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Come meander with me on the pathless path of the Heart
in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...

Friday, November 26, 2010

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…

~~~~~~



8 comments:

  1. What a beautiful story...thank you Christine. There was a similar experience here with early morning sound from the chimes right outside my bedroom window. The combination of reverberating notes were so beautiful that they seemed unreal as to happen 'on their own.' How could something so heavenly come from a set of chimes reacting to the wind? Then there was this motion to experience the experience :O
    To see what heard those sounds...Doh!
    The motto: Stay still.
    XOXO
    -Leslie

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  2. And maybe to see who *played* the sounds? :)

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  3. There is something so ethereal, almost otherworldly about the call of an owl. It does get you up from your chair to open the door for a closer listen. The owls around here sound slightly like a dog's bark at first and then there is that rhythmic sound to them.

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  4. "And maybe to see who *played* the sounds? :)"
    YES!!! When I was listening there was the listening with body and soul, so to speak, and there was the heart that gratefully recognized the Source. Thanks you for pointing out this experience Dear Christine :)
    XOXO

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  5. ZDS ~ Sightings like this connect me with "The Mystery" of life - however one knows that to be - the "Sacred", the True Nature, type thing; ie: what's behind all this that we are living here. It helps remind me of why we're here - to Remember "Hoo" we are at the deepest level of our Being - beyond our beliefs, our thoughts, our struggles, our challenges...

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  6. Leslie ~ Glad to hear your heart singing :)
    Love, C

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  7. I love this! Your poem is exquisite. We have been visited by owls (different ones) 4 times since August!!! such a blessing to hear them...they always feel like messengers to me...the 4th was an absolute confirmation for me that it is time to take my seat as a spiritual director.

    gentle steps

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  8. Thank you Laura - and congratulations! :) I have always thought that you are a natural "teacher."

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