Owl of Mimir?
My profile picture is a picture I captured myself on a a fateful morning. Despite an epic life where I have seen the best and worst of Man, a life of saints and sinners I have danced with in brotherhood and as opponents, all the blood, tragedy, eerie events throughout life, has not spooked me as much as this owl. I do not spook, I love a good fight, I love winning. The feeling of being spooked is new and as such is requiring adjustment. It gets more eerie as the tale is told.
One has to be selective where they sleep when sleeping outside, and as a European I love trees as the rest of us that are fair. Take away our theologies, religions, ideologies we are at heart tree and Sun worshippers. Sleep under the open sky on grass the flying, biting, insects pester you. Not every species of tree is suitable to sleep under as they harbour and attract different species of insects according to the tree species. I slept under a 500-year old elm for a couple of weeks one summer years ago. Old elms are a great shelter for their weeping long branches and leaves provide a dry, dark, wind breaking canopy that gives a privacy and comfort reminiscent of four walls.
Being a non-acidic tree an elder elm’s shelter is also a shelter for insects. Hence I prefer evergreens and cedar for acidic trees keep most insects away. Clarity is needed at this point as reader may be envisioning a tent involved. Tents are cumbersome and awkward unless you pay outrageous amounts of money on yuppie “expedition” chemical fabric. Still when on foot the added time and energy to set up and take down every morning and night a tent is an excellent exercise in masochism. I have a bedroll; a down sleeping bag that I roll a tarp over and then a strap to tie the bundle together. In less than a minute it is rolled up or out. If there is the opportunity I can build a better shelter than a tent can provide using material the forest provides. Also much less flammable. Another consideration is that every mile adds a pound.
Without a tent this trivial fact on insect level of a tree had more significance losing it’s status of trivial. Pine and cedar I prefer because there is usually no ants, beetles, or other freaks. There is still spiders occasionally which have never disturbed me unless a big exotic such as a tarantula.
In the early morning July 12, 2024 I was woken up by a sound worse than talking rabbis. Bloody squawking crows. On the Island of Purgatory my sleeping spot was a big cedar. The lower branches where they joined the tree were about six feet (~3m) high. It is an old tree, I nicknamed Father Cedar.
That morning the daily noise of degenerate ravens angered me and in my awakened anger I grabbed a wimpy stick and charged out from the cover of Father Cedar. As I threw the wimpy stick at the degenerate ravens I noticed the owl. It did not flinch or even pay attention to me, instead with an air of indifference it watched the wimpy stick fly past it a few feet from it. Then it watched as the degenerate ravens flew away. I stood there in awe. From what I understand owls are not particular on being close or seen by us noisy bipedals. It continued to look around as if I was not there. Very surreal as a close look at the picture of my mascot shows this is not a normal spotted owl.. What still haunts me is that it would look at my sleeping spot through dense foliage as if it saw something there only it could see. I said a few words of greetings and it once again acted as if I was not there. Getting a feeling to shut up I did. It quickly glanced at me with a look of; “why are you talking to me?”. Must have been standing there for no more then ten to twenty seconds as a guess since in moments like this the sense of time is not accurate. After going back and rolling up the bed roll and packing I came back out to see if the owl was still there. Thinking this would make a a great picture I first took a short video. For what ever reason, I stopped capturing video and relying purely on intuition got my perfect picture at the moment when it once again looked directly at my sleeping spot through Father Cedar’s dense foliage as if he once again saw something only he could see. Packing the camera I was intrigued by what only he saw and how he could see through the dense foliage I could not see through in the light. Curiosity usually beats out common sense with me.
Most pictures of owls I have seen the iris is yellow or brightly coloured (as with most animals that see well in the dark) with a pupil. The first thing I had noticed about this owl was that the eyes are completely black. Being Year of the Tiger curiosity once again won over sense. I started staring into his eyes. Quickly after the owl finally acknowledged my existence and returned the stare. It was as staring into the endless depth of supra-intelligence drawing me deeper and deeper, I saw an intelligence so vast it was a supernatural experience. Within this vortex was a darkness that is not a darkness and impossible to contain and articulate with words. This intelligence kept drawing me in further and further, when I looked away from instinct I do not know how long I had witnessed this supra-intelligence. It was as if I was staring into a kosmos, a portal to something not meant for mortals.
I have changed without knowing how. Iam connected to something far beyond me, as if I peered into a Well of Mimir. I sometimes find myself looking off somewhere as that owl in the picture, exactly as the owl in the moment I captured a still of it, that kosmos still there although far away now from my mascot. Which is not possible considering all the variables involved, everything has to align perfectly, that I captured that moment or that this intelligence could somehow be within me or me within it. Truth many times seems impossible and only after experience does one see it.
It was a gift. Unsettling, eerie, unfathomable. There is the tale of my mascot who against probability and reason I still feel a silver thread as a bond with this Owl of Mimir. As a gift it is only respect to honour respect with respect. By adopting the picture as a profile picture and telling this tale may this owl be satisfied and the intelligence aid me.
Gott mit uns.