The Owl and the Money Clip

Here's a story from Jim Banholzer that involves owl medicine. He heard it from a friend, Tonia, after he helped her and her husband Robin, move into a new house near Bellevue.
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At their old Ketchum place, Robin and Tonia had lived together with their children and a single mother, an arrangement that worked out great in some aspects, but also was a bit cramped, which tends to get worse during harsh Idaho winters. Both families had traveled down a few times to look at the prospective larger house. All four kids loved it, as did Tonia and her single-mother friend. Robin wasn’t so sure though; after all, they had already moved earlier that same year. His hesitation was understandable, as the new house cost more and he is the main breadwinner.

With the pressure on to decide soon, one evening Robin vociferously announced that he was “going fishing.” He walked down to the Big Wood River to spend some time alone and to specifically reflect on their situation. As twilight progressed, an enormous great horned owl swooped down over the water and dropped something shiny. Robin carefully waded out to where the owl dropped the item and discovered it was an empty money clip. Examining it closer, he saw that the silver was emblazoned with his own initials!

Robin took the owl’s message as a powerful sign, which helped him, decide that his family would be better off if they made the big move. Coincidentally, a few months previous, at their old house I had dropped off some animal totem books, including one that focused on birds as messengers. On a whim, I marked one of the owl stories with a copy of my own owl story, using it as a bookmark. It's called The Midday Owl who Withdrew from the Bank.

What’s interesting about this story is that most people who hear it agree that they would have made the same decision, even though the owl had dropped an empty money clip. One friend even opined that it’s healthy to get out in nature when making such large life-changing decisions and that it was a nice enough to be given such a powerful bird-augury to help with the choice; as pennies from heaven will arrive in their own due time.

Idaho Burning Woman Auguries

Idaho Burning Woman Auguries

For every light, which flicketh on,

another salmon cease to spawn,

The hunter without spiritual prayer,

teaches his young to despair

*

Fisherman never giving thanks;

discards plastic on river banks,

Each piece dropped by river oak,

a rainbow does fade and choke

*

One who has stopped reading books,

is out poaching royal Chinooks,

He who harms creatures with no need,

shall nevr know love of woman indeed,

*

She who hurts a little sage hen,

shall not become true love of man,

An animal knows when you fear it,

and can read the good your spirit

*

Humans not built separate from nature,

but tangled now with Techno-future,

Can we learn living side by side,

with shady spots and complicated pride?

*

One could read tracks to a day,

until ego began to shade his way,

Her stickers urged “Visualize World Peace!”

yet friendship with her neighbor ceased

*

Save the lion, wolf and bear,

but what about the kids you care?

High schools parking lot’s a mess,

projecting acts of generation next

*

Each delay of children’s center,

a young lad loses a valuable mentor,

Drinking and speeding up and down,

such hobbies paint your face a clown,

*

Son’s military service brings law and order,

Wild man discovers new psychic borders,

Every hungry truck engine left while idling,

A Persian Gulf soldier drowns in oil fighting,

*

A day spent within forced mechanical shields,

Distances one’s touch from beauties fields,

Every radioactive bomb a dud,

Gain we anew one field of spud

*

Each spilled barrel of in-toxic-crated waste,

A song filled meadow churns slow to paste,

Following a daily ritual too close,

hollows mans spirit into a ghost

*

Too much time on highway lately?

Pirsig’s advice: think laterally,

The crooked road you’ll find much more,

the cup of time fulfilled will pour

*

With Faster, Hurry! Go! Go! Go!

You might just zip, right past the show,

Airport paves a runway long,

cooks gridlock in a country song,

*

Each tailgate to a bumper,

forces a body to become a jumper

Too much fame, too much luck,

into Private Idaho you duck,

*

Inner city pressure forced you here,

wolverine medicine revealed over beer,

Hamp man dressed down, furtively glancing;

try soft deceit for excellent dancing,

*

Social help not here with this wealth,

we’re forty-ninth in mental health,

Each resort by glamour lighted,

another criminal is invited

*

With synthetic chemicals excessive high,

dark questionable characters draw a nigh,

A pot of gold will drive some crazy;

our moral lines become quite hazy

*

My last letter to Dad & mother,

“Valley’s brimmed with small potatoes smashing one another,”

Each new shelter built on field,

mountain lion blazes new trail to yield,

*

Tree roots cut with sewage hookup,

Great horned’s cloak above is shook up,

A house built with intent of wrath:

Man himself loses access path,

*

A truth that’s told with ill intent,

beats any lie you can invent,

Should I do a good job replacing this grate?

