At Winter Solstice - Dolores Stewart

Art by Valerie Claff
www.valerieclaff.com

Winter Owl hoots three times in the far woods,
fair warning for all small creatures
scurrying to their burrows.

Are we not still and always
those crouching figures
who flee the heavenly alchemy?
Three times in the crackling air,
Owl hoots for us.

*

Wind plays the drums of snow...
staccato taps
crescendo off the roofs,
flourish of shuddering branches.
Ice snaps its castanets,
its daggers.

Atonal music of the darkest days
needs the most fearless,
subtle listeners.

*

Those strumming flamenco 
fingers of sunlight
are a long time away now.

Now we go comforted
in dreams and ceremonies
flaming our star-speck candles,

raising our voices against that other music,
drowning out the forever
at night's heart.

*

Look up!  The wheel is turning.
The spectacular crowd of stars,
the tangle of dimensions
jostle for our attention.
Salute the birth of everything holy.

Dolores Steward (Riccio)

with thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know

~

Photo - Art by Valerie Claff

 

Twilight Owls...

I wish I had a better picture for you, to show my two very enchanting experiences this week with two different owls in our neighborhood, but you’ll just have to trust me. All I have to show for it is this silhouetted picture of a small owl. That would be the little dark blob in the photo of the tree. :) The other one was a huge Great Horned Owl perched in our next door neighbor’s tree, very close to our house. There is such a sacred feeling to be able to view wildlife in a residential neighborhood like this (besides rabbits, squirrels and hawks). And if I hadn’t been out on my walk I would not have seen the smaller owl. In fact I nearly missed it…

As I walked down the sidewalk my husband approached from the opposite direction in the car, as he was coming back from errands. He stopped, we briefly spoke, and I continued on my walk. However, I realized I had the garage door opener, and turned around and headed back. I waved to him to show that I had it, and he started walking towards me. Suddenly he started running towards me, which I found strange. I thought maybe we were going to have one of those magical romantic moments in slow motion that you only see in the movies. And I waited – but no – my mistake…

As he reached me and I handed off the opener he said to me – “Have I got a surprise for you” – peaking my intrigue – a surprise?! And he couldn’t wait until I got home?! After all we had just talked. But he just had to run to tell me now?! With a look of innocent wonder on his face, he pointed up at a tree across the street and said - “There’s your owl” – as if presenting me with a gift. He was - the gift of awareness, the gift of seeing what I had previously missed, and the gift of childlike amazement seen in his eyes. Priceless. He meant it was the owl we thought we had been looking for since hearing it last Summer.

I am hard of hearing and hadn’t heard the soft, gentle hoo-ing when I passed by this owl just a moment before. We both stood in amazement, and of course I whipped out the camera, and managed to get a few shots before it spotted us and suddenly flew off – which I almost missed because I had the camera in front of my face! We stood together for a moment marveling. My husband turned and walked back to the house, and I turned and continued on my twilight walk – in joyful wonderment at such a “romantic” moment -with the owl that is. As I walked, I marveled at the Mystery of Life living ItSelf all around me, in sunsets, and moon risings, on the ground, in the trees, and the winged ones that perch in them…

After I got back from my twilight walk the next evening, where you can be sure I was searching the trees for another view, my husband heard an owl hoo-ing close by. So we went out to look for it and followed the sound. We knew it was very close. It was dusk, but light enough to see the image against the liminally-lit sky. And with binoculars I could tell it was a Great Horned Owl, with its characteristic ear tufts, and a white neck ruffle – like a wise old judge from the Forest. It hooed a few more times from his perch high up in a cottonwood, seemingly unaware of our presence, and then quietly flew off with its elegant and swooping wide wing span. I do believe it was the Great Horned Owl that we heard last Summer and Fall. And maybe the smaller owl we saw the other night was the female version, as this is the beginning of their mating season. Ah ha! Romance *is* in the air! I am falling in love with Nature!

I am strangely comforted knowing that this incredible world of nature is just outside my door, teeming with Life. I am enamored with the idea that I may be living in Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood and haven’t even realized it – till now. So much goes on in nature all the time that we’re never really aware of, unless we put ourselves in a position and frame of mind to really *see* it… And to think that I don’t have to go off into the wilderness somewhere and wait for hours to spot it! I can’t imagine that I’ve missed all this beauty all these years by not paying attention and not being out at this time of day – the liminal time, where the subtleties of Life reveal themselves.

