Bird Whisperer

It seems like bird rescue has been in the air lately. Rick from South Florida Daily Blog paid attention to a restless, pacing mother duck outside his home and realized her ducklings were caught in a sewer. Pembroke Pines Fire and Rescue scooped the ducklings up with a net, but Rick reunited them with their mother.

Last week, I was walking at Matheson Hammock Park when I spotted a royal tern standing solo in a puddle of muddy water. Unusual, I thought. It just stood there, not preening, not drinking, not fishing for minnows with its beak. And where was its flock?

I knew then something was wrong. I tried to shoo it away (a bird like that is easily spooked and will fly) when I noticed it couldn't go far on the ground with out plopping its breastbone down when trying to spread its wings.

It looked fine on the outside and the wings spread normally. Perhaps it had some internal injury or illness.

I knew then I had to cut my walk short and rush to the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station. My first reaction was to get a box from the Red Fish Grill to transport the tern, but the restaurant was closed on Monday. Then I looked around in the garbage pails and sure enough, there was a cardboard box, just the right size.

A small miracle.

It squealed at me when I tried to grab it, but I eventually held it gently, put it in the box, which I snuggled into the front passenger seat, covering it partially with an old car rag so the tern would feel secure.

The tern was quiet during the ride. I could hear it shuffling around but it never uttered a sound. Once I arrived at the station about 1 hour later -- it was rush hour -- the staff was gone, so I left it inside one of the carrying cases outside.

I called a couple of days later and the tern wasn't doing so well. I hope he made it.

I don't know why, but I am always finding injured birds. The tern's eyes were pitch black, so dark yet I could feel it speaking to me with its gaze. The innate intelligence of birds speaks far louder than words. I'll admit, I cried a little. I'm sure it was hanging on and in pain or maybe beyond pain, resigned to this surreal experience.

Animals should always bring compassion out in us. There was nothing I could do but try to help this poor creature. I delayed my evening plans. Everything else could wait.

If you find injured wildlife in the South Florida area, contact the fine folks at the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, who are devoted to the rehabilitation release of sick, injured and orphaned wildlife in and around Miami's Biscayne Bay. They accept all injured wildlife, including mammals and reptiles, but no dogs or cats. Injured animals can be dropped off 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Call 305-751-9840 for more information.

Happiness is Light Tackle

Part 3 of 3 of my Ladies, Let's Go Fishing stories. Part 1: Women Anglers Hook Fish and Fun in Islamorada and Part 2: Inshore Fishing with Captain Bob Jones.

On a recent fishing trip with Captain Bob Jones as part of the Ladies, Let's Go Fishing weekend, I had a lot of time to meditate on our way out to his fishing spot and back to port -- approximately one hour each way in the prevailing wind and sea conditions. I couldn't get over how ridiculously happy I was, my heart swelling with every passing wave on this incredibly empowering feeling that I had "arrived."

I hesitate to sound dramatic, but there's a reason why I'm into this whole fishing thing -- it's something close to my heart. Fishing out in these waters with good folk was a life-altering experience for me, or perhaps, more appropriately, a return to something I had known and loved but had neglected for way too long. This trumped everything before it and made me seriously question where I am focusing my energy in my life right now.

While the wind was buffeting my face, I didn't give a damn. My heart was open and fully present. The water, ironically, was grounding. It was only three years ago I was stuck at home overcoming agoraphobia and here I was out in the wide expanse of bay with not a shred of anxiety or fear in my body. My soul was soaring. I loved every second of it.

Remember, agoraphobia is fear of being outdoors. For a long while, I couldn't even be in a car, let alone drive one. A sea craft was out of the question. And here I was, happily, enthusiastically and eagerly embracing the outdoors.

Life flashed by in my mind, but in a good way.

I remembered the treble hook caught in my finger when fishing with a hand line under a bridge on Key Biscayne at the tender age of five. Years later, as an adult during my galley wench days, sailing on Biscayne Bay with friends. The countless fishing trips to the Glades. The first and only tarpon I ever caught in Flamingo one glorious morning at sunrise. Gliding a canoe over a 16 foot alligator in a mangrove tunnel. Fishing for sea bass in northern Spain with a blind date with whom I would never fall in love. Gratitude that my last boyfriend broke up with me, as he would have never understood and supported this lifestyle -- he religiously got manicures, can you imagine him handling a slimy fish?

And the heartbreak I felt when an old ex took another woman fishing -- of course it bothered me that he slept with her, but taking her fishing? That was the ultimate betrayal and a deal breaker for me.

And yet I am forever grateful to him. He introduced me to this world.

Our love may have not become a marriage after so many years, but the experience of a man and a woman fishing together time and time again is almost as intimate as sex and practically as sacred as tantra. You're out there, being patient with yourselves, with each other and the task at hand. You share spaces and golden silences. You don't need to talk because you both love what you're doing and you're doing it together. (The "no yelling" part of Ladies, Let's Go Fishing is so funny to me in this respect.)

Nothing out here but water and mangrove islands. Gets you thinking. It's liberating.

Maybe it's the kind of fishing I love to do -- inshore, which requires predatory stealth sometimes, an eagle eye and quiet focus. There's an inner warrior, meditative quality to this style of fishing, which I can relate to as a yogi. It's almost as if I'm on the mat, connecting my mind, body and soul in an activity that I love.

There's something about fishing in remote inshore waters that puts me in touch with a part of myself that gets easily distracted by life in urban Miami -- too much going on all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with everything that the city has to offer. But for me, fishing out in the back country brings me back to my core self, where things are simple and real. That's really what my heart desires: simple and real.

And yet there is always the mystery of what lies underwater, the primordial contact between human and beast, the wonder and excitement of what might bite, the gear, the technique and the strategy. Fishing is simple and yet never boring in that way.

Since I've experienced this great weekend with Ladies, Let's Go Fishing, some of my gal pals have asked me: "I don't get it. What the hell do you like about fishing? That's so weird to me. I'd rather be shoe shopping."

Well, I love me a pair of fancy shoes just like the next gal, but on most days, honestly, I'd rather wear flip flops. Fishing is something you either love whole-heartedly with every fiber of your being, or you don't. You can't fake it. It's too much work and effort to fake it.

Actually, just like sex and intimacy, you shouldn't be faking anything at all. When I'm fishing, I feel I'm truly authentically myself. That's why I love it, because it reels in my true heart, it brings me in contact with nature, my nature, which can be wild yet calm and yearns for this kind of grounding. There is the inner wilderness we see with our hearts and the one we see with our eyes -- trees, birds, water and fish. When you fish, it call comes together. At least for me.

There is so much more to fishing than meets the eye. And that's why I title this post Happiness Is Light Tackle ... it's about following your passion, but catching it without too much baggage, not too much heavy line, weighty hooks and sinkers. Tossing out overboard whatever no longer serves you and being authentic. It's about seeing it ahead of you and casting for it and seizing whatever aligns your personal happiness with your purpose.

For me, fishing isn't just about the fish, but a completely spiritual and yet visceral exercise.

As I prepare for an event I'm organizing called HeartCamp, it doesn't surprise me at all that I had a major heart-opening over the weekend regarding my long lost love: fishing.

Fishing is a metaphor for life here. What are you doing in your life to cast forward? Are you catching your dreams? Are you following the currents of your heart? Have you checked in with the inner wilderness, far from the distractions of daily life?