Time Travel for a Dollar After searching my pockets for gas money, all I found was a dollar. From the looks of it, this buck had seen a lot of miles – but I guess I wouldn't be seeing too many. How far could I get on a dollar? Then something behind George's frozen gaze caught my eye. I'd seen it a thousand times before, but now I wondered how that eagle ever landed on the money in the first place. I was soon to find out, as a distant voice began to penetrate my long-dulled by cathode-ray-tube consciousness. The Eagle Speaks "With Zeus I descended from Olympus into mortal fields of play – to raise Caesars from their funeral pyres and bring Soma, Indra's liquid fire. In Egyptian hieroglyphics I am A, the origin, the day. "These honors rightfully belong to my old-world cousins, for I am the American Bald Eagle. My headdress is the color of the Sun. My allies are the thunderbolt and the rainbow. My feathers, a blessing to medicine men and a boon to warriors. My flight, a prayer rising and grace descending. "I soared above the valleys of your grandfathers' great grandfathers, adrift on warm thermals fragrant with summer rain. Lifted by an upward urge, in ecstasy I flew. "I remember the day my journey began to become the emblem of your nation – many thousand moons ago in the year you call 1737, in the woodlands the English called Penn's Sylvania. For a day and a half, three men ran through Lenape homeland. What was to be a walking purchase took twice the land promised. The Lenape people lost their favored hunting grounds. Later, others lost much more. "Twenty summers passed until a man of truth listened to the Lenapes. He helped their voices reach the English island King. Peace was restored for awhile between the colonizers and tribes. This man was an outsider, but the Lenapes saw him as their brother and adopted him, sharing secrets of centuries and the mystery of my kinship with Native Americans. "This young man carried my vision throughout his life. As an elder, he found himself at the center of a whirlwind that became a Revolution. His name was Charles Thomson, and he honored his knowledge by choosing my image to help bind the new Americans into one nation. He placed me on your Great Seal. Gave me a bundle of brave arrows and a branch from the tree of peace. "I first landed on that peculiar paper you call money during your Civil War. Then in the midst of your World Wars, I shared the greenback with the pyramid whose eye is far seeing like mine. "For those who say I represent power and might, I tell you that is not me. I am more of harmony and height, soaring spirit and joy of freedom. Yes, I have strength – so I can nourish the young nesting atop great pines and upon steep cliffs. "Let me be a living reminder, a messenger of unity from the Grandfathers of your nation. You are one with your ancestors, one with your descendants, one with creatures of earth, water, and sky – even the rooted ones. Remember this, and let your heart soar with the spirit of the Eagle." Bald eagle artwork courtesy of Cy Hundley, artist of Eagle Rising. This Musing with Mac by John D. MacArthur was published in 1999 by the Franklin Institute.