074 - Adventure Series: Eagle Eye [Scotland 2/5]
In this installment of our Adventure Series, we begin my journey to Scotland.
Tune in to hear about my magical landing in Edinburgh, how I intuited a medical emergency, and the many lessons we can learn from falcons.
Please join me as I start this ancestral adventure, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode of this series.
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Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:00]:
Hey there. Welcome. You are tuned in to the summer of adventure series here at Threshold Moments where I am sharing bits and pieces of what it means to call in to your life a little bit of adventure. As Mischa Schuler would say, there's possibly adversity and venture that not everything will go exactly as planned. And how do we take those elements of clarity and confusion to help learn more of what brings us alive and who we are. I hope you enjoy this. And please know that this particular series comes out twice a week. So if you want to be notified within your podcast app, please subscribe by pressing the little plus button up in the right hand corner, and you will be notified when these little 20 to 30 minute episodes come out.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:55]:
Enjoy. And if it is fitting for this stage for you and your life, may you find adventure And in your adventures, big or small, may you find yourself. Hello. Welcome. I'm Sarah Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown, and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and life saving tools. Join us.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:44]:
Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments. If you missed it, last episode, I talked about what got me to Scotland. It was inspired by Asha Frost slightly doing this episode where she asked people to reflect on their own ancestry. And I would say I am just beginning to scratch the surface and that this trip had so many more elements of present time as well, present time inquiry, present time synchronicity. So in last episode, it reflected on the way that we do things that bring you to a threshold, and you take all of these steps not knowing that you're preparing for that threshold, as well as reflecting on when we prepare known preparation, when we prepare on purpose for a journey we're about to go on. You prepare on purpose Before you're about to have a baby, you set up their room. And then there are gonna be other things that you do, could have named many more things, you set up their room. You maybe get a meal train going.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:56]:
You perhaps join Sarah and Me class. You know, you create a community. And then there are the unknown preparation things that you do or don't do before that happens that may inform you on a deeper, more embodied, and spiritual level. And so last episode covered both of those elements. A reminder that this 5 point sequence on my journey to Scotland is gonna have preparation, beginning, middle, end, and integration. Each part should offer some medicine for you to reflect on and how you enter or move into your own 5 point sequences in different areas of your life. Reminder that these 5 point sequences generally happen throughout any threshold, and there is often micro 5 point sequences happening within the macro. So without further ado, this episode is on the beginning of the Scotland trip.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:10]:
I got to Edinburgh very early in the morning. Everything was pretty well organized and easy. I had taken a red eye, and I would love for you to highlight. Just listen to my words. I took a red eye and didn't sleep a wink. I'm gonna have you highlight the word red eye and the word wink. I didn't know the pro moves of declining the meals. So there could be some, like, very well experienced travelers sitting in my section, and they all ate before they got on the plane, and they all declined the meals.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:49]:
I'm like, Meals are included, dude. It's awesome. And they didn't know how spaced out they would be. And that by not getting to sleep, I wasn't gonna sleep at all. So these pro people, they, you know, if you're ever gonna go transatlantic or take a long flight, that's a red eye. The pro move is you eat before the flight. You say no to the food. I think some people took a sleep aid.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:15]:
And then put on the eye mask, put on the earbuds, that when you get to your destination, you've gotten at least 6 hours of sleep. And duly noted, next time. So I get there. I get through the security with ease and with speed. My bags come out first and Uber was right there. I get to the hotel and it's 9 AM. And it's really unheard of that a hotel is gonna let you in at 9 AM. They kind of looked at me like, Ma'am, look tired.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:48]:
Haven't slept in 36 hours. And they got a room ready for me. 9 a. M. This is unheard of. And they changed me to room 614. That is my birthday, June 14th. This is also interesting because when Steve and I were trying to make a decision in 1 weekend, if we would stay in New York or move to Maine, that weekend, we went to a hotel and we got there and they said, we're gonna, we're gonna change your room to room 614.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:20]:
So whenever I see that number, I always think it's a sign. So we've got room 614. So great. And throughout that day, I was kind of weaving back and forth between, I really wanna see this town. It's so beautiful. It's so different. It's unlike anything I've seen, and I really need to sleep. And kind of back and forth between these 2.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:41]:
And Edinburgh is very much out of a Harry Potter book because Harry Potter was literally written in Edinburgh. The woman was sitting at a cafe that was directly across from my hotel room, dreaming up these stories and the magic shop that is in this book was literally right down the street. It was a magic shop that's been there since the 1800. The streets are all cobblestone. The buildings are all stone. There are hundreds of churches and bridges and a huge castle right up the road. And one of my girlfriends who was part of this retreat, the rest I would become friends with, were staying at the Witchery. And the Witchery was such that you would check-in on one side of the street, cross the cobblestone street, go up winding staircase, like up a tower, essentially into rooms that had hidden rooms off of them and were decorated as if they were castle rooms in the 1800.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:49]:
And it's all quite mystical. It feels like a time portal. There are witch shops. There are beautiful bookstores. One bookstore I went into and I wanted to know more about the history of Scotland and it said like complete history of Scotland. And so I buy the book and the store is just closing and we left first thing in the morning, so there was no way to return it. But when I went through the book, I was like, Oh, that's so interesting. Apparently, Scotland hasn't had any women here for the last 3000 years.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:27]:
So that evening we're going to meet with the group. There are 2 guides to this group, 2 kind of head witches, if you will. All of us have some Scottish ancestry. So that night at 7 pm, we're meeting at the Witchery for dinner. I put on my witchy black dress that has lace right in the center and opens up for a nice long stride and my shawl to go over it. And I'm going up the cobblestone streets and make my way to the witchery, go down a winding staircase into the ground, essentially to this really, what appears to be a really old, beautifully done space. I am going to meet the women who are a part of this journey, a part of this trip. And during that dinner, Lola and Ginny pass out copper necklaces, copper being good for the nervous system.
