White Owl Island

I decide to leave Ms. Gigi to spend time alone on the ship. I’m sure she had tricks to pull, games to play, and shapes to assume. I am meant to enter the land of spirit and owl medicine alone.

For some reason, I can’t wait to get to White Owl Island. It is time for the Festival of the Charming of the Plow and quite a celebration from what I am told. However, my excitement goes deeper than the celebrating.

The Warriors of White Owl Island are there to ensure the intention of celebrating is clearly focused. Oh, but they are magnificent women; definitely women who can hold their own and are not to be trifled with. They are tall and broad, well-muscled with very round heads and large round amber eyes. The women look akin to owls. Their long hair is white. Their dresses look like Wilma Flinstone’s of the famed caveman cartoon, with a strap over one shoulder, fitted at the waist and an uneven hem. The dresses are silky and look to be spun of moonbeams. I so want to get closer to see the material, but one stare of those amber eyes is enough to make me back away several steps. Their boots are ankle high and made of a durable scalely material. Hanging nearby are full length hooded capes made of owl feathers. They are so beautiful and I am tempted to put one on to feel their softness. But I’n not stupid! I know better than to mess with a White Owl Warrior! 

As I’m assessing the clothing and physical appearancesof the warriors, I am shocked when one turns her head all the way around to look at an approaching visitor. What other owl attributes do these women have? If I were to venture a guess, a silent advance and curved sharp talons would head my list. Though curious I am, it’s not enough to find out!

I join the celebration, singing and dancing my joy and my heart. I close my eyes, open my heart, let go of all the love that is within me, allowing all the love from the crowd surrounding me to surge through me. It is incredible, this love I feel. It is as comforting and warm as the fire that burns within me.

I allow my eyes to open of their own accord. As they focus I find standing before me was my spirit guide, Red Cloud. I am familiar with Red Cloud, but have not actually met him face to face before. I am so honored! But I am not sure if I should bow or curtsy. I made a fist, placing it over my heart in a gesture of love.

“Greetings, Singing Heart. Welcome to White Owl Island. You are welcome to join us in the sweat lodge, if you would like.”     “No, thank you, Red Cloud,” I reply. “I am not one for the intense heat, but I would be happy to assist the firekeeper.”    “That is not necessary. We will smudge with sunflower root as I know of your sensitivity to white sage. Then we will walk to the woods and speak of the meaning of owl medicine.”

I am honored to be invited into the sweat lodges as it is typically a ritual cleansing for men. Women have the moon lodge for their monthly cleansing. I had already moved into the Grandmother lodge since I no longer have my moontime.  Smudging is a ritual of cleansing and purification for the physical and spiritual body using smoke instead of intense heat and is much more suited to my heat sensitive body. (Hey! I’ve been in a few sweat lodges, some with Latkota Sioux men who were impressed with my stamina and visions! They said I did good for a white woman.)

I love smudging with the root of the sunflower, my favorite flower. I cup my hands to capture the smoke and pull it to my head so that I may think, see, hear, and speak the words of truth and beauty as does one who walks the red road and path of beauty. I pull the smoke bringing it to my heart so that I will remember to feel love and compassion of the Creator. I raise both feet (one at a time, of course) over the smoke to remember the responsibilities of walking the red road and beauty path. Red Cloud uses a fan made of owl feathers to fan the smoke from head to toe around my body front to back to cleanse me of negativity and restore my balance. I am now ready for our walk.

Red Cloud reminds me of times long ago when I had strong owl medicine, about the first time I realized Owl had come to me. I was rollerskating at the school near the house my husband and I had just purchased. My yellow lab, Blondie, was pulling me as I held her by the front of her chest, just above her legs and below her neck, while straddling her body with my skates. She loved it when we skated together like this. I had just tied her leash to a bench so I could skate alone. I was zooming along the asphalt when an owl flew even with my head, a mouse in its beak. The owl looked me straight in the eye then flew past me with a quick downward beat of its wings. It flew to the north, the place of wisdom. As I watched the owl soar away from me, I suddenly realized the enormomity of the wing span and that not a single sound came from those vast wings as they beat. The stillness of the air had remained unchanged.

Owl came to visit me regularly until one night at the school Owl once again flew even with my head but this time from east to west. I called my stepmother to ask if her sister had passed. She had just layed the phone back in the cradle after receiving the call. It bewildered her that Owl came to me at that moment. I told her that when Owl flies from east to west, Owl is representing the path one takes crossing over from life to death; for the sun rises in the east and sets in the west signifying the birth and death of the day. Owl medicine continued its presence in my life, especially through owls revealing themselves to me during my nightly rollerskating with Blondie at the school…Until Owl began to hoot at my bedroom window a few years later.

It was my father’s turn to pass. He had lung cancer. His moment of passing was incredibly beautiful as he was surrounded by his wife, children, and close friends. He exhaled his last breath on the punchline of his favorite joke told by my brother. He had also turned to face the west. Many interesting things occurred around the house that night. The light he always meant to fix in the kitchen came on.  I didn’t see it as I didn’t leave him when everyone walked out of the room. I continued to hold his hand, sing to him, write his obituary. My brother came back into the room and sat with us. Together we felt Dad’s soul leave his body. It was like a sigh leaving through the top of his head, slightly breezy on the palm of my hand.

I made the three hour drive home the next afternoon. That night, I went outside with the Blondie. She was acting very strangely so I called for my husband. He joined me outside. We saw a shooting star cross the sky from the west to the east. At the exact point where the light of the shooting star dimmed, a giant owl appeared completing the flight east towards the moon. Dad had arrived and Owl had carried his spirit to the Creator.

Red Cloud and I sit upon a slab of rock worn  smooth by the meandering river at the edge of the woods. Red Cloud prompts me to look at Owl’s face. I close my eyes to conjure a vision of Owl, but cannot quite get the detail of Owl’s face. Upon opening my eyes, Red Cloud is gone. In his place is a magnificent white owl. I’m  almost startled, but calmed by her splendor and a sense of familiarity.  “Look at her face,” I could hear Red Cloud commanding. It was a heart! Her face was in the shape of a heart!

My eyes move from her face to her eyes of amber. I am mesmirized as she imparts her wisdom in the silent way of her wings. I am spellbound, one might say. I see the meaning of Owl to different cultures through the varying ages. 

moon magic                                                                                                                                          

total truth                     

move into the future unafraid               

cosmic spirituality                            death                                                                                   

not thinking but feeling                    

teaches embracing personal darkness without fear                   

shapeshifing           astral projecting                  swiftness       

connection to the Underworld             freedom  

 deception                         ability to see what others may miss  

intuition                                      omens    

dark tunnels of change and uncertainty to brilliant shining light       

clairvoyance         night eagle         astral projection        

be undeceived by external appearances and discover the truth beneath dreams

go between the worlds of dark and light   

move between the worlds of life and death

When she had communicates all I am to know, I fall asleep on the rock listening to the sound of the river wrapped in a soft mantle of feathers.