the black owl

3 minutes ago my mother and i were standing in my kitchen. she told me about a dream, and then went back outside to cut some roses.

and i rushed in here.

she said she had a dream a few weeks ago, about a native american woman sitting in the dirt, connecting with the earth. there were large birds walking around her. and there was a black owl to the side, a huge black owl, that would stand hip-high to a human. the owl had a wide wing span and was moving its feathers in a motion that swept up dirt over itself; it was giving itself a dirt bath.

mum sees a dream analyst, who talked it through with her. he thought it might symbolise connecting with the planet and the ground, those sorts of things. he said he would look it up in his big book at home.

next session he told mum he'd found the black owl. apparently native americans believe that a black owl is a harbinger of death.

are you getting shivery?

mum had no idea about this metaphor. neither did peter, he said he'd never heard of it before.

i am shivery.

but he assured her he thinks that rather than her thinking death is imminent for herself, that death is close to all of us, it's in all our lives, but that she more than most might have it a little closer to her mind than others, as she continues to live with cancer.

but how freaky is that owl? where did it come from? is there such a thing as archetypal memory?