Last October we recorded and posted the mysterious sound of the owl that had been visiting so often at night. I thought I’d post it again here. Enjoy the lullaby :)

“small stone”

Small hoo-ing, coo-ing owl
sitting in gnarly branches
silhouetted in dusky light…

Swoops off to other perches,
other haunts,
leaving the echo of
her mysterious hooes
behind…

Awakens imagination…

Sacred Signals...

Last week we were visited by an Owl three times in 4 days. I cannot tell you the feeling of sacredness that it elicits in me to hear the sound of an owl hoo-ing overhead at 12:30 am in the silence of the night. One night it sounded as if it was sitting on our roof, or at least in one of the trees that overhangs our roof.

Last week was particularly challenging – and continues on into this week. I reached a low point emotionally and spiritually due to the pull of the unconscious family dynamic (despite dancing squirrels and chirping crickets) and found myself praying for some “assistance” – dare I say for a “sign.” Oh dear… a sign?! Fatigue had settled in, and the felt sense of Divine Presence within receded. Sometimes the unconscious seems to drown it out. I am amazed at how easily I fall back into the sea of unconscious habituated patterns and cycles. And in doing so there was an emotional “surrender” of sorts, where I knew I couldn’t continue to rely on my own ego-strength, all those wonderful coping mechanisms I constructed over the years, but must give in to the workings of The Sacred Mystery. I’m discovering that is actually a good thing, as painful as it is, as it returns my awareness to a more authentic place of “openness” – not just in words, or theory, but in the depths of my being; not that I am at peace, or without fear and anxiety. I continue to deal with these latent tendencies on a daily basis, but… How do I explain… There was, in that moment of surrender last week, just a simple sense of allowing everything to be as it is. And in that moment of surrender, there was a sense of relaxation - noticing that everything *is* the way it is anyway. Life just lives – just unfolds. I mean, if you look at nature you see that Life just lives ItSelf. I know I’ve mentioned this before. I begin to see this more clearly - and then I lose sight of it again.

I couldn’t help but feel that the Owl showing up was my “sign” - a kind of sacred signal, if there is such a thing– like when we find little stone hearts along our path, or we hear or read just the right “teaching” that addresses an issue we are struggling with, or read an inspiring blog, or find a feather. Maybe there is a Supreme Intelligence that hears – maybe Existence cares deeply and compassionately for life – hears every sound, sees every movement, like the owl - and answers. I would like to believe that, rather than the belief in an impersonal, uncaring Emptiness. But my beliefs don’t really matter. I’m just interested in seeing how Life communicates with ItSelf – because everything we encounter is Life communicating with ItSelf…

The Owl came two nights before, the night before, and the night after my sister’s surgery last Thursday. It was as if “The Beloved” ItSelf had shown up to sing Its sacred song… It was a haunting, yet comforting sound as it echoed through the night; crickets singing backup.

As I listened to the patterned “hoos” (not hoots) I thought of the owl just sitting up there, watching, observing, listening, hearing, seeing *everything* in and through the darkness, illuminating the darkness with her in-sight; seeing the totality of everything from her vantage point. Good metaphor in these hectic days of feeling more contracted than expanded, needing a little objectivity, needing to see the bigger picture, needing equanimity, needing to wait on inner wisdom from a deep place of knowing before acting. It reminded me that I *can* find that place of inner Stillness within, again and again, if I get really quiet and listen to it. I know I *know* this, but with each life challenge it’s as if I have to find it all over again.

Hearing the sound, my heart felt cocooned in the echoes of the Owl’s Sacred song… It was as if it was calling me to drop into the Heart of Being and wrap myself in the Mantle of the Mystery, to remember this space and “stabilize” there (was the word that came), deepening into the sense of the Silent Knowing within again. I hope she comes back… Am sure I’ll need more reminders…

I thought I’d share a little of the Owl’s song. We had to shorten the intervals between hoos because they were too long. Her hoo-ing lasted an hour.

~

“Trust that a thread of Love operates
in everything
and listen deeply for this Love…

Existence listens
when we connect
from the Heart…”

Adyashanti

~

Just be available
unbounded
unfettered
unencumbered
(a post-it note)

~

“Love lurks in the white water”
(of the rapids of life).

Leslie Read

~

“There is a spontaneous and
benevolent power
behind the unfolding
play of the world…

Whatever you are pushing against
flows in effortless harmony…”

Mooji

Read an interview with Mooji

~

Photo: I have no idea what bird this feather
is from. If you can identify it, please do!

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…

~~~~~~