Hey, it’s a low liability State

*

Friendly waves gone unacknowledged;

snared upon wrong books in college?

Shiny idea gems from mind were taken,

with Indian lands life forsaken

*

No return to lake and ocean,

bringeth gesture without motion,

Fearless leader guides a human race, 

now seek thee quick their aged face

*

Think ye mental storm difficult handle? 

find two honest men with said stick candle,

Purify yourself deep in Gaia forest;

Help marriage with Earth come undivorced…

Fresh Healing Angles

Five summers ago, at the little Idaho hideaway cabin where I lived, I pruned back a sugar maple branch, to affix a small suet feeder, six feet off the ground. The maple was adjacent to some cottonwoods by a trickling creek. The brook was a lifeline for birds, especially magpies, kingfishers and the occasional mysterious owl. After attaching the birdfeeder, I found that we needed to refresh the suet, around twice a month. I usually remembered to do this on time. However, toward the end of summer, I realized that I had forgotten to check it for a while, walked over and found it full of some unidentifiable black goo. At first, I thought that the suet had turned rancid, but then, while prying the object out, I realized there were black feathers attached and something sadder had happened – a poor blackbird had become stuck inside the feeder and was unable to extract itself, leading to its untimely death.

I shuddered slightly and immediately looked at it as a bad omen. To me the bird augury was powerful enough that I decided to keep it a secret from my housemate, so as not to frighten her. I didn’t think much more about the matter, until a few weeks later: While winterizing the grounds, I placed a large tarp over a tent next to the maple. As I made a broad swooping motion with the tarp, the same sharp branch I had pruned earlier, speared through my ear and into the side of my head. It was a Tuesday afternoon and almost five o-clock. After standing there stunned for a few seconds, trying to figure out what had hit me, I realized the severity of the situation. I was alone and bleeding profusely from the left side of my head. Hastily, I rounded up the dog, grabbed a small towel, to press against the wound and drove 2 & 1/2 miles to our local emergency room.

It’s a small hospital, but well-staffed. As I arrived, something deep inside, switched my gears into survival mode, and helped to rally me through the surgery. I cracked a few jokes about my dilemma to the physician and his assistant, hoping this would put all three of us more at ease. (I truly believe that there are cases where if you act like a jerk, your level of quality service is apt to diminish.) This seemed to help, but while examining the complexity of damage, the young doctor expressed hesitation as to whether he could stitch my ear back together properly, and suggested that I may need to transfer to a Boise hospital. That was going to be a long expensive haul and I was not looking forward to seeing a specialist three hours away.

However, right then, a visiting plastic surgeon *just happened by* our emergency room to see the problem. He encouraged the attending physician to try a specific stitching method and even made some animated motions of how to do this. After the physician made a few careful stitches with the newly suggested method, he soon gained more confidence. The visiting plastic surgeon saw the doctor was getting it right, so he left us alone. Soon all was well and I was back at work the next afternoon. However, a few weeks later, my housemate broke me the bad news that the developer, who bought our tiny tumbledown shack, would soon be smashing it to smithereens and we would have to move.

(One of the new property owners speculated that they would try to save the maple, because such trees are rare in this climate and its vibrancy would enhance the property. However, the maple is gone and we’re not sure what happened.)

Meanwhile, the Near Death Experience trauma from the sweet sugar maple seeded something new into me. It forced me to reflect hard about the haphazard direction of my life and slowed me down enough to dedicate some quiet time to writing. In the five years since the incident, I’ve had a small measure of success at this. I feel strongly that writing about items of a meaningful nature is something I should be dedicated to for several hours each week.

Until now, I have shared this personal tale with only a handful of friends. Yesterday evening I recounted it to a new friend. She is a professional Hypnotherapist, recently transplanted to Idaho from Africa, and I am helping her with her Bio. While getting to know her, she has earned my trust in her powers of intuition and yesterday she expressed a new viewpoint of what happened that evening in the emergency room. When I told her that I never caught the name of the professional plastic surgeon that walked by at that synchronistic moment, she suggested that I have not yet fathomed the extent of what actually occurred. She claims that even if I tried hard, I would not be able to discover the Good Samaritan’s name, because he is not a human being. Rather she believes he is a guardian angel, who sensed that my time here on earth five years ago, was not yet finished, and that I still had some good work to give.

