Attacked by an owl
*things are not always what they seem
Dear Kula Diaries,
A few weeks ago, I was attacked by an owl while I was on my morning walk.
Every single morning, almost without fail, I walk on a gravel road near my house. It’s usually dark outside, so I wear a headlamp and I’m outfitted with a small backpack and easily accessible bear spray. I’m no stranger to hiking in the dark… with The Musical Mountaineers, I’ve climbed many mountains by the light of my headlamp — so that we can arrive at our ‘concert’ location just before sunrise.
It doesn’t make me nervous or uncomfortable to hike in the dark, instead, I feel at peace. This segment of the day is usually the only point in the day when I don’t have to answer questions… there are no e-mails to respond to… my ‘identity’ as the founder of a company doesn’t exist… it’s just me, and the woods, and the glowing eyes of an occasional deer. Some mornings, I see a bunny hopping in front of me on the trail. If I’m lucky, I snag a quick glance of a bobcat. One morning, I’m 99.999% positive that I saw a cougar — but it quickly ran away as soon as it saw my headlamp.
On my days off, I will often find a flat spot on the gravel road where I can join our daily dance experiment. A few weeks ago, I had done just that — I cautiously propped up my cell phone on a boulder and I jumped and danced on the gravel road in my tiny Zoom box as the sun rose on the horizon. It was a cold, beautiful morning and I felt entirely at one with the whole universe — a feeling that is familiar on these early morning walks.
On this particular morning, I was making the final turn towards my house and meandering quietly down the crunchy gravel road when… BAM!!! Seemingly, out of nowhere and everywhere, I felt a massive and sharp impact hit the back left side of my head at what felt like a very high velocity. I was so disoriented and stunned, that I didn’t have the capacity to imagine what had just happened, so I was shocked to see a gigantic barred owl flying away from me. As I struggled to comprehend what had just happened, the owl perched only momentarily in a nearby tree and then, dove at me again — attempting to strike my head for a second time. I screamed loudly and flailed my arms wildly in the air, and the owl flew away. Somewhat panicked, I walked backwards down the road so that I could keep an eye on the owl. It wasn’t dark enough that I needed my headlamp anymore, but I turned it back on. The owl followed me — hopping from tree to tree — until it attempted to dive at me for a third time. I shone the headlamp at the owl, and it quickly veered away from me.
Relieved, I stumbled backwards down the road while grasping the back of my head, which was stinging and uncomfortable. I checked my head, but I didn’t see any blood on my hand, so I assumed (incorrectly) that I hadn’t been cut. As I finished my walk, I filmed a quick video candidly sharing the experience — and my realization that the hat I was wearing had saved me from what could have been a much more serious injury. Upon returning home, I did discover that I had several wounds on my head from the owl talons, and I treated them with antibiotic ointment. I also researched owl behavior, and learned that this time of year is typically the start of owl nesting and breeding season and that Barred owls can be particularly aggressive. Most websites recommended wearing hats as a good way to protect the scalp from serious injuries. Later that day, I shared my candid video on Instagram, because I felt like folks might be interested to hear about the experience — and I was genuinely curious if anybody else had ever experienced anything like this before.
As it turns out, I’m not alone in my owl attack incident. Hundreds of folks commented that they had had a similar experience with Barred Owls. And, like most internet posts, I also received a wide range of completely unrelated comments — some indicating that I was a ‘complete idiot’ for walking in the dark … and even a comment telling me that I was a ‘toxic blight on society’ for having a Ducati hat. Ha!
If you watch the owl video, you can hear the emotion in my voice — the rawness of just having experienced something that was, indeed, scary. And yet, I had this weird sense that, in some inexplicable way, this owl incident was a tiny nugget of good luck. I can’t really describe why I felt that way, but I had a very strong sense that I had been the recipient of a strangely humbling interaction with nature. It was a unique moment in time when my life crossed paths with a beautiful winged creature, who was doing its best to protect what it held the most dear.
