“The oystercatcher, piping its wild sweet note, seemed to belong in both worlds: a creature of the shore, neither entirely of the sea nor entirely of the land…” — Seamus Heaney
Dear Friends
Some years ago, freshly diagnosed with an orphan blood cancer and still reeling from the loss of my sister and mother, I found myself living in an area surrounded by the Broken Head Nature Reserve in New South Wales.
Stunning as the scenery was, I was lost, deep in the undergrowth of my own mind.
Still disciplined to my meditation practices, I would watch the sun rise each morning on remote Seven Mile Beach, which was just a short bush walk from my front door.
That Winter, otherwise alone, I found myself regularly joined by an audacious shoreline bird, a pied oystercatcher. While they seldom approach and are easily disturbed, he seemed oddly curious about me. As the season endured, he became quite comfortable with our increasingly intimate proximity, while always keeping a close eye on his mate nearby.
The Australian Pied Oystercatcher is found in coastal areas across the continent. They are black, with a white breast and belly, and a bright orange-red bill, eye-ring and legs.
Aside from a short whistle in flight—that wild sweet note—they are silent creatures for the most part, making them the perfect meditation partner.
While he never offered me his name, scientifically they are Haematopus longirostris, from the Greek meaning ‘blood-foot with a long beak’. This gives me great solace. My blood brother.
The pied oystercatcher lives on the coastal margins, in the ecotone—that sacred threshold and liminal space-between where life and death are in rich abundance.
Neither land nor sea, as the late Irish poet, Seamus Heaney writes.
I love Heaney’s understanding that the oystercatcher ‘seemed’ to belong in both worlds, in the sense of being ‘seamed’ or ‘woven’ into them. My blood-footed keeper sits at the articulation point, a place of porosity where, as if by osmosis, he can offer passage back and forth.
This is an ancient understanding that was sparked in a recent conversation with storyteller and ecologist Andreas Kornevall. He spoke of a road between the conscious and unconscious—and the requirement of a spirit/animal guide (or ‘fetch’ in Irish folklore) to act as a bridge that can hold your story as you move between these realms.
For me, the pied oystercatcher is a psychopomp, a messenger and guide between worlds no less powerful than the wing-footed Hermes himself. They exemplify what Lewis Hyde describes in Trickster Makes This World as a “boundary-crosser... on the border of the known and the unknown, making sure there is commerce.”
Such a guide, akin to Hermes, will also employ trickster-nature. In The Other Within, Daniel Deardorff explains how the trickster’s chaos creates the necessary conditions for the psychopomp to lead us through transformative experiences.
Hyde echoes this in his work, describing the trickster as “the spirit of the doorway…making possible the exchange between what is inside and what is outside.”
For their part, pied oystercatchers have a specially adapted bill and an innate ability to continually learn new and unique behaviours. Even their name, ‘oystercatcher,’ is a misnomer, as they rarely eat oysters—hinting at the archetypal trickster’s ability to challenge expectations and norms, disrupt order and provoke change.
Hyde describes the trickster as one who finds “continuity and possibility” where others only see boundaries. The pied oystercatcher defies even a fixed label, reminding us that names can be deceiving, and that truth can lie in the fluidity of identity and action.
My friend also carried a wounded leg, which gave him a permanent limp. He would often stand on just one, cradling the other close to his body. We found kinship in our woundedness that season. I told him my stories. He was—and continues to be—a great listener.
Deardorff suggests the wound is a crucial element in the role of the psychopomp. Rather than a mere flaw, he viewed the wound as a source of unique wisdom and transformative power.
The ‘otherness’ embodied by the wound, according to Deardorff, is what enables the psychopomp to navigate and mediate between worlds, turning their suffering into a pathway for deeper understanding and healing.
Colours of a life
The red, white and black of the pied oystercatcher illustrate the three major stages of transformation, the Great Work of the alchemists. In the context of mythological narratives, the colours symbolise the hero’s journey through descent, rebirth and ultimate illumination.
Encountering these colours together could be seen as perceiving the full spectrum of one’s existence—where deep, unconscious insights and the experience of wholeness are revealed—connecting one to a greater cosmic order.
In the story of Parsifal, for example, the young knight falls into a trance upon seeing a wild goose lying dead upon the snow. The sight of the bird’s black feathers, and the redness of the blood against the white snow, overwhelms him and he becomes lost in contemplation, fixating on the image as it reflects his life-longing.
I’m drawn to think of Parsifal’s ‘pied’ magpie half-brother, Feirefiz, who also symbolises the complex interplay between the mundane and the mystical. His presence can be interpreted as a reflection of Parsifal’s inner journey. This is a doubling—a wild twin—who acts as a guide to help Parsifal navigate between visible and invisible realms.
The pied oystercatcher, too, embodies this profound duality, standing as both guide and mirror to my own transformation. I found my own pied half-brother that Winter in Broken Head, and I see it as no small thing that he chaperoned me into an entirely new life.
A decade has since passed, and I find myself living close by again. My morning beach run takes me right past two more pairs. I always feel that alchemical surge of energy when I am near. They guide me to see beyond the ordinary.
Now Spring is here and it’s nesting season again. Pied oystercatchers mate for life, nesting in shallow scrapes and producing just two or three eggs in a clutch. Each couple diligently protect their home and use the same one year after year.
On a walk just yesterday, an elderly man on a bike was stopped by a nesting pair. Striking up a conversation, he told me of his hope for their success, as their eggs were taken by a fox last year.
He said there were only six nesting pairs remaining in the Byron Shire.
Image: State Library Seal/Stamp (provided by Reid, the Park Ranger)
I have recently been spending more time near one of my childhood homes, walking the trails and frequenting an old sit spot. On my last visit, I noticed a new sign had been erected near the entrance to the beach. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it warned visitors against disturbing the endangered pied oystercatchers that have been residing there for a great many years.
I’m left in awe and wonder at just how far back our relationship stretches.
Oceans of love.
Asher
References:
‘The Oystercatcher’: Heaney, S. (1979). Field Work. Faber and Faber.
Hyde, L. (1998). Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Deardorff, D. (2021). The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, and Psyche. Inner Traditions.
Notes:
Change is ‘afoot’ with an upcoming move to a new online platform and app for The Fifth Direction community this month. The official launch date is Sunday, September 15, although you are more than welcome to join us anytime from now.
Stay tuned in the coming week for a conversation between myself and East Forest around the launch of his new film, Music for Mushrooms.
September marks Blood Cancer Awareness Month. Love and strength to all my brothers and sisters walking the Red Road.
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