WHO Are YOU?
Who Are YOU?
That's what the owl said to me, in the voice of the hookah-smoking caterpillar from the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. However, unlike the caterpillar, it delivered the question without disdain, and the owl was not expecting an answer.
We were walking around Town Lake for my birthday, moseying northwest under the high leafy canopy of pecan trees just before the Lamar Street Bridge when I spied a fluttering of wings out of the corner of my eye. I stopped, looked up and saw a giant barred owl staring at me from a tree branch above. "Look!" I said with awe, and Gage followed my pointing finger to the owl. His eyes grew big and he grinned.
"I'll go get Dad and Jack!" He raced off ahead, his sneakered feet pounding the packed gravel. Owl's head turned and followed Gage's progress with mild interest. Then it turned back to me. Eyes big and round, calm, attentive, curious.
Who ARE you?
I watched and snapped pictures as Owl stared, turned its head to survey the surroundings, adjusted its stance in the tree, and stared again. Owl glided to another branch facing the water, then swiveled its head in that impossible, 180-degree way and made eye contact again.
Who are you?
As I watched Owl, a calm resoluteness came over me. I was not intended to answer the question. I was meant to be it, go out and find it, in the world and inside myself. Owl's was not so much a question as an invitation, one posed without judgment or attachment. Then, Owl soared away.
Days later, an owl landed in my inbox. A raku potter I follow, the Alchemist, had made some. I picked one who spoke to me, and my very own owl arrived, carefully wrapped, in my mailbox a short while later, all the way from Canada. It was addressed by hand.
Now Owl sits on my desk. I smile when I see her. She watches me type, and she is always asking....
Well, who ARE you?
And I am always answering. There I am.