Looking for the Quebrantahuesos
You on the Path,
It’s late in the evening and I'm typing from my living room, with my barefoot hiking shoes waiting by the door and my backpack ready for tomorrow’s journey! I’m off to the Picos de Europa - a place I visited only once when I was 12 years old. I have the best memories from that family trip, but that was 5 years before I started trekking, and now I can’t wait to go explore that side of the Picos! On this trip I will also be searching for a special guide and teacher: the quebrantahuesos - the bearded vulture.
This magnificent bird disappeared from the Picos de Europa in 1956, when it was hunted to local extinction. But since 2010 they've been coming back home through a careful reintroduction program. In March 2020, for the first time in 70 years, a bearded vulture chick hatched in the Picos de Europa - her name is Bienvenida, meaning "Welcome." Today, around 26 of these beautiful beings soar over the peaks again, relearning their territory, reclaiming their place in the web of life.
I've been feeling called to connect with them, to sit in their presence, to learn what they have to teach me about returning home, and waking up into Life once again.
Eclipse Season Stirrings
The timing of this vulture’s calling feels significant. It's eclipse season, that amazing time of the year when Life flows with more focus and strength, determined to realign us with a Path that wants to be ours. Isn’t it funny that Saturn is involved in this eclipse and I’m going after a bird who eats bones, while Saturn rules bones. Then because Mercury rules Virgo, where this eclipse happens, so it’s no surprise that lately I’ve been having really important conversations. They all bring some sort of invitation. Of opening up new ways of thinking, revealing new interests, and suggesting meaningful shifts in perspective. Recently I hosted a hardcore wanderer from back in the day, just like me, and our conversations about what it means to keep saying yes to the unknown woke up something very vital & essential in both of us. We both came to a place of traveling less, but continue completely committed to exploring beyond.
In my last letter, I wrote about the Virgo-Pisces axis calling us to balance our careful planning with deep surrender. These eclipses are making that invitation more urgent. They're asking: What wants to be realigned in your life? What do you need to let go of? What new things want to come in? What wants to return that you may have forgotten about? What is wanting to have space in your life that you may be blocking out? If you surrender a little more, do you see something new arriving?
The Art of Seeking
Tomorrow I'll be on my way to walking the high mountain paths where the great quebrantahuesos birds have learned to trust the air currents again, where they've remembered again how to be wild and free and belong.
There's something unique about seeking a specific animal in the wild. It's not like planning a route or booking accommodation - those are things I can control. Finding the quebrantahuesos requires a different kind of attention. I need to move slowly, listen deeply, watch the sky with patience - much like directing my attention to the object of meditation when I sit in my cushion.
These birds have a wingspan reaching nearly 3 meters. They're the only vultures in the world that feed primarily on bones - not competing with other scavengers but finding their own unique niche in the ecosystem.
To witness them, I need to slow down to mountain time. I need to make space.
Making space. That's what's been echoing in me lately. In a rushing, achievement-focus, do-do-do culture, it’s easy to forget that some of the most important things only reveal themselves when we create genuine spaciousness. Not just in our schedules, but in our nervous systems, in our minds, and in our hearts. In our way of being present, with the choice of where we focus our attention.
Conversations Across Species
Through my decades of nomadic living, I realized that some of our most profound teachers aren't human. The mountains have taught me about patience. The ocean about cycles and flow. The desert about space and mirage. The otters about fun. The dolphins about joy. The whales about depth. The horses about sensitivity. The trees about roots.
I'm curious what the quebrantahuesos might teach me. Maybe something about coming back home, finding your place in the ecosystem again, about soaring without struggle. Maybe other things.
When did we start believing that wisdom is a human quality? When did we forget that we're part of an interconnected web where every creature has so much to offer? Maybe that too, can come back from near extinction.
Three Kinds of Conversation
Lately I've been thinking about three types of conversation and noticing what eclipse season is bringing:
Inner conversation - The dialogue with ourselves that happens when we finally get quiet enough to hear what's really moving beneath the surface. What wants to shift? What's ready to be released? What's calling to come home? Who am I becoming? How do I smoothly allow myself to transform?
Interpersonal conversation - I’m loving the kind of exchange I've been having with the travelers staying here, where we drop the small talk and say what's true to us, trusting it will be welcomed. Where we share our fears, our longings, our sense that life is asking something new of us.
Interspecies conversation - The wordless communication that happens when we remember we're part of something larger. When we sit with trees, watch birds, swim with dolphins, feel the intelligence of the land. When we let other beings teach us about being alive.
All three require making space. Creating genuine openness for whatever wants to emerge. Time and space to listen. Trust in the message and in the messenger.
The Practical Dance
So here's what I'm carrying into the mountains tomorrow, and what I'm inviting you to explore during the second half of this eclipse season:
Make space for inner listening. Not just meditation or journaling - though those are beautiful - but actual spaciousness in your days. Moments where you're not producing or achieving or even thinking particularly hard. Where you can feel what's stirring beneath the surface.
Risk authentic conversation. With your partner, your friends, your children, a fellow traveler, a friend of a friend, a neighbour, someone at the café. What would you say if you knew they could handle your real thoughts? What do you need in order to try that realness? What questions have you been afraid to ask?
Spend time with other-than-human teachers. Sit with a tree. Watch birds. Watch the ocean tides. Stare at a flower. Feel the rhythms of the land. Let yourself remember that you're part of an incredible web of intelligence, and not all of it speaks in words.
Trust life's larger knowing. This is the Pisces invitation within the current eclipse cycle. Sometimes the plans of our small self need to bow to what Life is orchestrating. Often the best thing we can do is get out of our own way.
Surrendering to Larger Intelligence
As I prepare for tomorrow's trip, I can't control whether I'll see the quebrantahuesos. I can't force a mystical moment or guarantee a profound teaching. All I can do is show up fully, move slowly, open my heart, focus my attention, and know that whatever happens is perfect as it is - it’s Life.
This is what the Pisces end of the Virgo-Pisces axis teaches us: after we've done our human part (packed the bag, studied the bird, chosen the route), we can surrender to the Mystery. We can trust that Life knows what she's doing, even when our small self feels uncertain.
Maybe this eclipse season is asking you to do something similar. To take your careful human steps and then... let go. To prepare as best you can and then trust that you're being guided by an intelligence far greater than your individual will.
An Invitation
As I was finishing this letter, one more incredible conversation popped up in my living room. Another traveler, so many things to share. Things shared with timing too perfect for human doing. That sense of grace. Also a shift in how I told a story of a past relationship from which I’ve learned so much, a deeper sinking into so much shared love (and for me the past eclipse was in the 7th house of committed partners).
Now back to you, to say that I'll be walking those mountain paths with all of you in my heart, carrying the intention that whatever wants to shift during this eclipse season can move through us with grace and softness.
I hope you too are having conversations that stir your own inner landscape.
Until we meet again,
Rita ✨
P.S. The quebrantahuesos live for over 30 years and mate for life, performing aerial dances together. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is show up with patience and wonder, trusting that what needs to find us will find us when we're truly ready to receive it.