Questioning Special Abilities

Some answers for Idaho Spirit Seekers

Idaho Spriit Seekers. That's an interesting question that you pose and I’m in the process of trying to determine some answers. My first inclination is to say that interesting uncanny experiences and I have frequently intersected with each other, but it has been only recently that I’ve become capable of recognizing this.

For instance, when I was seven years old, back in Arlington Forest, Virginia, we went out as a group of eleven, trick-or-treating for Halloween. Midway through our autumnal adventure, we came upon a house that had jellybeans in a jar and if you could guess the correct amount, then you would win a special prize. Nobody guessed the amount, which was thirty, but the next year the same people pulled out the same jar onto their screen porch. I immediately knew it was again 30 and so yelled out the magic number. Back then, I remember thinking that it was strange no one else in the group, including the homeowners, who I intensely stared at for some sort of clue or wink to their easy joke, could remember that the thirty in the jar was the same as the previous year.

~

I seemed to be gifted from an early age with an ability to wildly pull information from wide ranges and then somehow quickly bolt them together for an interpretation woven into some impossibly farfetched tale, yet which still seemed to hold some element of truth. This facility ratcheted further, after a head injury I experienced a few years ago, which I will elaborate on here shortly.

~

The first time I ever got a hold of a computer, the following tale discovered itself through me:

http://realjobinmhz.blogspot.com/2007/05/tall-tissaw-thanksgiving-tale.html and was given as a magic 30^th birthday tribute for my two-meter tall childhood friend, Tiss. Here, Tiss is pictured sitting on a Giant’s chair in the front yard of Hailey’s old Ezra Pound house.

Somehow, I always knew that I would come to Idaho too. My first attempt in ’83 failed, when I sold my cherished ancient coin collection to cobble together money for the intended trip. At the last minute, after dropping off some Jimi Hendrix albums at a friend’s for safekeeping, I reflected deeply inside and figured it was not enough cash, nor were my skills yet well developed enough to try to make it out here on my own. So, for the better part of the next decade, I worked as a meter reader for a water company, which presented me with plenty of time and space for healthy contemplation. Then in early ‘93, a friend and I migrated out here together.

Soonafter, I fell into a part-time delivery job at the paper, which I worked alongside an abundance of other jobs along the way to gaining a broader life perspective. One of the more interesting jobs was nighttime irrigation, at the Warm Spring Golf Course, where it felt as though I was being paid to become better attuned with nature, working on the edge of the wilderness every evening, til after midnight. Here I remember gaining some sort of predilection towards knowing whom I would next see on the highway or shortly run into, during the day. Part of me said; that living in a small valley could certainly explain for this, but then it started happening much too often to be considered mere coincidence. I remember expressing this to the girl who I was chasing after at the time. She had been working as a meter reader here in Idaho and I asked her if she felt similar connections, regarding more clarity in premonitions of people who she might run into, and if so, did she attribute that capability to having a job better spiritually connected with the great outdoors? She, too, believed that there was a positive ring of truth to this.

One bright summer morning, in the mid-1990’s, while on the windy back-way return from delivering news wraps over to Silver Creek Convenience store, some powerful rhyming phrases began to surface from within and without. I started scribbling down these tantalizing predictions and turned them into a poem called “Local Auguries” I felt it was an item interesting enough to show to the editor. She said that she enjoyed it, when she handed it back after a few weeks. However, it was not yet meant for publication.

