On my walk through the Maine woods yesterday, I found a barred owl feather.
I've walked through the Maine woods hundreds of times in my life and have found a few feathers now and then.
Blue Jays. Nuthatches. Crows.
This was my first barred owl feather.
Naturally I immediately affixed all kinds of meaning to both finding it and the feather itself. I'm a writer, after all, and a former English teacher who loves symbolism and metaphor and archetypes and all that other fun stuff writers get to play with every day.
Finding an owl feather is an auspicious event. I wasn't going to chalk it up to coincidence. As my friend Geri Ann likes to remind me --
There are no coincidences.
Owl Feather Meaning
So what did finding an owl feather mean?
My dad, who was a scientist and wasn't much into symbolism or coincidences, would have said there was no meaning to the feather. Meaning for him came in formulas. Birds of all kinds lose feathers now and then, he would say. It's part of nature. End of story.
That's one way of looking at it.
But for me, I knew there was more to the owl feather than biology.
Before the Internet, I would have turned to several trusty books about symbols and their meanings to learn about the feather. I still own those books, but they don't get much use from me anymore with a Siri search literally in my hand. Yes, I'm using the word literally here in its purest form. It's rare anymore to find me without my phone glued to my palm.
My query revealed several meanings for an owl feather, each having to do with forces greater than us bumbling humans. Here are a handful:
- Wisdom and intuition
- Inner peace and harmony
- Protection and healing
- Connection to the spirit world
- Freedom and independence
What a great list!
Like most people when reading something to gain a deeper understanding about myself or the world, confirmation bias takes up the entire front row seat of my mind. I will choose the meaning that makes the most sense to my current situation.
At a different time in my life, I would have immediately ascribed the wisdom and intuition reference to myself and moved on with my day.
Yesterday, all five of the meanings felt accurate and on-point, especially because it's my dad's birthday later this week. He would have been 85. He would have loved that his daughter was walking through the Maine woods on a sunny afternoon taking photos of felled trees. He would have loved that I found an owl feather and then he would have loved seeing it when I returned to our camp.
Finding an Owl Feather Meaning
Across the board, it seems that finding an owl feather means you are receiving a message from the spirit world. I suppose it is up to the finder to decipher what that message is and then interpret that message.
In my case, my boyfriend called me a minute after I picked up the feather. I had been thinking about him prior to finding the feather because we hadn't talked yet that day so that could have been my message. He was on his way to the grocery store and wanted to know if he should go to Lidl or Stop and Shop.
"Stop and Shop," I said without missing a beat. "Bigger selection. Better brands."
Now, a conversation about going to the grocery store is as about as mundane as they come. Definitely not a lightning bolt of inspiration or big a-ha moment from the Universe. But it's always good to hear his voice no matter what we talk about. I can think of far worse messages the spirit world could have sent me than deciding between Lidl and Stop and Shop and besides -- finding beauty and peace in the mundane is part of a strong leadership and spiritual practice so there is that.
After we hung up, I took a couple of selfies holding the owl feather and then made my way home where I put it over my bed for protection, and wisdom, and luck, and healing, and more freedom and inspiration and all the other wonderful things such things are purported to bring me.
Of course, my dad's assessment of the owl feather holds weight as a valid interpretation. Maybe it's just a cool feather that belonged to an awesome barred owl who lives in the woods near my camp and serenades us woods fold with its song of Who cooks for you?
I can celebrate its existence and thank it for eating creatures I'd rather not encounter like snakes and mice and brown recluse spiders.
And maybe finding the owl feather was my dad sending me a message to continue being a steward of the natural world.
To continue asking questions and being curious.
To continue taking walks in the woods.
To continue being interested in people and taking photos and laughing every day because life is so damn short and none of us knows when our time here on earth is through.
That's a cool interpretation of finding an owl feather worth considering, too.
