Kingfisher Encounters

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Kingfisher mural, Sale Water Park

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Right, let's get started with these creaturely interactions. During late August and September, I had several encounters with kingfishers. One of these was a very close encounter - literally, physically so. Overall they seemed mystical, some of them defying a rational explanation of quite how synchronously they took place.

Naturally, this all took place at Pomona, specifically at my most frequent sit spot - the one I call Lupin Lookout due to the beautiful clusters of these flowers that grow there each spring - which has a view across the half-filled-in old dock that I know as Magic Pool. (Believe me, it's magic).

My first kingfisher encounter of the season had taken place earlier in the year, just after summer solstice. A time of year that, since spending regular time at Pomona, has typically been more dense with magical happenings than any other. That particular experience deserves a post of its own, and I've recently written about it for issue 3 of “Mud and Culture” zine, due out in December, but I'll describe it briefly here.

It started when, during a ritual time, I played Pomona a song on my phone. I had commissioned a talented friend to write it, to express the nature of my relationship with Pomona. It was the first time she'd heard it, and I knew she liked it when first one kingfisher, then a second, flew in front of me into Magic Pool. When I played the song again, first one, then both of them, perched on the railing right behind me.

Occasionally in past years (though only ever at solstice or Lughnasadh) a heron has done the same thing: flown in and landed behind me, seemingly standing watch while I've been in ritual. This was very unusual behaviour. Herons tend to fly off with an annoyed screech when disturbed, though they will often land and hunt in the water relatively nearby if you sit still enough for long enough. But they don't tend to approach people - and there were two of us there on each occasion. They don't loiter right next to them for extended periods of time.

For kingfishers to do this - a pair of them! - blew my mind. Nothing like it had happened to me before. I'm still feeling the glow just writing about it.

Towards the end of August I had a mini flare up, during which I turned to collaging. I've found this creative practice to be a real support when I don't have much physical or mental energy to draw on. It relies on some pretty basic cutting out followed by some beautifully intuitive messing around with things until something feels right and starts to emerge. Because it doesn't involve much conscious thought, it really doesn't take much energy, and I can access it in short bursts when necessary.

“Soul Chess” - collage, October 2022

I make sure I keep a stock of National Geographic and other magazines bought from charity shops, and I usually have a folder with a selection of images cut out but not used in previous sessions. Being able to participate in creative activities without having to think or prepare much is a lifeline sometimes. Self-care takes many shapes.

I made three pieces, “Past”, “Present” and “Future”, which kept me occupied for a good couple of days, with plenty of rest breaks. The most complex of the three was “Present”, shown below, in which I worked with the themes of the elements (earth, air, fire, water - and in this instance, also ether, or spirit) and built it up from there. The word “visions”, with the backgrounds already in place, was a great starting point. Once I realised I wanted to use the large kingfisher image as an overall background for the piece, it came together pretty neatly.

“Present” - collage, August 2024.

After making this collage - with the help of the subconscious and the benefit of hindsight - I could see how June's kingfisher encounter had been a portal through which a new thing could emerge. I began to realise that this event had signified “a changing of the guard” for me. A shift in terms of - for want of a better phrase - “my main animal guide” from heron to kingfisher. The collage seems to capture the ascendancy of this new energy. It's significant, because heron was the first bird to communicate with me on a soul level, and we've been relating increasingly closely for about 15 years at a guess. I suspect there's still a great deal more to fathom in all this.

And there was certainly a great deal more about to unfold at Pomona…

It was close to the end of August when my encounters with kingfishers suddenly became remarkably intense. I was doing a lot of soul searching, and using my times at Pomona to focus on what life was asking of me. There were various issues needing some kind of direction, including possibilities for generating work, a new insight for a significant creative project, and difficult relationship issue. As I took these knotty questions and enquiries to Magic Pool, kingfishers started to show up regularly.

On the penultimate day of August I headed to Pomona, and spent a while consciously offering libations and blessings to the place, its plants, its creatures, as is my habit. I was heavy with ideas for my creative project that day. Once I settled at Magic Pool, a pair of kingfishers flew in. This was only the second time I've seen a pair of them, the first being the occasion I related before.

View over the edge of Magic Pool from Lupin Lookout, showing the overhanging willows that kingfisher likes to fish from

The kingfisher always reminds me of his mythic namesake, the Fisher King, from the Arthurian tales, specifically Parsifal/Parzival. The grail king, carrying an incurable wound to his groin from a lance, was unable to die because those in his court daily brought the grail for him to behold. But was also unable to find any relief from his suffering, other than when he went out to fish on the lake - or, as many have it, in the deep waters of the psyche. The notion of living with an incurable illness is, of course, very familiar for me, though the “suffering” of it thankfully comes and goes. Not so for the wounded grail king.

So when I see kingfisher, I think instinctively of the archetype of the Wounded Healer. I see this nature strongly in Pomona, too: a place that has held me, taught me, brought healing into my life - and yet is subject to brutal devastations at the hands of men on a regular basis.

On this particular day I was struck by the realisation that when I look at Pomona, I don't see her wounds - only gifts, only beauty. Likewise with kingfisher - I see only his striking glory. With this in mind, I felt challenged to consider new self-perceptions. This is all material I'm still wondering about and working with, and I don't feel at liberty to try to explain it right now, not least because I sense I would probably ramble incoherently. But later in this post is a poem, “Grail”, that grasps at the essence of what I'm feeling.

In the moment I didn't have long to ponder any of this, though, because while one kingfisher flew off, the other gave me something of a spectacle. He darted down to catch a fish, then flew off into the willow foliage nearby. It was early evening and the many nearby construction sites were all silent, allowing me the curious experience of hearing a quiet crunch as he gobbled the tiny fish down! Having caught a second one, he landed on an old upturned bucket stuck in the mud, and slapped the little silver snack into stillness on the hard surface before swallowing.

Once this performance was over, he flew over and landed so close to me that I could almost have reached out and touched him. I could see every detail of the spots on his wing feathers, and his tiny body moving up and down as he breathed.