Owl: A Woman’s Ally | Jessamine Dana
“[The owl] represents both our attraction to our spiritual selves (our calling), and our fear of what wildness, wisdoms, and pleasures might occur if we take responsibility for those callings and their relationship to the world. What might happen if we decided to following our calling? If we shapeshift into a new woman? If we step into our leadership? The owl can represent both the desire and the fear we feel as we open up to these possibilities and the hero/ine’s journey into the darkness of the underworld to bring back gifts of knowledge and light.
...The owl is connected to the moon, but also to dusk, the time in between night and day. Similarly, owls are known to be messengers and intermediaries between life and death, and particularly show up in stories and superstitions around childbirth and a woman’s “loss of virginity”. It does not require a stretch of the imagination to link a woman’s ability to both create life and release it through childbirth, miscarriage, and menstruation...
Both women and owls are regarded as pagan (outside the main religious doctrines), clairvoyant, and possessing uncanny powers. In China, owls are associated with lightening and drums because they break the darkness and the silence with their appearance and cries. The eyes of an owl have long represented the ability to see into the night, to hunt well in the dark, to travel far, and to perceive what others wish to hide. The owl is connected to the mature woman’s wisdom, self-possession, and ways of knowing, but it is also a symbol of the rites and processes of turning and transforming from the uninitiated girl into the woman or crone of deep, and potentially subversive power.
Like a siren of the night, the owl tugs at the edges of feminine spirituality, reminding us of the leadership and responsibility that is both a birthright and a challenge. Owl dares us to step into our power, into the unknown darkness, and to somehow, miraculously, return to our people with our arms, our hearts, and our eyes, absolutely full of light.”
“[The owl] represents both our attraction to our spiritual selves (our calling), and our fear of what wildness, wisdoms, and pleasures might occur if we take responsibility for those callings and their relationship to the world. What might happen if we decided to following our calling? If we shapeshift into a new woman? If we step into our leadership? The owl can represent both the desire and the fear we feel as we open up to these possibilities and the hero/ine’s journey into the darkness of the underworld to bring back gifts of knowledge and light.
...The owl is connected to the moon, but also to dusk, the time in between night and day. Similarly, owls are known to be messengers and intermediaries between life and death, and particularly show up in stories and superstitions around childbirth and a woman’s “loss of virginity”. It does not require a stretch of the imagination to link a woman’s ability to both create life and release it through childbirth, miscarriage, and menstruation...
Both women and owls are regarded as pagan (outside the main religious doctrines), clairvoyant, and possessing uncanny powers. In China, owls are associated with lightening and drums because they break the darkness and the silence with their appearance and cries. The eyes of an owl have long represented the ability to see into the night, to hunt well in the dark, to travel far, and to perceive what others wish to hide. The owl is connected to the mature woman’s wisdom, self-possession, and ways of knowing, but it is also a symbol of the rites and processes of turning and transforming from the uninitiated girl into the woman or crone of deep, and potentially subversive power.
Like a siren of the night, the owl tugs at the edges of feminine spirituality, reminding us of the leadership and responsibility that is both a birthright and a challenge. Owl dares us to step into our power, into the unknown darkness, and to somehow, miraculously, return to our people with our arms, our hearts, and our eyes, absolutely full of light.”