate peoples&#8217; lives.<\/p>\n<p>So there I was walking with a pretty bouquet of discarded flowers, wondering about their fate, when I looked up to the trail into the dunes and beheld a bald eagle perched on a sign. She was the nicked veteran I&#8217;ve seen here for years and our paths had crossed many times.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3927\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698-300x116.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"116\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698-300x116.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698-768x296.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698-1024x395.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_8698.jpg 1429w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Why not? She was a friend, an intimate. I approached the bald eagle and offered the bouquet. She lifted off from the sign and flew away. In my mind, she accepted the gift and that augured something well, I&#8217;d like to believe. Or maybe it was just a gift to a regal bird who has given me such joy in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this question: aren&#8217;t the best bouquets always found, stolen, picked (for free) or salvaged? Another question: are the best bouquets actually comprised of flowers?<\/p>\n<p><i>(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-3925\" data-postid=\"3925\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-3925 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a long-stemmed yellow flower at the wrack line. I picked it up and kept walking south toward Saddle Mountain. I saw another, red, and picked it up. Then two others\u2014purple and yellow\u2014my collection grew\u2014and I had no idea underlying the inspiration, although I did have a candidate for the bouquet, assuming she&#8217;d accept [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[195,36,733,732,48,13],"class_list":["post-3925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","tag-bald-eagle","tag-beaches","tag-bouquet","tag-flowers","tag-oregon-beaches","tag-oregon-coast","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3929,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions\/3929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}