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Posted by Paul-the-other on 07:41:51 05/02/05
What a beautiful sight to behold on my evening stroll through Hoechoka Hammock. Mother screech owl standing on a fence pole patiently enduring the rasping calls and faux attacks of cardinals and mockingbirds while jays scream overhead hopping from branch to branch through cabbage palms, spanish stopper, and ironwood trees. I was quietly leaning against a cabbage palm just enjoying the beauty of nature, "animalizing" as the gifted nature writer Alan Devoe would say, when another motion to the side and much closer caught my attention. There, head bobbing in the comical owl fashion were two very recently fledged screech owls still fuzzy in pre-flight baby down. Ah, yes, mother owl was doing what all good mothers do--keeping the kids safe. The movie didn't have much of a plot after that. As dusk settled into and over the hammock the larger birds tired of their redundant and, by human standards, totally ineffective antics and flew away to find a night roose. What a graced moment.
Then, mother owl turned her attention to me. I only required one "buzz" to get the message. "Be at peace, mother owl. I mean you no harm." But how do I, a separate nation, convey that to my sister the owl? By leaving quietly to what surely must have been the thoughts, if not the words, from the babies: "way to go mom! Give 'em hell." In truth, she gave me heaven. An insight into the wonderful world of nature.
Hoechoka Hammock settled into the quietude of a deep Spring evening. As I drove away, my night patrol ended, I wondered about how few people realize, as they drive the exit road to and from the church building, that there within a frisbee throw from their fast moving vehicles is grace, beauty, and purpose without measure, without weight, pressed down and overflowing.
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