On March 28, 2023, nearly a year ago, I published my first owl post.
Owl, of the great horned variety, had showed up for me after Mom’s death, on 3/23/23. It will be the anniversary of her death a week from the day this posts. I go through these touchpoints because time is shifting sand and it sifts away and away and away.
Do not try to hold it, I remind myself.
Owl has made its appearance a few more times this year (here, here, and here) and its medicine has been the instigation of this newsletter.
Owl is a friend of the night, the time of danger and darkness—uncertainty. Owl flies silently and symbolizes the unseen, the magic side of life. She is observant, using her sensitive hearing, and ability to see in the dark with great peripheral vision and super neck flexibility. Owl hones in on her prey, able to narrow in and pounce on it without a sound, even in the dark or when it is buried beneath deep snow.
So Owl has become the symbol of the First Quarter Moon here, and it leads the subject matter for these posts. I have some posts in the works for future First Quarter Moons and today’s is a link post, specifically of Bill Davison’s work, who I recently encountered on Substack. Once I saw his beautiful nature photos, I had to share his owl posts.
This one talks about great horned owl behavior, along with other types, the mythology of owls, and reviews a book called “What an Owl Knows.”
This one about putting a screech owl nest box in the yard.
And this one about great snowy owls jogged an old memory of the only time I have seen them. It was my second summer at Glacier National Park. During our free time, park employees would go on wild car trips and late one night, driving beneath the dark skies of the Blackfoot reserve, just our headlights beaming out over the rolling lowlands. When three white figures rose to the air, as the lights swung back to the single lane highway ahead. They lifted straight up, silently, as if gossamer ghosts. And then gone. Ethereal. A dream memory from far in my past. We stopped at the side of the road and got out of the car and stood there staring up into the night sky, but they were gone, and our glimpse of another world had past.
Our reward for being out on the roads at night.
Here’s an owl post with gorgeous photos from a birdwatching encounter with a short-eared owl.
And while I was collecting this, he published yet another on rescuing an owl:
Perhaps if you get out at night, you will be rewarded.