Sarah Tacy [00:09:34]:
And on the necklace, there is a thistle that has been imprinted onto it. And the thistle is a national symbol for Scotland and it means do not forget, do not forget. Essentially, remember who you are. Remember where you came from. This could be for anyone. Remember who you are. Remember who you came from. Remember your essential nature.
Sarah Tacy [00:10:01]:
And that thistle, apparently the story I understand is that when the Vikings came over, there were many, many invasions on Scotland, thousands of years of Sarah. And some of the earliest invaders were the Vikings. And as a Viking troop were coming into a village at night, one of the Vikings stepped on a thistle and screamed out. I'm guessing he didn't howl out, but made enough of a noise that it woke some people up in their houses. I don't know if they're looking at houses at that time. It woke people up and allowed them to fight for themselves and to survive. And so the thistle is a reminder of the number of times that they've overcome adversity. And in some ways I'll just add how nature was an advocate for them.
Sarah Tacy [00:11:06]:
I wouldn't say nature takes sides, but in this, in this instance, it played on their behalf. In the necklace pouches, we also each had a card and almost like pulling an oracle card, we decided to see what each one was and that we would both answer them and see we would all answer ours. And Mine was, do I feel comfortable expressing myself? How do I feel about getting quiet, listening deeply and patiently to my inner wisdom? And it says no one can make me feel inferior. And many of us, the cars we got were like, Oh, wait, this is my jam. Yes. Here I am. Got a podcast expressing myself, listening deeply, listening to my inner wisdom. And the further that one could get on that, like anything that we're really possibly good at, it can also be just one layer, that there can be layers beneath that.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:14]:
I can express myself until was it until the cows come home? But if that expression is about a boundary or is to express to somebody else that their actions were hurt full. I felt hurt. And that them receiving that might hurt their feelings like, Oh, actually, I'm really that is not a high skill of mine. That is an edge. And I can listen deeply and patiently to my inner wisdom. How do I deal with listening to emotions that again, involve others? Could be a sound. And there are emotions that are often thought to be okay to feel if you are recognized as female in society. But anger, Can I listen to the inner wisdom of anger? Will I respond appropriately or will I people please? And this comes back to what do I see? How deeply do I see? Where is my vision? And, and I say that because as we're sitting there, my eye, just like out of nowhere, is totally fine.
Sarah Tacy [00:13:27]:
And I will say my family was all sick before I left for Scotland. And I generally have a kick ass immune system. And I'm guessing not sleeping for 36 hours all played into this, but my eye just starts stinging and hurting. And it feels like I have something in it, except I can tell it's not an eyelash. And the longer I'm there, the more I'm just like, I can't home. Like, I can't actually actually sit for these check ins anymore. I need to get home. Something's wrong.
Sarah Tacy [00:13:56]:
And I say to this group of women, please don't make something of this right now because in a world or in a group of humans that are always looking for symbols and always trying to find the meaning of something, sometimes you just wanna be like, I'm just sick. I just have this thing. My family was sick. I didn't sleep. Now I have it. This way, I'm gonna say it to this new group, please don't make anything symbolic out of this. My eye really hurts. I'm gonna go home.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:27]:
And I go home and my eye I'm Sarah. This is really kind of gross. My eye is running like a 4 year old's nose, and I have an eye infection. And I realized that I'm in another country, but I'm going to have to get antibiotics for my eyes. And and I go to bed, my eyes are so swollen. And, you know, putting on putting on sunglasses the next day, going around Edinburgh, trying to find a pharmacy, trying to find somebody who will get me eye drops that will help with this infection I have. And so remember I told you, like, I didn't sleep a wink. I was on a red eye and now I have pink eye.
