Owls and airplanes?
Strange things seem to be happening to me lately.

For example, the other night I walked into the house in the dark. I had forgotten to leave lights on.  The moon is waning so it was pitch black. As I entered the  kitchen I was startled by something small, but larger-than-a-bug flying at me on silent wings.

Athena, in the guise of a western Screech owl, sitting on my refrigerator.

When I flipped the light on I discovered that Athena had come to visit me in the guise of an owl.  Somehow a Western Screech Owl had gotten into the house. I still don’t know how. All doors and windows were locked.
I gently helped her find her way out into the night.

And then last night I had a very strange dream .
I was flying in a small plane on my way to deliver and set up an art show.  I was also going to teach a painting workshop at the same place somewhere way out in a stunningly beautiful desert.

On top of Kitchen Mesa at the Ghost Ranch over looking the Piedra Lumbre valley. Pedernal (O’Keeffe’s mountain) is in the distance. I’m 1000 feet above the valley floor after a wonderful, sweaty hike.

The way that it worked was they were going to drop me off in mid-air  to parachute into the site.
So I jumped out of the plane.
But my parachute didn’t open.
Even though I knew I was going to die, all I could think of was how beautiful the scenery was.
And in the last few hundred feet of my fall I willed myself to not be afraid.
To only see the beauty.
Then I realized I was going to live.
And I did.
I was very wounded in some inexplicable way. No broken bones.
I healed very quickly.
That’s all I remember.