By Lindy Gifford

A doe deer has been visiting our yard. Browsing on the tall grass that boarders the woods and even venturing down the mown path, eying our garden. I’ve been wondering if she had a fawn hidden safe in the woods, which she does not take on these risky expeditions into human territory.

Last Tuesday there was very heavy rain over a short period of time in Midcoast Maine, where I live, and several places on the road to South Bristol washed out. In the evening as the rain slowed, I walked down to the stream behind our house to witness it roaring down it's little valley and flooding all the low land around it. Then I heard it. I knew immediately what that sound was—the heart-rending sound of a child crying for her Mama.

When I followed the sound, I found a young fawn, all alone, and she was crying piteously. I think the doe I had seen earlier that day was her mother and I think they were separated by the flooding stream. The fawn saw me and stopped crying. She took a few tentative steps toward me, as if to say, “Can you help me?” but then thought better of it and bounced back into the woods. I said a prayer for her and promised to check on her the next day.

When I returned the next morning to where I had seen her, she was gone. The stream was back inside its banks and I think the doe and even the fawn could cross it safely. In the fresh mud where the high water had been, I saw foot prints of a grown deer. I believe the fawn and her mother had been reunited.

It was a notable interaction. Whenever I have such an interaction with animals—or a plant, or even a rock—I sit up and take notice. I try to stop and ponder what has happened and the lessons it might hold for me.

A fawn always speaks to us humans of pure innocence. This little fawn was afraid, separated from her mother. Wondering how she could possibly cross the turbulent stream to get to her. In the Celtic tradition the hind or female deer had access to the fairy kingdom and was a spiritual guide to humans.

These days, the frightened child in me finds it very easy to identify with the fawn, terrified by the turbulence, crying for her mother. But our Mother is there, we may feel we cannot reach her, but she is faithful and will not leave us. The waters will recede and we will be reunited with her. She will come for us and guide us through the troubled waters—if we listen and pay attention to her messengers, like the fawn and her mother. They remind me that I am not lost and I am not alone.

Lindy Gifford is an artist, photographer, graphic designer, creative coach, and writer, ordained an interfaith chaplain in 2015 by the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME). A life-long Unitarian Universalist, she is rooted in daily interaction with and connection to the Earth and Creation, as well as the Christian and pre-Christian heritage of her ancestors. She is the author of the Doodle-ography Journal. Her spirit-based practice as a creative coach and publishing consultant is Manifest Identity. Lindy lives on and learns from the Damariscotta River where she and her husband Steve raised two shining daughters.

Fawn photo by Jax

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