Meet my garden spirit guide
So I’m heading into the house this morning, by the winter front door, which is a door cut into the attached-garage door (it’s easier to keep clear of snow than the real front door…). Kinda zoned out and lost in thought, I was on my final step, arm out, automatically reaching for the door handle, when suddenly, whoaaa!, I froze and stepped back. By mere inches, I’d almost grabbed a handful of OWL. There’ve been owls in the barn, and an owl can be seen once in a while sitting on a pole in the farmhouse backyard, but we definitely don’t have owls calmly hanging out on the front door handle. This had to mean something. This had to be a Sign! 
The owl was just perched there, perfectly laid back, kinda squinty, looking at me. It didn’t flinch. I took another few steps back to check things out. It watched me, unperturbed. Hmmm… I checked it out for a couple of minutes, kinda walking around, moved closer again, slowly reached towards it. No problem, it just watched me back. Then I headed to the Milkhouse for my camera, returned, and still the owl. It let me come as close as I liked. It really didn’t seem to mind me being well within touching distance, a couple of feet away. A few minutes later, Bob went by and I called him over. The owl was unfazed by TWO people looming around (since it was my owl encounter, maybe at that moment, Bob didn’t really exist?). After a couple more minutes, looking perfectly airworthy, it calmly flew away through the four feet of space between us… And it was gone. So what was up with the owl? Could be that, with youthful naivety (it looked…young), and the natural confidence of a predator high on the food chain, and maybe being tired out by too much flying, and having to squint in the bright sun, it just didn’t care. That’s possible. More likely, though, it was simply there to hook me up with forces unseen and the entire spirit world. It gazed at me for a long time and I felt good. At last, my spirit guide revealed! Of course, I had to vet all of this and get more words and meaning, so I rushed inside and hit the Web. Wooo… Glancing at the first search results got me worried, all messenger of death stuff. But, the fantastic thing about the Web is, keep looking and you can find whatever you want! Like this page, much more…REASONABLE, that explained how cool having a personal owl encounter is, with words like “wisdom”, “protector” and “symbolic of inner knowing”. I particularly liked: “If an owl has visited you, an incredible gift has been bestowed.” This is good! Thanks!! Life on this tiny farm now walks with the owls…
(It’s a fully-grown adult northern saw-whet owl; thanks to Sharon the BirdChick for ID-ing it in the comments below!)
Somewhat related posts: • New cows! • Cows at the gate • The watering tray • What I’m not up to… • Outpost returns
Chris said,
March 22, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
mike-
what a cool creature. i love when the animal world decides to grace us with their presence. definitely a good thing.
Avenefica said,
March 22, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
Marvelous owl photo
Fabulous experience
Wonderful post
Excellent blog
Thanks for sharing all of the above.
Ferdzy said,
March 22, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
Oh, what a privilege!
Do you know what kind of an owl it was?
Sharon said,
March 22, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
It’s a northern saw-whet owl. That’s an adult and that’s as big as they get.
Gillian said,
March 22, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
OMG Mike - how lucky you are!! My hubby and I spent half the afternoon today craning our necks to look up at the cedar waxwings that have taken to the spruce in our backyard. When we weren’t watching them, our eyes were darting between the starlings, chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers that were competing on the lower branches. Birds are wonderful creatures. :)
Katie said,
March 22, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
How cool is that? Looking into the eyes of an owl is a very interesting experience, which I think you’ve captured here. Thanks for sharing.
dig this chick said,
March 22, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
holy hell that is so cool.
ewa said,
March 22, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
whoaaaa!
actually when I think about it, this event is in line with you and your blog: extraordinary expression of life and creativity.
Happy Easter :)
P~ said,
March 23, 2008 @ 1:04 am
Very cool! And a great photo too.
P~
Deborah said,
March 23, 2008 @ 3:44 am
Oh how wonderful, Owls are such lovely birds.
Have a wonderful Easter.
Steve Mudge said,
March 24, 2008 @ 6:43 am
I had the curious experience of having an owl waking me up in the middle of the night, squawking right outside my window above my bed—I mean he was really going at it! Next morning I left for a trip to Baja California and my friend’s truck preceded to get stuck in a river and it took us close to 24 hours to get it out–quite the adventure! So these spirit animals can be valuable in that way…
Jen said,
March 25, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Wow. A very amazing experience.
I’ve only been reading tiny farm blog for a short bit, but I am loving experiencing your farm life via the http://WWW.