There is a passage in the sprawling, intriguing novel 1Q84 in which the male protagonist, Tengo Kawana, in the country to visit his father in a rural elder-care facility, hears an owl hooting in the early morning and wonders what message the bird is giving him.

That stuck with me because for several weeks in the deep of the winter, we heard an owl of our own in the predawn quiet when we do our spiritual reading and thinking. The owl, after all, is the symbol of wisdom, so its call must mean something. Right? 

Why, then, don’t I understand its message? 

Perhaps the owl was not sent by the universe to tell me something. After all, it could just as easily be speaking to three or four other neighbors who are also awake, telling them to slow down and take it easy, or to be more understanding of their kids, or not to worry about that day’s meeting with the boss. Or—speaking instead to those still asleep, it might have been saying that it’s time to wake up, to savor the quiet before the bustle begins, to get in touch with their soul before they lose their mind in the day’s demands. 

Of course, there’s another possibility. The owl might not speak to me because it is not my totem animal. Perhaps we’re attuned to the language—the message—of only that species. Trying to understand another is like listening to Martians speak. 

What, then, is my totem animal? Probably not the stink bugs that appear unaccountably—and inopportunely, at times—throughout the house. After all, when the old lady was stranded on her rooftop in the flood, Saint Jude sent only three vessels to save her. After that, he let her drown. We get far more than three stink bugs a week. I can’t imagine that totems would be so persistent.

It’s not likely to be a deer, either. They’re too frequent visitors to the yard to be serendipitous deliverers of life insights. 

But, you know, my mother used to collect owl figurines. She had about three dozen of them. We kept a few when she died; they’re on shelves in the office. Anyway, that history reinforces the idea that the owl is speaking to me. It doesn’t do anything to make the message easier to understand, however. 

Or, as is more likely, the owl doesn’t give a damn about me or any of our neighbors either. It is wrapped up in its own needs and desires. It’s just staking claim to some territory or hoping to captivate a mate, or, perhaps, simply likes the sound of its own voice.  

Whatever meaning the owl has, then, is the meaning that I impute to it. The owl’s message is nothing but a mental construct, born of personal needs and desires—or, perhaps, allowing my soul to secretly guide my conscious will by creating a meaning for a random bird call so that my will can be convinced, by the aptness and timeliness of the message, that it has received a communication from the universe.   

Humans, unlike animals, create symbols—and seek them. Humans, unlike animals, try to find meaning in our lives and direction for our actions, for humans, unlike animals, are concerned with more than just the four Fs of animals behavior (though some of us seem rather captivated by one or another of those Fs). Humans, unlike animals, want to know why we are here, and in our desperate clutching for answers to that question, impose all sorts of meaning on random events utterly disconnected to our lives—or  flail about when the lack of clarity we receive from that opaque, indifferent external world simply increases our inner confusion.  

The answer, dear Brutus, lies not in our owls, but in ourselves. But we, heedless of this truth, keep scanning the horizon, eyes seeking a vision, ears perked to hear the owl’s call converted into a directive expressed in clear English.  

What a hoot.  

Words © 2012 AtHome Pilgrim. 

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