Linda Gonzalez

I was driving to Drakes Beach in Marin County, again. Had been to this beach at Point Reyes National Seashore the night before, compelled to visit this stretch of shoreline. The darkening sky was chock-full of hawks preying on hidden little feasts among the grasses on either side of the winding road. Swooping down in silence, they alighted again on the telephone poles where they had been perched before, wings folded, eyes narrowed, beaks sharp and ready.

It was mid-August, the week before my mother’s birthday. This time alone was as close to a vacation as I had had for years. I had gone through multiple life transitions, including my father’s death, the breakup of the relationship that had housed my twins, and two home moves.

I slowed the car to breathe in the unassuming grandeur of the rolling hills past Johnson’s Oyster Farm; it was my last evening before heading back to the jumble of work, children, and the quiet grief of my losses, none of which would fully subside.

I again chose the fork on the left that would lead me to Drakes Beach, formerly inhabited by the Coast Miwok people. As I descended toward the seashore, I spotted a dead bird on the side of the road. I screeched to a stop along the gravel perimeter and instinctively grabbed a paper bag from the back seat. As I approached cautiously, it appeared to have no head. I gingerly moved the bird to investigate what had caused its demise.

The head came into view when I shifted its position. An owl! A heart-shaped face exuding warm energy, its death recent, its beauty intact. Dark eyes were closed forever; its creamy chest, flecked with tiny black paint spatters, no longer rose and fell with the breath of life. I carefully lifted the soft, fragile creature and slid it into the bag, then surreptitiously trotted back to my car.

As I drove down the final curves to the beach, I comprehended I had a very precious gift. I then wondered what the Coast Miwoks would have done upon discovering a dead bird. They believed animal spirits were their ancestors. In fact, Coyote was seen as their ancestor and creator god who, with the help of other animals, made people out of simple materials, like feathers or twigs.

The bird book at the visitors' center identified the beautiful creature as a barn owl. While I admired the hunting capacity of hawks because they were easy to spot, I knew little about the barn owl. The book informed me the barn owl has amazing low-light vision but no peripheral vision without moving its head. The owl might have been zeroing in on a target and flying low across the road, unable to see the car that took its life at dusk, when it likes to hunt mice. Its asymmetrical ears had created a three-dimensional map and located that mouse underground by tracking the sound of its heartbeat. The owl’s downy feathers created total silence while it flew. Little did the mouse comprehend how close it had come to death. 

According to the Coast Miwok, the dead leapt into the ocean, following something like a string toward the west past the waves, arriving at the setting sun. The owl was on its way to meet Coyote in ute-yomi, or “dead home.” Perhaps it would meet up with my mother and father. Because her death was more recent, my mom's spirit felt fresher that twilight.

It occurred to me that if I took the bird, I would be removing something from a national park, violating its dual role of preserving and controlling the “natural” environment. I don’t break laws casually, so this was a bit chilling. No sudden movements near my car, I jokingly warned myself.

Back at the Inverness Valley Inn, I carefully carried the bag in, like a boxed cake whose frosting I did not want to smear, and placed it gently in the refrigerator. I called my curandera Tereza to seek guidance and left a message. As I was leaving the next day, the groundskeeper came up to my car window and handed me a paper with the curandera's name and number. When I called her, Tereza listened attentively to my story, then advised me to bury the bird with a ceremonia and ask the owl if it would gift me feathers.

As I drove south, I gradually digested the emotional intensity that had been building inside me. The owl had called me home and offered its departing spirit as a comfort and as a reminder that we are one blood, somos una sangre, solamente sangre. My short journey of relaxation was ending, and I had been re-membering myself, pulling my heart, mind and body back together with the beauty and strength of la naturaleza.

Driving along Lucas Valley Road, I turned my hands on the wheel left and then right, maneuvering the curves as I followed my internal trail back in time to learn how I had disengaged from my passion and my compassion for myself. I thought of my mom’s role. While she watched me with a keen eye, her sympathy remained submerged in a cavernous ocean floor to shield her trauma. My tendency during my recent losses was to observe without feelings, to keep the split wide so that the pain had to scream at me before I stopped to listen to it.

I forgot that the hawk’s innate character befits a bird of prey and that it does not strike its offspring, does not carry wounds from generation to generation. It hunts to feed and nurture its young, does not attack without true provocation—as is generally true for creatures in nature.

A few days after returning home, I gathered with two good friends in my backyard and our children to honor the owl’s life and death. We read the meanings that the owl represents: wisdom, connection to the ancestors, the link between darkness and light, carrier of secrets and omens, form changer. We asked the owl to gift us her feathers, and she gifted a feather to my son, daughter, and me. We dug a hole where the aguacate tree had been and set her facing up, her feathers spread open. I planted a salvia above her, picturing the roots growing down and enfolding her remains.

Then I sat quietly, pondering the remains of my mother’s legacy in the present moment. She carried secrets that have been released with and without her permission. We who still follow our out-breath with an in-breath can be in tune with the land and birds and oceans.

My mother will do as much for me in the spirit form she inhabits as when she walked this earth. “Gracias,” I whispered, as I patted down the dark soil.