Not So Wise Owl

This is a picture of a not so wise owl. It was drawn on a scrap of multi-purpose copy paper then cleaned up and colored in Photoshop. I recently had someone tell me my power animal is an owl. The woman who told me this had never met me before and just kind of blurted it out. Hearing this shocked me. I have had three very strange encounters involving owls.

The first happened when I was ten. My family was camping at Lake Mojave. My stepbrother and I decided to sneak away from our tent one night and go fishing. I had a flashlight but I didn't turn it on because we were trying to be inconspicuous. We tiptoed out of the campground toward the river trying to be extra quiet, something not that simple for two giddy ten-year-old boys. We finally got to the edge of the river and relaxed a little bit. I turned on the flashlight and pointed it out across the water.

Suddenly from behind us came this weird swoosh sound. I whirled around and the light fell upon an owl sitting on a tree stump. It couldn’t have been more than three feet from us. The owl’s eyes glowed yellow as it let out a haunting shriek. Then the owl spread it's wings wide and flapped them. I swear to God/dess the wingspan was twenty feet from tip to tip! My stepbrother and I dropped everything and ran screaming back to our tent, waking everyone in the campground.

The second encounter happened when I was sixteen. My family was out of town and I was bored at home by myself. I decided to walk to my best friend’s house. It was a five-mile walk down a quiet, country road. My plan was to stay the night and catch a ride back home in the morning. I didn’t bother to call ahead because they were always home. (I would find out later the whole family had gone to a Barry Manilow concert and stayed the night in the big city.)

So, when I finally arrived at my friend’s house it was locked up tight and no one was there. I waited. I thought they would be back soon. After all, they were always home. The sun went down and I waited. The moon came up and I waited. Still no one came home.

Around midnight I decide to leave a note on the front door and go sleep in their barn. I climbed into the hayloft and fell asleep. At some point in the night I awoke with a start. I was lying on my back with my hands behind my head and when my eyes jerked open I was staring into another set of eyes. An owl had perch itself atop the hay bails I was using for a headrest. I was a little scared so I tried not to move. The owl just kept staring at me.

Finally, after what seemed like hours it looked away and I slowly slid to another corner of the loft and sat up. Then we sat there and stared at each other for the rest of the night. The owl eventually flew off and I walked home in the twilight of morning.

The last owl encounter occurred about seven years ago when I was on tour with an improv troupe. The troupe was driving through the night to get to our next gig. I had the 2am to 5pm shift and had been driving for about forty-five minutes. I felt like I was the only car on the road and everyone else in the van was asleep. It was very peaceful.

Suddenly an owl came swooping out of the darkness. The owl was enormous and beautiful, shinning in the high beam glow of the van’s headlights. The moment was amazing and magical. I had to share it with someone. Just as I was about to say, “Look at that owl!” It changed directions and slammed into the front of the van, rolled up the windshield and thumped across the roof.

KA-POW… thump, thump, thump, thump… thump. Everyone in the van woke up screaming and wanted to know what I had run over. None of them believed me when I told them an owl had just hit us. I pulled over to see if there was any serious damage. The van was unharmed but the grill was covered in feathers, blood and fleshy bits. Icky.

Now I have some strange woman tell me the owl is my power animal. The universe sure has a warped sense of humor.

Do you have a power animal? Have you ever accidentally killed your power animal? Will you leave some love for me?