Owl

I finished my chat with my old, dear friend last night (his parting words were to watch out for men who claim they are sensitive to women's issues and so understand what we go through--unless proven otherwise, with time and experience, it usually is just a ploy to get in someone's pants or, on the part of nut jobs, an effort at "grooming" so as to get the other person's guard down).

"Don't worry; I just learned that one in spades a few months ago," I said, and signed off.  I realize now after a little over 6 months that I am badly scarred by this tremendous hurt; like the death of my mother and sister and son, I probably will carry this scar lifelong. In real healing, not just the inane huckster stupidity that passes for healing in my hippie town, a scar is acceptable--it's what you allow the scar to do to you, or not do, that counts. One can live a life carrying a scar.

Realizing that there are people in the world who will do nothing but take and take, whose whole life is one big swath of self-interest and self-gain: I do not understand that.  I did not come here for myself alone: I realized that one a long time ago.  I think it is the human condition and the reason we are here, the reason we are stewards of the planet.  If you live your life for yourself alone, that is what you will be: all alone.  How to change that?  Forgive yourself and the other person for all their flaws, because we are all flawed.  Forgive anyone who has ever hurt you.  Don't take forever to say you are sorry, really sorry, without any justifications: people want to hear those things and usually will not be mean at all.  Forgive and be in the world now, be in this day and be present.  There really is only now, this day and this hour.  I am not perfect in the forgiveness department, but I am trying to work on it.

At any rate, I went outside and sat doing my "night listening" meditation. It was one of the most beautiful nights I've seen in recent memory, so silvery-blue with moonlight, and so deep with shadows. The creek is still running high and fast, so I could hear that.  Then, down by the creek, I heard it: a great horned owl, calling over and over, its sound echoing eerily off the stone banks of the creek (it runs in a little canyon).  I hope it is looking for a mate; that would be wonderful, a pair of nesting great horned owls and a pair of nesting screech owls.

I have not heard an owl for many years.  My other house has a mating pair right in the trees, and when they call, all night, in their beautiful, bass duet, it is astounding.

The owl called for a couple of hours and I stood in true rapture, trying to pull myself into the center of its song.  I had a mental vision of it as an old, grey hermit of the forest, in a cloak of feathers and with eyes like lanterns.  And the creek and the rocks resounded with echoes; I imagined every drop of water and every stone holding the thrum of the owl's voice.  I wanted to walk to the edge of the meadow that is the backyard

As my life progresses, I become closer and closer to the forest and its inhabitants.  Years ago, I used to call to an owl that lived in the trees where our barbecue grill was (I used to grill delicious salmon and vegetable skewers for my kids and me when CG was on business trips to Asia).  I still like grilling food, but only veggies now (and letting the salmon grow and live in the creek, and the sea where eventually they will go).  I learned to hoot like an owl, and it would hoot back.  We used to have great owl-Joanie "conversations" until the owl went away forever.  Someone told me that if you hoot to an owl, it will leave the area forever, eventually, because owls are somewhat territorial.

I also remembered the time when I was a young woman, alone with a small child to raise, my husband gone (such a brief time of peace and focus only on my little boy and at night, my writing and quilting).  My little boy often woke in the night and I would nestle him in bed with me; he was only 18 months old.  One night, a full, moonlit night, I heard my first owl: it must have been right in the tree outside my house, because the whole house echoed with it.  We lived in a little cabin above our local river, the San Lorenzo, and like my creek, the walls of the river were, and are, stone.  The owl's deep, slow calls echoed back and forth from river to forest and back again for what seemed like forever, and I was held in the silver rapture of moonlight and song; it was a baptism.  I got up to write immediately; what I wrote that night eventually became the first poem I ever published in Santa Cruz.

I hope that old grey spirit of the forest returns tonight.