Tree Owl – Day 392

Tree Owl from afar – Photo: L. Weikel

Tree Owl

Funnily enough, it seems that Turkey just keeps on giving. Indeed, it showed up in my cards again today, and I feel compelled to share something very cool from yesterday: a tree owl.

Today I chose Skunk/Turkey (meaning Skunk was the card I chose – from the deck, face down – in case there’s any confusion on that score) and Turkey was on the bottom of the deck. So, while Skunk was essentially the primary card for me to pay attention to today, Turkey was still playing a role somehow.

Yet again, as I did yesterday, I could recount for you a number of experiences or situations I encountered today that could qualify as ‘gifts.’ But instead, I want to show you something really cool that I discovered yesterday, on the day I picked Turkey squared.

Weisel Hostel

Our tour of the campus of the Fraternity of Rosicrucians yesterday took us basically across the street from the Weisel Hostel, where I’ve held probably half a dozen Listening Retreats, an entire 18 month Merkabah Medicine Program, and a couple Aspiration-Setting retreats over the past six years or so.

Sadly, the Weisel Hostel is no longer, technically, a hostel. Toward the end of 2018, Hostelling International decided to discontinue its relationship with Bucks County at the Weisel premises. As a result of that decision (and perhaps other factors, who knows?), the Weisel hasn’t been available for any retreats there for over a year.

Personally, this has been a great loss. My beloved Tohickon Creek begins up in that area, and a huge draw for me, and my participants once they got to experience it, was the fact that the creek flowed right beside the hostel. You could hear her voice singing at night when we had all the windows open.

Naturally, I couldn’t be ‘in the neighborhood’ of the Weisel without stopping by and saying hello to all the Spirits of the Land, the creek, and the path that led to the fire pit where we had many sacred fires through the years. So Karl and I did just that: paid a visit to the Weisel.

Major Changes

There were a lot of changes to the premises that I’m not going to enumerate now. The creek itself seemed to be flowing unnaturally (perhaps a better description would be that it was barely trickling). We walked the path that we’d trod so many times in the dark, leading us to the fire pit, and were aghast at what we found. In all the years we held retreats there, I never saw so much of the bottom of the pond exposed. Most of the water was gone. But there was also a lot of devastation of the creek bed.

Devastated dam – Photo: L. Weikel

A huge ash had snapped 25 or so feet above the ground, and the massive (and extremely heavy and dense) part of the trunk that had snapped off was slammed into the grass near the fire pit. Karl and I just stood at the edge of the pond where so many water birds, beaver, deer, and foxes had been spotted, where so many precious and sacred moments had been shared with amazing people, and felt grief.

Snapped tree – Photo: L. Weikel

Tree Owl

And that’s when I did a double-take. I saw what looked like an alabaster or crystalline owl nestled in a tree. I took it as  a gift; a small sign, to me, that our presence at the hostel all those years had been felt.

I’m calling it a tree owl, but really it’s ‘just’ a weird patch in the bark of a tree. (Right?) It’s one of the trees that bore witness to all of the sacred fires we held at the Weisel through the years.

Perhaps the Tree Owl is telling me to take heart and have hope. Perhaps it’s serving as a ghostly sentinel, keeping watch until we return. Perhaps the gift in finding the Tree Owl is that it’s a sign that there are better days ahead for the Weisel House* and perhaps, just maybe, a day will come when we can resume our work there, too.

That, indeed, would be a most precious gift.

Tree Owl up close – Photo: L. Weikel

*I’m shifting the name from Weisel Hostel to Weisel House.

(T-719)