Your story, the unpredictable life you’re living right now, has a beginning, middle, and end. A good story may (must!) go off on occasional side quests. The side story isn’t a distraction. It complements the overall whole even if it has a purpose all its own.
What the hell am I talking about? In real life I tried a simple, easy, endurance challenge. All was well until bad weather and an emotional loss torpedoed me below the waterline. I rode it out; exhausted and uncomfortable, tossing and turning, with noisy persistent rain hammering at my squishy wet tent. In this way I mourned my cat.
It’s just a cat. I say that to myself and it’s true. Yet, I’m only human and we humans love our animals. I couldn’t stoically shrug it off. I’m not sure I’d like to be capable of that.
Here’s the backstory, should you be inclined to read it.
Life goes on. I did what I could. I’d gotten some sleep despite the noisy rain. I’d taken decent care of myself. I’d cooked dinner on my campstove. After sunset it stopped raining.
Eventually, I was dry-ish, properly fed, somewhat rested, and sitting by a fire. A low rent Dante Alighieri, I’d made it to the other side.
The night was unusually dark and dismal. I put my lantern on low and rested in the tiny circle of light around the fire. It anchored me in a foggy forest and, metaphysically, a vast universe.
I felt OK. And that’s good enough.
Then the owls came.
Lets talk about owls. No… lets talk about the soul.
Is there a spiritual world? It doesn’t matter what’s out there. There’s one in your mind. You’re human, if there is one you’ll detect it! If there isn’t one you’ll call it into being.
We overclocked apes, homo sapiens, can and must think as built. We understand trajectory, we “get” time, we’re great at making tools, and we wonder what it all means. You don’t have a choice in the matter. You can claim to be a creature of pure logic and reason. You can also put on a fur hat and call yourself a badger.
So there it is. We’re hard wired to experience the spiritual simply by existing. Speaking for myself, I embrace it. Most modern people hate the whole thing. They carefully avoid the merest opportunity to brush against greater truths. People surf social media while taking a shit, lest they have time to think. It’s almost like they fear the inner peace one might develop given minimal self-reflection during a six minute dump.
Enough with the sarcasm. I go to the woods intending to put my mind in order and (ideally) strengthen the soul. I go alone, that’s a heady draught. Facing the universe on its own terms is not easy. But I do dumb shit all the time so it’s fine.
There was nobody around. It was dark as a cave and dead silent.
Then the owls started calling.
I’ve heard owls before. The sound is objectively pretty. It’s also otherworldly. If an owl doesn’t occasionally give you the heebie-jeebies you’re a robot. They’re creepy critters in the best of times. Harbinger of death and all that.
If you’re not familiar with various superstitions about owls, you won’t get it from your Google search. Sit solo on a log in the dark. Stay there until the owls explain it to you. You’ll get it then. Don’t laugh. When’s the last time you meditated on things, silent and alone, unsheltered in nature, in the dark?
Anyway, I don’t fret about the harbinger of death thing. I already know I’m going to die. Nor do I consider the spiritual realm malevolent. But…
The owls surprised me.
At first I heard a single owl species. There was definitely more than one individual. Quite a lot in fact. Taken by itself, it was no big deal.
I didn’t recognize them but I’m not an owl expert. It was just a species unfamiliar to me. Plain “normal owl sounds” with a weird dialect. I wasn’t gross screeching like a barn owl. Nor screech owls (which ironically don’t screech like barn owls). Also, the sound wasn’t as slick and mellow as a great horned owl. Great horned owls are the B. B. King of owls; making exactly the right note, never hurried, always chill.
Whatever I was hearing, they were more numerous than any hooting I’d heard before.
“Nothing too weird about that, just a species of owl that sounds a bit off to my untrained ears. Back to brooding about the nature of the universe.”
So I brooded. Owls have a unique vibe. It’s like they know shit you don’t. I listen carefully; as if I’d understand if I’d just concentrate harder. What would owls tell me that my dense human brain has missed?
I like to hike in the dark and I like to listen to owls. Unfortunately, this night was absurdly gloomy. I couldn’t make it ten feet without light.
I picked up my lantern and shuffled uneasily down a dirt road. It sucked. I kept stumbling. Puddles from the many hours of rain soaked my feet. My lantern was oddly ineffective. My sense of scale was a mess. Was the impenetrable gloom right above me? Fog in the treetops. Or was it far higher? If felt too dank and oppressive to be clouds. My beloved stars were walled off and I resented that.
I started thinking of the ecliptic plane; the flat plane on which the earth and the other planets rotate around the sun. There’s a reason why planets rotate on a shared plane. I don’t know that reason. Nobody thinks about “above” and “below” the plane.
Above me right now, owls were making themselves known; just like I don’t when hunting from a tree stand. I’ve watched deer being incredibly cautious yet completely miss my presence if I’m above their horizon. To them, things above the horizon just don’t exist. Most humans are just as blinkered.
“The axis of our mind is blind to that which is above our ecliptic plane.”
Is that what the owls were saying? I sighed. It was probably a dumb idea. I was missing the point. I don’t buy that harbinger of death thing but I’m open to the idea that there’s an understanding I don’t yet have. Maybe someday I’ll figure it out. Buddha sat under a fig and became enlightened. Newton sat under an apple and came up with calculus. Who am I to wander around the dark forest only to chicken out when the forest spoke aloud?
But I chickened out. My feet were wet. I couldn’t see a damn thing. And I was too sad to go on a spiritual journey. Some things should happen only when you’re feeling optimistic. Cooper scampered into the black lodge without forethought because he let curiosity overcome intellect. I’m just sayin’.
I felt apologetic to nature itself. Whatever I was supposed to learn, I didn’t. As cheeky penance, I composed a haiku.
In the night, owls call.
Join us. See life as we do.
I do not respond.
I was willing to think all the way to ecliptic plane but no further.
On cue, as if I’d personally pissed off the universe, all hell broke loose! Subtle and eerie sounds of normal owls was pushed aside by an unexpected “primate-like” cacophony. It’s North America, we don’t have fuckin’ orangutans!
I tried to sort it out. The first owls kept calling. I guessed they refused to cede territory. Aggressive “primate-like” sounds battled with the gentler “owl hoots”. It wasn’t any night sound I’m used to. Not the long wail of a loon. Not the yip of a coyote. Not the oddly sonic effect of a drumming grouse. Not the commanding howl of a wolf.
Whatever it was, it built up into a heck of a crescendo. I guessed that two species of owl had encountered each other. They sounded pissed off.
At some point you’ve pondered all the creepy owl shit you care to. I stopped parsing sounds.
“Who knows what just happened? For all I know space aliens just captured sasquatch. Only Scooby Doo can solve this case”.
Fuck it. I’m out!
I dumped water on the fire and turned off my lantern. I tripped trying to find the tent in pitch black and was briefly confused by the zipper.
Resigned to deliberately ignoring the damn owls, I climbed into my cot. I was more tired than I knew. I fell asleep almost instantly.
A.C.
Epilogue: I mentioned “there was freaky owl shit going down” and a reader commented about barred owls. He was spot on! That’s what I heard. If you wish to reject my navel gazing as merely “barred owls make bizarre sounds”, have at it.
Here’s a link cued it up to a barred owl’s sound. The narrator even says “the primate-like sounds sometimes freak people out”. Yes, it does!
Here’s some more barred owl recordings.
Great post. I like this: “The axis of our mind is blind to that which is above our ecliptic plane.” Probably a lot truer than we realize.
Thanks.