there will be dragons…and owls

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.