Chasing Owls with Carlos

December is my favorite month of the year, but not for any of the reasons most people might agree. I love December because it brings the most opportunities for me to walk and talk with my owl friends. Well, technically, they fly and soar while I can only walk to keep up with them. And when it comes to talking, I am certain they understand more of what I say to them than I do of their replies. In December, great horned owls are very active as they go about setting up their territories and calling to the mates with which they spend their lives. As winter creeps in, they can be found almost every night after the chill sun drops below the horizon and dusk settles upon the wood.

Owls haunt the liminal spaces, the fuzzy gray borders and blurred edges separating day from night, light from shadow, wood from field. Like my owl cousins, I too love the liminal spaces. I fancy myself to be, like them, the silent watcher in the woods, the unobserved observer. Striding quietly along wooded trails under the gray skies of dawn or the fading purple of dusk, I follow their calls, hoping to catch a glimpse of them perched upon skeletal branches or gliding silently among the boughs. They draw me to them, and I follow deeper into the darkness and into the in-between realm where the harsh edges of reality blur and fade into mystery. In these border areas, certainty recedes from the wispy tendrils of possibility emanating out of the gloom. Imagination reigns. Intuition guides my steps. Although it is the owl whose calls I have followed here, these darkening woods hold myriad other wonders.

Although much of the new age philosophy was lost on me, in high school I read, reread and studied Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books. I remember a scene in which he described taking a night walk in the desert with Don Juan. At one point, he sees a shadowy creature crouched menacingly before him. In the darkness, he cannot tell what the creature is, but he is struck with fear. Don Juan tells him it is a creature of power and that he must face it. Castaneda creeps closer, hoping he can scare it away and avoid an attack. With each step, his fear mounts. He is near panic by the time the creature finally resolves and becomes just a clump of dead brush blown against a cactus and shivering in the desert breeze.

I never concerned myself with the philosophical critiques of his works and, in fact, have forgotten most of what I read those many years ago. But this passage has stuck with me because it illustrates how magic can be found where the edges of perception blur. Was the creature real? Did Castaneda use his power to transform it into harmless brush? Or was it only a scrub all along? If so, did Don Juan use his power to create the illusion of a creature? Or was it simply Castaneda’s imagination run wild, and Don Juan used it to teach him a lesson? I don’t remember that Castaneda puts forth a definite conclusion. And that is precisely my preferred position.

In my personal Hundred Acre Wood, I choose not to question whether the beast was real. Its presence influenced the behaviors of both Castaneda and Don Juan. Its apparent volition caused real actions by real people in the real world. As to whether, why, or even if, it transformed from beast to bush or from bush to beast is mystery. And I am perfectly content allowing it to remain so. It’s not so much that I choose to believe, but that I choose not to disbelieve.

For me, disbelief is most easily held at bay when walking in solitude at dawn or at dusk, when there are no others to intrude upon my reveries or to frighten what birds or other creatures I may encounter. More easily yet at the changing of the seasons, especially as fall gives way to winter, when the warmth of the waning sun struggles weakly against the chill of arctic breath and the skies churn low in a kaleidoscope of gray. Short, cool days. Long, frosty nights. When, from the most ancient times, our ancestors huddled together, sheltering each other against the unknown and telling tales around the blessed fire. Tales of wonder. Tales of dread. Tales of magic.

So in the fading light of most any December dusk, I can be found walking wooded trails, hoping to hear the owls, hoping to follow them wherever they lead and hoping to, perhaps, just maybe, somehow, join them as they glide silently among the trees.

Great horned owl watching me as I watch him