Seeing a pelican
Seeing a pelican puts two pictures side by side: the lonely "pelican of the wilderness" of an old psalm, and the real bird gliding over the swells and diving headfirst. Most people know both versions of themselves.
What it may mean
In the King James Bible, a psalm of distress says, "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert." The picture is a water bird stranded in dry country, about as forlorn as an image gets. Old writers added stranger stories; one English naturalist, quoted by Brand, repeated and rejected the tale that the pelican pierced its own breast to feed its young with blood. Anyone who has watched brown pelicans where they belong sees the opposite of forlorn: birds riding just above the swells without a wingbeat, then folding up and dropping headfirst into the sea. Most people carry both versions of themselves: the one stuck in a room where nothing fits and the one back in their own element. A pelican skimming the surf is that second version, completely at home.
Depending on how you saw it
A pelican diving headfirst
Brown pelicans plunge bill-first from as high as 60 feet, twisting at the last instant, and surface with a pouch full of water that they drain before swallowing. The dive looks reckless and is practiced. What would you dive for if you knew the water below was deep enough?
A pelican pressing its bill to its chest
To empty the pouch or settle its feathers, a pelican presses its long bill against its chest, and the red tip can look like a wound. That posture may lie behind the old story of a mother feeding her young with her own blood. Which story about you started from a moment someone misread?
Skimming the waves
Pelicans often fly a few feet above the water, rising and dipping with the swells and barely flapping, carried by the air moving over the surface. Which setting carries you along so easily that you hardly have to work?
Why it happens in nature
Brown pelicans live along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts and catch fish by plunge-diving from heights of up to about 60 feet; American white pelicans breed inland and fish from the surface. Both use the large throat pouch as a net and drain the water before swallowing. Brown pelicans were listed as endangered in the United States from 1970 until 2009, after DDT weakened their eggshells.
What folk beliefs say
Jewish and Christian scripture
In Psalm 102, the speaker in his distress says: "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert."
Source: King James Version, The King James Version of the Bible (Project Gutenberg #10) (1611), Psalm 102:6. View the page
England
An English natural history quoted by Brand called it a vulgar error that the pelican turns her beak against her breast and pierces it to feed her young with her blood, since the pelican's beak is broad and flat.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 367. View the page
To reflect on
Where do you feel like a water bird in dry country, and where is your water?