I'd rather be hanging out with Trumpeter Swans

In the breathless hush of beauty the heart opens to the sacred!

Dear Magical Brother’s and Sister’s,

It’s been close to four years since I’ve lived beside the ponds where local swans lived, if I can’t hang out with them in person, the next best thing is to write about my love affair I had with them.

The gift of volunteering for an Elders Legacy Project in the Spring, with Belonging Brant, thankfully, got me writing again. I had the wonderful experience of meeting three Elder’s (in person) to collect and write their Legacy stories and film videos of Gary Black Bear, Big Tree, and Minister Paul.

It an Honour, to collect these powerful, fun, important, and touching stories as shared by the Elder’s in my community I knew I wanted to spread them to a wider audience. Substack is the perfect platform and I will dedicate to the next articles.

I too was encouraged to offer my story to the Legacy Project, even though I am a young Elder.

I offer this article with more depth than the I submitted to Belonging Brant.

It’s a tale of a Tragedy to Triumph for Trumpeter Swans of Ontario and myself with their help. A Comeback Story which I was volunteering at the time for the swan’s winter home, even while my life was in crisis.

All Four stories https://www.belongingbrant.com/elders-legacy-project

Short Story of “A Soul’s Survival with Swan Allies”

What the comeback of the Trumpeter swans has meant to me, is a life worthwhile, a purpose, new meaning, and carrying on a legacy entrusted to me by Jim and Norma Soul.

Before I could relate to the Majestic Graceful Swan, I was the ugly duckling kicking and screaming to the Miracle change of events with the twists and turns my life took before my blessings showed up – all at once, I may add. I saw the similarities of my life to the fairytale “The Ugly Duckling” by Hans Christian Andersen.

I have felt like an outcast all my life, but it became very intensely personal when I was ill – just like the ugly duckling who was led to within an inch of his life. Who felt alone, cold, lonely, frozen, harassed, chased, shot at, given up on, malnourished, and not knowing what will come next…

It is hard enough for adults to cope when the storms of life come out of the blue. Many children don’t have the experience to know Miracles can happen in an instant. Life has something for each of us to receive and contribute. Your reason could be just around the corner, so hang on, and hang tight to hope, or if nothing else, to my comeback story.

My life was interrupted by a health crisis in 2018, and many people did not believe me. I was battling a lot of shame. I took all the stress and walked briskly, then calmed down by a pond where a swan family lived to heal my mind, body, spirit and later my soul.

How appropriate Mr. and Mrs. Soul showed up in my life. I lived in a small town and did not have a vehicle and they were part of the volunteer drivers. They led to me learning so much history about the majestic swans. They were so eager to pass on knowledge to me that I took that passion and started advocating for the Trumpeters, even while my life was in crisis.

They had me over to their home and pond, which led to meeting their swans and hearing stories to warm my heart and essentially meeting the parents of my swan friends.

Photo of Myself with Norma and Jim Soul in 2019

Months later, it was very sudden to learn Mr. and Mrs. Soul sold their house and were moving. That day I was handed 40 pages of short stories from Mr. Soul. I learned Mr. Soul was so willing to pass on his notes of raising swans with his wife for 25 years that he learned a new skill of using the computer to hand me the short stories for the book I was writing of the Miracle Healing Swan Story.

Mr. Soul’s introduction to Trumpeter Swans…

Elegant, Graceful, Black-billed, Long-necked, Sasquatch-footed, Trusting, Inquisitive, Friends.

You see, our swans are part of our heritage, and their life was wiped out in Ontario in the late 1800s. Harry Lumdsen, who was a retired biologist, wanted to leave Ontario with the gift of returning the Trumpeters.

He found a colony in Alaska and brought six eggs here in 1982 and the swans have been a fragile return of the wild.

Hans Christian Andersen said the tale of the ugly duckling was his autobiography. He was an outcast all his life and his constant message was to find your own kind.

With a small community, the swans have succeeded in persevering and triumphing over Tragedy, which mirrored my life.

I had to break the lies that I was unlovable and mature into the swan. I took whatever energy was thrown at me and transmuted it.

The anger, rejection, and what seemed like betrayal, were training grounds for me.

Not only did I walk it out, I wrote it out and talked it out with my swan friends.

Photo of Cygnets July 2019

All went into a fuel tank that propelled me into a transformation process to create a new story where now I express gratitude for the experience.

Miracles are true and can happen in an instant, I hope my story has inspired someone whether you are young or old?

I wish to remind you: you are needed, and you are loved by many sources besides humans. Hang on and believe a helping hand makes the world go round.

Margarit Brigham ( my first public talk is on a video below)

aka Magical Margarita

p.s. Has a kindhearted stranger helped you with kindness? I Love to hear how?

Do you have a creature-teacher story to share too?