Sarah Tacy [00:15:12]:
And I had said, please don't make anything of this. And it was a bit of a, it was beautiful walking around Edinburgh. It was a speed walk, but I also had to be ready to drag a suitcase up cobblestone street to get to the car of which we would all be driving in. And there was some rush and there were just, there were a lot of unknowns that happened in the first 48 hours there. A lot of time changes for the group, a lot of things that were unexpected. And what happened is I get back to the hotel and I look in my journal and when I was on the red eye and I was not sleeping, I decided to open up this brand new journal and it's Life is a Daring Adventure or Nothing at All, Helen Keller. And I open up to this first beautiful, you know, it's like that, a paper that has nice texture to it. I have no idea what to write.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:11]:
Like, maybe I'll just do a quote. I have no idea why I haven't read Elizabeth Gilbert in 20 years. And although I've I really appreciate her. And I decided to look up Elizabeth Gilbert. And the very first thing that's in my journal is I drew an I. The first page is an eye. And then the quote underneath it says, watch for the people whose eyes light up when you talk about your dreams. Those are the people you keep.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:41]:
This is having a little bit more meaning to me right now. If I'm in integration right now, you'll hear about it in the episode. And I'm just like, okay, there's something here. And then the other quote that I wrote, remember I said, please don't try to make meaning out of this. The next quote says, if you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter old resentments. Right. I did leave my house and I did want to leave bitter old resentment. And set out on a truth seeking journey, either externally or internally.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:18]:
I was doing both. If you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, which I was like, please don't make this into a thing. If you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on this journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld. Elizabeth Gilbert. I could probably end on that one. So I'll just say we get in the car and we start this journey. I have my sunglasses on. We make a 3 hour drive and we get to a falconry.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:09]:
And this is again, just looking at Scottish lineage 1000 of years ago, Falconry was a real important way for people to survive. It was a way of hunting. Hunting can be a painstaking long process with no guarantees and birds of prey are excellent hunters. And you think about the bird's eye view that they have along with their precision. They can see the big picture and they can zoom in. And it is no longer lost on me, this idea of bird's eye view and perspective and focus. What was really interesting about the falconry now is that, yes, this man, who was the trainer of these birds, has a real connection with them. And most of these birds were born into facilities that work with birds of prey for the purpose of hunting or showing people how these birds were used for hunting.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:22]:
And so here you have these majestic owls and other birds of prey and hawks, and most of them don't want to fly. They have forgotten. The man would say, the owl thinks he's a human, and he's only gonna eat chicken tenders. And he's only gonna fly up to your glove if we have a chicken tender on it. You wouldn't even know what to do with the mouse. And here's this other element that many of us on this trip were mostly working through. And I'll just speak for myself, this continuous unwinding and uncovering of who I am really and who I think I am because of the constructs in the society that I grew up in. At the beginning of Glennon Doyle's book, Untamed, she talks about going to the zoo where there's a show with a leopard and or it's a cheetah.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:20]:
And the cheetah was raised with a dog. And so the cheetah thinks it's the dog. And the cheetah sees how the dog chases a treat from behind a Jeep. So the cheetah learns over time to chase this piece of meat behind a Jeep so that everybody can see how fast the cheetah can go. And Glennon Doyle Sarah, then she watches the cheetah. And when the whole show is over, the cheetah just is pacing back and forth on the other side of this open field by the fence. And in her imagination and her perception, she imagines that this cheetah, Tabitha, knows that something's not right. That there's a more wild version of life and of living.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:11]:
That there is a containment that is happening, that it's all she knows. It's all she knows to be true. It's how she knows to survive, and she should be happy because it's safe. She should be happy because there's food. She should be happy because she has this friend, the dog. She should be happy because people love her, but there's something unsettled. And so she paces it. Because perhaps there's something inside of her that knows that there's something wild that had been tamed.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:44]:
And so here we are at the falconry and we are getting to see this in an animal. I do think that there is a beautiful opportunity for wild animals and humans to form relationships. It's like this idea of being interdependent, of sovereignty, and unchoice connecting. And what we saw here, although the honor of having these gorgeous birds land on our arm and then fly off and then or, like, jump around on the ground and then come up and be face to face was quite extraordinary. But the one that got me the most was the Golden Eagle. The Golden Eagle was huge. And I'm trying to think if it was a movie Pets 3 or something like this, the Golden Eagle had to come out with a cap on that covered its eyes. Do you see the thread here still with the eyes? And in covering its eyes, it stays calm.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:54]:
Here I am with my sunglasses on. In covering its eyes, everything's okay. Don't worry about what's being contained. You are okay. And when the cap comes off, he also now recognizes, Oh, this is a familiar place. He knows the log that it will stand on about 50 yards away from us. And he knows a routine, but this one is for sure a bit more wild than the others, also much larger. And my heart, something happened.
