On Being Followed by a Seagull

(SA/2023)

 

"It is right for a gull to fly -

freedom is the very nature of its being ..." [1]

 

I. 

 

The other day, walking in the park, I was followed by a seagull. Although it might simply be the case that he was hoping for some food, a poet friend insists on the symbolic (and spiritual) importance of the event.

 

Apparently, these intelligent and beautiful birds are not merely noisy opportunists, but able to travel between realms and bring us messages (or warnings) from the dead. 

 

Normally, I wouldn't give much time to such a thought, but as I'm still mourning the death of my mother - who loved birds - I'm inclined to be a little more receptive to the idea that the gull wanted me to know something. 

 

But what? 

 

That, of course, is the question - and the difficulty. How can one know that one has interpreted a message from the dead carried by a feathered messenger correctly? 

 

I'm not sure you can. But this is my attempt to do so ...

 

 

II.

 

As the bird remained silent, I assume it wasn't telling me to find my own voice. 

 

In fact, I'm keen to speak less and look more these days; to move away from the written text towards the world of images; to put down the pen and pick up the paintbrush; to exchange the computer keyboard for the camera. 

 

So maybe the gull was encouraging me with this; to quietly find my wings, so to speak, as a visual artist and fly above past limitations and the somewhat grim (anxiety-inducing) circumstances of the present (health issues, money worries, threats from Google to terminate this blog because I have violated their community guidelines, etc.).    

 

I certainly prefer to interpret being followed by a seagull as a good sign; as something positive, rather than a bad omen and one recalls the words of Luce Irigaray, who wrote some very lovely lines concerning the precious and mysterious assistance she has received in her life and work directly from birds:

 

"Birds are our friends. But also our guides, our scouts. Our angels in some respect. They accompany persons who are alone, comfort them, restoring their health and their courage. Birds do more. Birds lead one's becoming. The birds' song heals many a useless word [...] restores silence, delivers silence. The bird consoles, gives back to life, but not to inertia." [2] 

 

It may well be that a storm of some kind is approaching and I need to think a little more seriously about the future than I normally do. But somehow, as long as there are birds still nesting and calling in the world, I believe everything will be fine. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, (Macmillan, 1970). I'm quoting this from memory, so it might not be dead-on balls accurate, as Miss Mona Lisa Vito might say. 

[2] Luce Irigaray, 'Animal Compassion', trans. Marilyn Gaddis Rose, in Animal Philosophy, ed. Matthew Atterton and Peter Calarco, (Continuum, 2004), p. 197. I first quoted these lines in a post published ten years ago; see 'Feathered Friends' (9 Jan 2013): click here. 

With Wings Spread Silent Over Roofs: In Defence of the Urban Gull

 

Image: Gary Hershorn / Getty Images

Apparently, whilst the number of coastal birds continues to decline, the number of seagulls making a home in our towns and cities is booming and this makes me happy. 

 

For whilst gulls can certainly be noisy and messy - and may even steal your chips - they are also beautiful and intelligent birds which, I like to believe, act as messengers of the ancient sea goddess Leukothéa; she upon whom all men look with misty eyes, such is her loveliness.

 

Despite this, there are people who react to urban gulls with the same irrational hatred that they do to other creatures that have made their home amongst us, such as foxes and grey squirrels. Personally, I'd like to see those who call openly for extermination or speak euphemistically of pest control subject to a reduction in numbers. 

 

For to paraphrase Lawrence writing of a mountain lion [1]:

 

I think in this lonely city there is room for me and a seagull.

And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two humans

And never miss them. 

Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white-surf face of that long-legged bird!

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See D. H. Lawrence, 'Mountain Lion', in The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 351-52. 

 

To read another defence of seagulls, see Stephen Moss's article in The Guardian (19 Aug 2009): click here.