wisdom from owls

Great Gray Owl in full camo.

This post was taken from a comment from one of my readers (Brizdaz). He is reading a book, The Healing Wisdom of Birds by Lesley Morrison. This is a book about all kinds of birds, but the author confesses that owls are her favorite.

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(from the forward)

When I undertook this project, many people asked me why I felt compelled to write a whole book about birds. My answer? I was haunted day and night, until I did. The universe has a funny way of making its advice known, and after challenging encounters and rescues with feathered creatures I finally got the message. I became alerted to the silent mission before me, and was compelled by an unyielding insistence to pay closer attention to birds and their world. So I remained haunted until the final manuscript was complete.

(an excerpt about owls)

The owl will always be the dearest bird species to me, and I have had many sad and spiritual encounters with this magnificent bird of prey. The owl has traditionally been very close to the spirit worlds, and associations between the owl, death, and magic are quite prominent and widespread.

If owl chooses you as a student, you are to become aware of all that moves in the dark. These could be hidden motives, thoughts, or emotions within you or others that have been kept from the light of awareness. Or there may be a hidden gift of clairvoyance and magic that needs nurturing when owl appears. Owl is the guardian spirit of many magicians and shamans, and often portends a time of deep learning or training in the ways of magical sight and manifestation.

Owl people can pierce the normal boundaries of space and time, and are quite adept at traveling back and forth between worlds. Having the owl as a totem is not always an easy experience. In fact, I consider owl's medicine to be among the most challenging. Owl people are usually solitary and must sometimes take hits from those without a firm spiritual understanding.

Owl spirit guides will often visit their human companions in the dream-time. This is where the owl imparts wisdom through dream symbolism and imagery. The owl person must learn about archetypes -  universal symbolic images - in order to decipher owl's hidden messages. Symbolism is the crux of magic, and must be studied carefully by the owl person.

Owl people are often troubled by an innate wisdom of the universe that finds no expression or validation in the affairs of humans. They disdain many social structures,  and find it difficult to maintain close relationships with people in general. Many people aligned with owl find that retreat from the disenchanted world is the greatest path to understanding, and owl will often guide those with it's medicine away from their normal preoccupation with everyday activities by instilling a sense of disappointment in the owl soul person.

This sense of discontent eventually leads the owl person into deep exploration of the hidden worlds. The spirit of owl seems to haunt their very souls, as if a constant reminder of the illusory nature of life on earth.

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Please note: I edited this excerpt slightly.