Idaho Auguries (1995)

Adapted from the Spirit of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence

For every light, which flicketh on, another salmon cease to spawn,
The hunter without spiritual prayer, teaches his young great despair,
Fisherman never giving thanks; discards plastic on river banks,
Each piece dropped by river oak, a rainbow doth fade and choke,

One who has stopped reading books, is out poaching royal Chinooks,
He who harms creatures with no need, shall nevr know love of woman indeed,
She who hurts a little sage hen, shall not become true love of man,
An animal knows when you fear it, and can read the good your spirit,

Humans not built apart from nature, but tangled now with Techno-future,
Can we learn living side by side, with sunny spots complexed in pride?
One could read tracks to a day, until ego seemed to shade his way,
Her stickers urged “Visualize World Peace!” yet friendship with her neighbor ceased,

Save the lion, wolf and bear, but what about the kids you care?
High schools parking lot’s a mess, projecting acts of generation next,
Each delay of children’s center, a young lad loses a valuable mentor,
Drinking and speeding up and down, such hobbies paint your face a clown,

Son’s military service brings law and order,

Wild man discovers new psychic borders,
Every hungry truck engine left while idling,

A Persian Gulf soldier drowns in oil fighting,

A day spent within forced mechanical shields,

Distances one’s touch from beauties fields,
each radioactive bomb a dud,

Gain we anew one field of spud,
Each spilled barrel of in-toxic-crated waste,

A song filled meadow churns slow to paste,


Following a daily ritual too close, whittles mans marrow into the ghost,
Too much time on highway lately? Pirsig’s advice: think laterally,
The crooked road you’ll find much more, the cup of time fulfilled will pour,
With Faster, Hurry! Go! Go! Go! You might just zip, past desir'd show,

Airport paves a runway long, cooks gridlock in a country song,
Each tailgate to a bumper, forces a body to become a jumper,
Too much fame, So much luck, into Private Idaho you duck,
Inner city pressure forced you here, wolverine medicine revealed over beer,

Hamp man dressed down, furtively glancing; try soft deceit for excellent dancing,
Social help lacking amidst this wealth, we’re forty-ninth in mental health,
Each resort by glamour lighted, another criminal is invited,
With synthetic chemicals excessive high, dark questionable characters draw a nigh,

A pot of gold will drive some crazy; our morals line becomes quite hazy,
My last letter to Dad & mother, “Valley’s brimmed with small potatoes smashing gainst one another,”
Each new shelter built on field, mountain lion blazes new trail to yield,
Tree roots cut with sewage hookup, Great horned cloak above is shook up,

A house that’s built with intent of wrath, Man himself loses access path,
A truth that’s told with ill intent beats any lie you can invent,
Should I do a good job replacing this grate? Hey, it’s a low liability State!
Many friendly waves not acknowledged; snared upon wrong books in college?

Shiny idea gems from the mind were taken, when the Indian’s land was forsaken,
Not returning to swim in lake and ocean, begins to bring gesture without motion,
Fearless leaders guide the human race, but look how quick their aged face,
Think ye the mental storm hard to handle, try finding an honest man with one candle,
Purify yourself often in Gaia forest; help marriage of Earth & Man not be divorced.

~ ~ ~

Another related event of interest occurred in 2004, while I was rushing to winterize my tumble down shack, before going on a trip back east. I was pulling the tarp over my yard tent, when suddenly I felt a piercing pain and warm fluid flowing from the left side of my head. Turns out that a tree branch, which I had sharply pruned to affix a suet feeder better, had now sharply pierced into my skull, via my left ear. Being alone, I grabbed two towels, pressed them against my head, and left the concerned dog inside. I knew from a previous head injury on the other side, that blood rushing out at such a high rate was normal, so somehow kept enough cool to drive to the emergency room.

In the suet feeder from this tree’s branches, I discovered only weeks before that a black bird had sadly become trapped within the feeder and perished. I felt that this was too much of a bad omen to tell my housemate, so intentionally neglected to mention it. Now here I was, painfully experiencing the portent from that powerful omen.

The head injury instantly forced me to slow down. Several other circumstances converged around the same time and suddenly I found myself writing all of the time, hardly able to contain the flow.

On Tuesday, May 31, 2005 I witnessed an owl injured by a storytelling of crows. Although there was much rush involved in this day following a 3 day weekend, I had learned to slow down enough in important situations like these, to gain some observations and (as previously mentioned in this thread) wrote what I saw.

I worked on this tale for a long while, but determined that it was probably too over-the-top for the newspaper, and figured I would never submit it. However, I soon conferred with a shaman-priest in South America over the telephone, during a special trance state session he provided, where his translator stated, “the owl was a gift.” Reflecting on this eventually changed my mind about not submitting it. One reason I did not want to put it forward, was that I believed this could put me in bad karma with the local police, joking in such a way about the TSA in our small community. Then, precisely when that particular paper was going to press, a TSA agent was arrested, suspected in a child enticement case, giving my commentary its needed credence.