Sarah Tacy [00:23:36]:
I was on my tiptoes, just like looking from a distance for me to get a like, wow, this burn. Something was running through my body. I felt so alive. And at some point when I was the one who had the glove on where it came over for the piece of meat that I was holding, And I began to bring it a little bit closer to me bending my elbow and looking at it. There was a moment where I was like, Oh, no, this is actually a bird of prey. Don't bring it too close to your face. Move it back, please. Because this bird is the one of all of them that they still bring up into the mountains for it to soar and for it to hunt.
Sarah Tacy [00:24:24]:
It still has enough reps of remembering who it is, that it still retains the wild. But to get it up to the mountains again, it has to wear the cap over its eyes. And I just think it's so interesting. I think this is probably enough to talk about for the beginning. But if I were to really bring you to the end of what I really think is the beginning phase, I would say that I'm a little bit and this is different than 5 point preparation. This is a survival to thriving phase 1, survival, barely coping, not coping. Phase 2, coping. Everything's pretty bland, but you're getting by.
Sarah Tacy [00:25:14]:
Phase 3, thriving. I'm definitely in a phase 2. Like, I'm just getting by. I'm not feeling great. I'm wanting to feel great. I am wanting to be another way, but also just recognizing like I'm so tired and I'm fighting something, and there are some time changes stuff. And we get to our last place and everyone's just too tired to go on the night walk. And I find out that my grandfather is has been unconscious for 2 days.
Sarah Tacy [00:25:41]:
And so I just lay down and try to meet my grandfather on the other side, knowing that I may not see him again. And the next day was our trip to the Isle of Lewis. And I will start there as the middle and maybe I will actually end with that on the car ride to the Isle of Lewis before the ferry boat there. There was a question of how are you really? And I'm wondering if anyone else has ever felt this way when you travel. When it got to me, I just said, I am reminded of Carl Jung Young's book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, his memoir, where he meets with a shaman who has never been in a car, has never left his village. And when he gets in the car, he'll pull over, pull over, and he gets out and he throws himself on the ground. Carly asks, What are you doing? And the shaman says, I'm waiting for my soul to catch up. And I think about how fast we move in society, how often we're moving in cars, how in planes we're moving so fast that we time travel forward or backwards in time.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:03]:
And if you wear an Oura ring, your Oura ring will be like, what's happening? And your body is actually kind of freaking out. And then we go on as normal. It's much different than a 100 years ago or more when we were going by foot or by horse or by boat, and it would take us months to get there and our body acclimated as we went. So I just had this feeling of my body is here, but my soul hasn't arrived. And that was my beginning. And I will say that if I look at my 5 point sequence in my life in general, in general, I love beginnings. I celebrate endings and middles are the parts that I don't love. But in this trip, the middle was the best.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:54]:
So tune in next time, please, to hear a little bit about the middle. And as always, I think these episodes are good just to hear stories, but it's often great too, to reflect on how these themes play into your life. So I could ask you, have you ever had a time in your life where you didn't want to make anything of it? You didn't want to look at the symbol symbolism, but as time went on, it was kind of right in your face. And you're like, Oh, there's a lesson here. The universe is talking to me. And I'll just say too, it's okay if you haven't figured it out yet. I'm still processing. Have you ever been somewhere where you wanted to feel really great, but you felt kind of cruddy? Were you able to step back from the group, from the situation enough to honor your state, to honor your needs? If not, are you interested in doing that? I will actually tell you when I got to the Isle of Lewis and I did pull away from the group and I pulled away on the ferry too, just to try to sleep.
Sarah Tacy [00:29:03]:
People were like, wow, I have such fun. I can't believe you can do that. And just to say that maybe that is a high skill of mine that I can pull back in order to honor my energy first? Could you hear any thresholds in the episode of Landing, Everything Goes With Ease and then kind of medical emergency needing to find help of These don't make anything of this to the curiosity of I wonder. The threshold of being in an unknown of like this Falcon wreath ring, it feels important. And I I don't know. Sometimes thresholds aren't super obvious. We often think there's like beginning, end, one side, other side. Often they're still, they're just weaving their way throughout our lives in little pieces.
Sarah Tacy [00:29:59]:
And then is there any part of you that, as I told the story about the birds or about Tabitha or about this Golden Eagle that could see little pieces in yourself that maybe have been tamed by your environment, by what you grew up in, by what you thought was true. But you have a feeling inside you that maybe, maybe there's a more wild, untamed version Just beyond the fence. Definitely in your bones. Just waiting to be released until next time. Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It's pretty awesome.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:57]:
It's very easy. It's very helpful. You can find it at Sarah. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you're not feeling it, don't do it.
Sarah Tacy [00:31:18]:
It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.