by susan | Apr 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
a couple years ago I had an encounter with an owl. it swooped across my chest as I was cycling one dark, pre-dawn morning, which scared and excited and thrilled me. I’d been in the midst of heartbreak and despair, and the message I took from this experience was, there is more to come. everything will be okay. life will continue to present you with opportunities to expand, to experience awe and wonder.
today I again sit with heartbreak. and twice during the past few days I have seen an owl, perched on a branch of a tree, near that 2019 encounter. while one message could be that there are owls everywhere, I choose to take it as a reminder that life is everywhere, life continues, life will always offer me opportunities to expand, to experience awe and wonder.
and yes, there are dragons.
here be dragons is the english translation of “hic sunt dracones,” a phrase purported to have been written on maps, long ago, to denote uncharted territories–potentially dangerous and filled with monsters, serpents, and unknown evils. one intrepid researcher found not a single ancient map to have those words written upon it, but did find the words upon a globe built in 1510. regardless, the phrase represents all the potential pitfalls out there in the unknown.
I like the idea of dragons in our uncharted, unknown reaches. we know they’re there. what we forget is that we are all, at heart, dragon tamers. we rediscover courage when we remember this piece of who we are.
and then the owls. they are there, too. to remind us that life is filled with the spectacular, the unexpected, the curious. albert einstein is credited with telling us that we may either consider that nothing in life is a miracle, or that everything in life is a miracle.
live the latter.
by susan | Oct 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
deep, dark morning, while most slumber, is a bewitching time of day up my canyon. deer lower their heads to graze, porcupines waddle along the edge of the road, coyotes trot through sage and grass, crickets sing, songbirds hail one another, owls look down and peruse their kingdoms.
during late spring and early fall the sun gradually lightens the landscape as I ride, and I seek silhouettes and vague forms that delineate as I near. as fall stretches forward and the days shorten, I attune to sound alone, as my vision is limited to the small cone thrown by my front bicycle light.
with any bit of light, I’ve learned to search for owls atop spindly, lifeless trees, and now know which trees are most often inhabited by these predators. at times an owl calls and I am kept, by the dark, from spotting it; instead I experience a spark of joy from the challenge of pinpointing, sightless, its perch. owls are there; they watch me pass.
one early october morning, I crested the summit, and coasted down toward the reservoir. as the road leveled and turned south, I resumed pedaling. well behind me, still at the summit, approaching headlights shot downhill.
a large shadow—dark against dark—appeared far to my left, a strange effect of the headlights, I thought. then the shadow moved closer, again in my peripheral vision, an illusion, perhaps. the shadow was then shockingly close, my nerves tingled, and suddenly an owl swept across me, left to right, its wings and torso millimeters from my head and arms. brown, darker brown, a pattern almost striped, I impossibly felt its feathers against my skin, its body against my own.
gone.
I pedaled.
the truck passed me, its headlights piercing the opacity.
I rode to the reservoir, jubilant, astonished. I turned and began my trek home.
jubilant.
astonished.
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