However, when I tried to point this out to a few friends, going as far as diagramming it out, nobody could see the connection! There were several other instances where items I had forecast came to be spot on, but I tired of trying to explain it. One time I even blurted out in bright sunlight in front of several colleagues that I predicted a small plane would land at the closed for construction Hailey Airport, but that nobody would be hurt. Several weeks later, this came to happen in much the manner I mentioned. However, I’m uncertain as to whether anybody was paying attention to what I had said.

Soonafter, I found a book on animal totems and when I got to the end, there was a request by the author for readers to relay the authors any interesting animal stories we might have. I conveyed the owl encounter, which led me into a long correspondence between two well-established authors. The woman is a highly regarded astrologist and kindly read my chart. This is the type of stuff; I scoffed at for thirty years, but now totally buy.

Another thing that happened after running the owl story in the newspaper, is that I felt it was time to share a closely regarding secret with my best friend in Hailey. The secret is about a severe cloaked trauma I experienced in 1978 and have only relayed a portion of it to a handful of friends. Some day soon, I may discover myself writing about what happened in full detail, but that time is not yet arisen. Anyhow, I went on for about two hours telling my friend about my stigmatized experience. It was very cathartic and released a tremendous amount of energy. Around 2 a.m., after we shared the story, we stepped outside and witnessed a full boar aurora borealis twinkling high in the sky. We drove up Indian Creek to a spot where we had watched two wolverines playfully dancing together on our way back from the movies one night. We continued gazing at the remarkable illumination for an eternally memorable spell. It seemed as if they were there especially for us, as no other cars were about.

~

Marie, I suppose this has been an especially long answer to your simple question. Again, thanks for asking it! When you have the opportunity, I would be interested in learning more about what you do with Idaho Spirit Seekers and how you first came to be involved with this interesting pursuit. Tonight I think I will take another gander at your website and that may fulfill some of my curiosity, but if there’s more you would like to share than what I may find on your website, I would be interested in hearing it.

I think it’s great what your Idaho Spirit Seekers is seeking to do and would like to give you additional feedback, once I learn more.

Best regards,

Jim Banholzer

Writing in Island Park

I recently returned from Island Park, Idaho in the eastern part of the state –adjacent to Yellowstone.

I was on a quest for some interesting stories about hunting. And I found some:

The first thing evident when we pulled into the summer cabin area, were six game & fish officer trucks, parked together at the entrance. Turns out that a hunter and Grizzly bear got into a confrontation with each other, over an elk that the hunter was dressing. The hunter clipped the bear with his pistol, so now there was a wounded grizzly wandering somewhere around the cabin area. Not a good place to take your dog for a walk! There was some concern that hunting would be shut down for the area, but we believe that they caught that bear the same day.

Recently the area drew national news with a story superbly entitled “Critics hate Idaho hunting ranch’s guts”

Evidently, a private elk ranching operation has been dumping (apparently legally) gut piles from their expended stock, only slightly buried outside their fence line. There has been much speculation that this is what is attracting more Grizzlies than normal to this area adjacent to Yellowstone.

My friend drew a moose tag. However, in the 5 days up there, we encountered very few moose in our travels. We speculate that the known Grizzly presence in the area is making the prey animals more skittish than normal. Same thing happened right after wolves were reintroduced en masse. Not that any of this is bad, but all the rational animals appear to be more on edge.

I probably looked out of place, walking around with the hunters, while donning my Sun Valley threads and acting with non hunting-fever mannerisms. At least, I hope that a few folks got a good chuckle. Each night the grizzled hunters in our camp would recount their wild safari stories from afar. And each morning, I would scribble them down as fast as I could to remember them. We actually saw a grizzly bear one evening, munching away at grass and grubs, seemingly unconcerned about us peering down from a mere eighty feet, above in our truck. Anyhow, I have more stories, but in all the rush to get out of there, I left my other computer at the cabin, with the scribblings and with my abnormal psyche class homework. Wonder if the instructor will believe me, if I tell her that I was spooked by a Griz -causing me to leave the laptop atop the woodpile?