The Owl is the Doorway Into the Unknown

West Coast owl

Two weeks after my mother’s death in 1994, I was driving past the forest on my way to her small farm. I was thinking of her, of all the words we did not say, the misperceptions, misunderstandings, subjects we could not talk about. In our lifetime, it had always been that way. At her death, I had released it all, so she could pass in peace. I knew her spirit would then better understand my heart.

Suddenly, a brown owl appeared, flying  in front of me from left to right, so close I could see every feather. Her head was turned my way, looking in at me, our eyes locked together. Time slowed, as if suspended. I was still driving, yet not-driving, as she looked deeply into my eyes, flying ever so slowly across the windshield, then off into the forest, green and wild. I believed an oracle had been, and that she carried my love to my mother in the spirit nation. I felt as if a message had been delivered and received. 

I can see her still, so close, every feather outlined, her eyes speaking,  a magical being from the otherworld. I can still feel the power and portent of her glance.

*****

This prose piece is for Telling Tales With Magaly at Poets United: write a story of 313 words or less and employ magic realism. I used 204.

The above incident is true, but I magic-ed it up just a little. Time DID slow, she flew past extremely slowly, her eyes and mine locked together. (Somehow the car stayed on the road.) The rest of the magic is that I believed she took my message of love to my mother in the spirit world. I wrote about this in 1999, in my poem "The Owl is the Doorway into the Unknown". The title is from a quote by Nikki Scully, from The Golden Cauldron.

Another Spring

“I’m sorry,” the specialist said. “Given the ultrasound, the testing doctor and I think it gives every appearance of being malignant.” The lump on my ankle had started growing. It now was the size of an egg from a small speckled hen.

“Get it off!” said the doctor who did the pre-op tests, recoiling.

I could gross my grandkids out by asking, "Do you want to squeeze it?"

Oddly, I felt no fear. I thought, well, this is the pathway we’ll be going down, a diversion from the one I had assumed I was on. I readied myself for the journey. I put on my wolf medicine: a silver wolf head on a leather thong, my wolf sweatshirt; I took up my walking stick. Ready.

They fast-tracked me to the oncology clinic in the city. The surgeon and his team wafted in the door on a tide of positive energy. All smiles, he looked at my egg. “It looks to be encapsulated. If it is benign, we’ll just take it off and you won’t need to come back.”

Wow. I had not known that was a possibility.

All went well. It was encapsulated, and benign, and when I got the news, I had to re-adjust my thinking once again from the harder path I had thought lay ahead, to one that was, itself, much more benign.

With gratitude, with the understanding I had been granted a great gift, I would get to enjoy yet another spring. And more after that.

250 words

For Magaly’s prose prompt at Telling Tales With Magaly : to write the story of one of our poems in prose. This one is from the poem "Traveler, Diverted On the Path", written in February 2013. The one regret I had, when I thought my energy would be going towards battling cancer, was that I had not archived my work in book form. With this reprieve, I immediately began doing so and now have a nice little shelf of books to (hopefully) keep my life’s work from being taken to the landfill when I die. Smiles.