An Owl Story...

There’s something about hearing the hoo of an owl at night that makes my heart coo…

Around 5pm on Thanksgiving evening I was sitting at my desk, reading blogs :), when I heard the gentle, rhythmic hoo-ing sound of an owl. I could tell it was close. My curiosity got the better of me and I went from window to window to see if I could find where the sound was coming from. I thought for sure it must have been on the roof. B thought it was in one of the neighbor’s trees. We felt like we at least located the general direction it was coming from, so like a couple of kids, we decided to go looking. We went around to the side of the house where the hoos echoed between our house and the neighbor’s like an echo in a canyon. As we walked, the dry leaves cracked under our feet. We were afraid we’d scare it away, so we stopped and just listened. Again we heard the strong, rhythmic hoo-ing sounds. In the distance we also heard the faint hoo-ing of 2 other owls. All three calling out to each other in the darkness… Magic was underfoot… Well that and the cracking leaves… We tried again to move closer to the sound…

I’m sure the owl spotted us, even though we couldn’t spot it, because the hoo-ing stopped. Darn…

In our curiosity and need to pursue it, we evidently scared it off. If I had just stayed “inside”, silent and listening, I could have enjoyed the mysterious sounds a little longer – but the innocent desire to attain the *experience* called me out of stillness… Hmmm – interesting…

Pondering the experience in “The Cave” last night produced this…

Song of night,
the mysterious owl’s gentle hoo,
echoes its call:
pay attention,
listen,
don’t move…

In stillness
the owl *sees*,
acutely aware of
the slightest move,
the faintest sound;
everything perceived…

Silent in its night flight,
only the sound of its call,
dissolving in thin air -
appearing and disappearing…

Awareness, awareing it all…

This morning at breakfast, B said what he heard was a pattern in the hoos of the owl. Morse code to be exact… Yes, the Mystic and the Analyst – both poetry in motion, heard differently. He said in the rhythm of the owl’s hoo-ing he heard the Morse code sounds for the letters: E-U-T-T, which he translated for himself to mean: Experience Ultimate Transformational Tranquility… In other words, he said:

Be at Peace…

The call of Nature…

~~~~~~