Over the next few days, I changed my walking routine in order to give the owl more space — since it was aggressively defending its nest, I didn’t want to agitate it anymore. So, I decided to stop walking up the stretch of road where I had encountered the owl. I didn’t think much about it, I just stopped going there.
A few days later, I received a text from the folks who own the piece of property directly adjacent to ours. The text was simply a photo from their game camera:
At the bottom of the game camera image was the time… 8:15am … almost the exact time that I would have been walking up and down the road in front of their property, if I hadn’t changed my routine due to the owl attack. I was stunned. Was it possible that the owl attack had inadvertently prevented me from a much more serious encounter?
My husband and I made the short walk up our road to our neighbor’s property to look for tracks in the snow. As we looked, we spotted the tracks emerging from a patch of the forest on our lot… walking directly up the road (the exact section of road where I was attacked by the owl)… and then traversing onto my neighbor’s property. I looked in awe at the massive paw prints that were tracked through the snow — my own footprints were nowhere to be seen that morning, because I had opted out of that single section of road.
Here’s the follow-up video I made, after we found the cougar tracks:
I estimate, conservatively, that I’ve walked over 10,000+ miles on the gravel roads in my neighborhood over the past 4+ years that I’ve lived here. Every single morning, without fail, I venture outside to spend the first part of my day re-connecting with myself and with the world around me. There was a time in my life when I did not do this… there was a time in my life when the very first thing that I did in the morning was log onto my Facebook account and scroll for an hour before I left for work. There was a time in my life when I instantly filled the blank canvas of my mind with stuff. But stuff becomes crowded… and the morning is my welcome mat. As I walk up and down the hill, I think to myself: What good can I bring this day? I look at the snow and the trees… I focus on my breathing… I dance for no particular reason… and I lay down on the ground and look up at the stars.
When the owl attack happened a few days ago, it was the first interaction that I’ve ever experienced with an animal that could have been classified as a, ‘negative interaction’. Afterall, I did sustain a small injury… and, besides, I’m not going to sugarcoat this: It scared the sh*t out of me! But this interaction reminded me of a story that Eckhart Tolle retells in his book, A New Earth:
An old farmer who had worked his crops for many years set his aging horse free to pasture. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors said, "Such bad luck, to lose your only horse." "May be," the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man.
The following day, the farmer's son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.
And then, of course, the young village men were killed in the war and the farmer's son, limp and all, was the only able bodied man remaining. The farmer and his son prospered. When his neighbors praised his fortune, well, you know how the farmer replied. "May be".
One of my favorite quotes by Shakespeare (from Hamlet) is, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
As we sit deeply in a state of non-attachment and non-judgement (which, I acknowledge is not always the easiest thing to do), we can be open to the bigger picture. We can go with the flow of the universe, instead of against it. We can listen to the Wise Owl, that tells us to stay away. We can trust that, in the big scheme of life, sometimes the things that make no sense at all, have a way of working out in the most surprising and unexpected ways.
This does not mean that we have to like everything that we experience. It does not mean we can’t feel angry or sad or hurt or disappointed. Rather, non-judgement is about allowing those feelings to exist from a state of acceptance, rather than one of resistance. It is a place of surrender that grants us access to the bigness of the wisdom of the entire universe — which stretches far beyond the the wingspan of an owl, and out into the vastness of the cosmos.
Friends, be safe out there — trust your instincts and your heart, and see where it takes you. Even in moments where it feels like you have gone astray… trust that you are always on your path.
You are loved so very much, friends!
Thank the owl for me! 🦉
Your post was timed well for me!!
I have been trying to incorporate the farmer’s story into my thinking since I first heard it a few years ago. Sometimes I think about it more zoomed out and other times more zoomed in.
This morning I had a follow-up dentist appointment for my jaw cancelled at the last minute, which was really frustrating because it means I have to continue my “vow of silence” and soft food diet. Trying to think of this as the horse running away. Maybe there’s a wonderful soup or smoothie recipe waiting to be discovered?