I think I have been hearing a snowy owl on my nightly walks. I always try to take a walk just as darkness starts to settle in. Sometimes during the winter months it is very cold when I take my walks but if it is not snowing I go walking every evening. Sometimes even when it is snowing I still go walking. I bundle up against the cold and try to walk at least a couple of miles. I live in the country with my nearest neighbor living a couple of miles from me. There is something so peaceful about taking a walk outside in the cold especially if there is a full moon. Sometimes the only sound I will hear is the sound of my boots as I am walking along the gravel road. I doubt if many people in this day and age experience utter silence in the out doors. I have heard that it is good to get in touch with nature and this is when I feel the closet to it. I think of those that have gone before me and that are now gone. I am not referring to the generation or two before me but to those humans who passed this way thousands of years ago. What were they like? I have often wondered this as I take my nightly walk. Surely they had concerns although I believe they would have been much different than mine. I doubted if they were concerned with paying a mortgage or if they were going to lose their job in the next round of layoffs. They probably did not wonder if their 401k would recover in time for them to retire with enough money to live on. I imagine their concerns where simpler but in some ways much more serious. Would they be able to find enough food to survive through the winter? Would their sick child make it through the cold night? While my concerns are very important to me and cause me much concern they seem somewhat trivial compared to my ancestors whose troubles seemed more basic in that they dealt with the very survival of life it self. I consider myself fortunate.
I mentioned earlier that I believed I had heard and seen a snowy owl in a row of trees as I would take my evening walk. I would hear him and then see a dark figure fly away in search of another tree in which to alight in. Last night I started my walk earlier than normal in hopes of getting a better glimpse of him. Sure enough he was perched in the same group of trees. He did not seem startled when I showed up early. He was pure white which I have since learned meant that he was a male. I stood quietly watching him. He returned my stare and then perhaps sensing something was different in the timing of our encounter slowly took off and headed away from. I watched him gracefully fly away and a thought accured to me. I wondered if my ancestors thousands of years ago would have had a similar encounter and if it gave them the comfort it gave me. I would like to think so.
