Teenage Hawk Energy

Red-tailed hawks have always felt like spiritual messengers to me. They are often interpreted as signs of heightened intuition, divine messaging, and an invitation to step back and see the bigger picture.

I painted this after a major spiritual awakening.

I was on a road trip when I saw 13 red-tailed hawks in a remarkably short amount of time. At the same time, I was listening to one of my favorite spiritual readers, who was talking about having “teenage hawk energy.”

Juvenile red-tailed hawks haven't yet developed the iconic scalloped patterning on their under feathers. Their voices sound different, too. They are still becoming the birds they will eventually be.

But they are no less magnificent.

Nobody looks at a teenage hawk and thinks, “What an underdeveloped bird.” We look up and think, “Wow. Look at that badass bird.”

That idea found me at exactly the right moment.

By then, I had already done an immense amount of personal work. I had spent years in therapy and had been sober for about a decade. I had worked hard to understand myself, confront my wounds, and heal. Emotionally, I felt like I was at the top of my game.

And yet, I was just beginning.

For years, I had been an atheist. I couldn't reconcile the idea of a higher power with all the pain and hatred in the world. I couldn't understand how something greater could exist alongside so much suffering, so I wrote the whole idea off.

Then something began to shift.

As I opened myself to spirituality, I started seeing my experiences through a different lens. I began to explore energy, synchronicity, and the possibility that even our most painful experiences can become opportunities to learn and grow. I started to understand how contrast shapes our experience of the world. Without pain, how would we understand compassion? Without sadness, how would we recognize joy? Sometimes, the hardest experiences teach us lessons we couldn't have learned any other way.

But this awakening wasn't just about discovering something greater than myself. It was also about learning to embrace everything within myself.

For a long time, I tried to project an image of perfection. I only wanted to be the version of myself that other people would see as acceptable, good, and worthy of love. I honored the parts of myself that fit that image while trying to suppress the parts that didn't. I wanted to believe that if I worked hard enough on myself, I could somehow make my shadow disappear.

But I couldn't. And I don't think any of us can.

The moon in this painting represents my shadow self, the parts of me I once tried to hide or deny. The outstretched wing hovering over it represents the realization that my shadow will always be with me. She isn't something I can heal away or leave behind. She is part of me.

There can be no light without darkness. Neither exists in isolation, and both are part of the whole. My shadow doesn't make me less worthy, less evolved, or less beautiful. I can continue to heal, learn, and grow without being ashamed of the parts of myself that don't fit society's idea of what a good person should be.

For me, this is what self-love really means. Not loving only the parts of myself that are easy to show the world, but embracing myself in my entirety. Even the complicated parts. Even the uncomfortable parts. Even the parts I once believed would make me unworthy of acceptance.

The hawks became spiritual reminders for me. Today, I welcome their appearances as little nudges that I'm on the right path, that I'm loved, and that I'm held by something greater than myself.

But mostly, they remind me of two things.

I can be a total badass and still have room to grow.

And I don't have to be perfect to be magnificent.

Like the teenage hawk, I am still becoming. And like the moon beneath its outstretched wing, every part of me belongs.

I believe every part of every person has a place in the unfolding of who we are. Our evolution isn't about erasing the parts of ourselves we find difficult to accept. It's about learning to understand them, integrate them, and love ourselves as whole human beings.

We don't have to finish becoming to deserve love.

We are already whole, even while we grow.