Short days and deep, dark nights when the owls are quiet. Awake in the wee hours with holiday anxiety, I found Steelhead already sleepless and listening to the rain.

We did hear our creek rushing with runoff from earlier storms. Wind shook the oak branches and firs up the hill.

All of this inspired Steel to suggest we each name what we most want to experience in the new year.

After a minute, I answered. “Connection. Finding meaningful ways to relate to other beings, human or otherwise.”

I asked him to name his.

“Awe,” he said. “As in wonder. Even with so much overuse in the word awesome, it’s still an amazing thing.”

Immediately I thought of owls. How fierce they are. How meaningful to so many cultures.

Symbols of death (as in Margaret Craven’s I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which I re-read every year and always find moving) or deception (as in the wise and beautiful Jamie Sans and David Carson Medicine Cards, “where others are deceived, Owl sees and knows what is there”).

Of course, there’s Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, with the owl on her shoulder, watching out for her blind side. And there was a little owl I’d seen with Steel on a recent hike.

Then Steel asked, “Remember the little barn owl we saw in West County?”

“Yes! I was just thinking of him.”

The fierce night hunter so cute he inspires plush kid’s toys slept among the fronds of a huge palm growing down a side trail.

Another hiker who’d seen us watching wood ducks earlier had asked, “You’ve seen the owl, right? He’s usually right over there.”

Nothing so awe-inspiring as a being so wise he can find his way in the dark. And nothing so connecting as meeting a stranger who, out of the blue, shares a secret he could have kept.

May the rest of your month—and your new year—be blessed with awe and connection. And owls.

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