Sunday, August 6, 2006 - Owl Eyes

The woods lay soft and muffled by the oncoming storm. Nothing stirred ~ even the pine needles gave way to my shoes without protest. I chose the westerly deer trail midway down the bowl, rounding a thicket of bearberries just above a broken tree. Suddenly, soundlessly, a Great Gray Owl rose from her perch on the stump and disappeared into the woods on whispering wings.

She was huge, nearly as tall as the broken pine, which had splintered about three feet from the ground. Never one to ignore blatant omens, I finished my hike, then looked her up the moment I got back to my computer.

As it turns out, my intuitive gender specification, “she,” was correct. Owls have been connected with the Divine Feminine, the moon and the night since the Old Stories were told around peat fires. Owl is about mystery, vision and magic ~ the silent messenger between the obvious and the illusion.

Many clairvoyants possess “owl magic.”

Most specifically and universally, the owl represents “the sight beyond illusion.” Owl people have the gift (or curse) of hearing, not what is said by others, but what lies hidden in their words. Those over-sized owl wings are necessary to elevate the “seer” above the disenchantment of “white lies,” small deceits, and out-and-out bald-facers that inhabit the daily discourse of human interaction.

She is silent, too. Just as owls are bedecked with fringed, downy feathers along the front edge of their wings to mute their flight, Owl people also have the gift of silence. Many an unspoken ”B.S.!” and “give me a break” pace endlessly within the Owl person’s mind, because her “secret-keeper” temperament will not let her speak them.

Wise ones say that Owl comes into one’s life to signal the need to open one’s eyes and study the situation at hand. One needs to silently observe and discern truth from fallacy ~ to trust one’s own intuition, which does not lie, rather than the human ego, which does. Finally, it is said that Owl spreads her healing wings to comfort those who are wounded by their own self-deceit.

Pretty heavy stuff. A Great Gray Owl took my breath away with her sheer magnificence. Beyond that. . . I cannot say.

A little footnote: This morning, I hiked early to be back before the rain sets in. I took a different path, looking for a sittable log from which to observe the valley. Purportedly, a new family of Lynx moved into the valley, and I would love to see them. Anyway, as I settled down on a smooth log, I noticed an owl feather nestled beside it. Evidently, Owl will make sure that I remember the lesson.