well, owl be!

"The owl was my spirit, my bond to the time and harmony of the universe... My work was to do good" (Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima. p, 260)

In this book, the character Ultima is a seemingly omniscient figure. An older woman who has all the answers, but is full of mystery herself.  Her soul is intricately connected to an owl, a symbol of wisdom and power. Another famous character symbolized by an owl is the Greek goddess Athena.

This character is repeated throughout history, so there must be something about this type of character that we are drawn to.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom. She is also associated with War, but she’s not the goddess of WAR, she is the goddess of JUST warfare. She is specifically a woman who only wages justified wars using intelligence. Athena is often depicted in ancient art with an owl nearby, or as an owl.

For the ancient Greeks, war and wisdom are interlinked. The two should not be separate. A leader in deciding the fate of other men should be incredibly wise, perhaps above all else. Both Athena and Ultima are these leaders.

These two women are linked by the way they use their power: Ultima wages a just war against a curse, against evil.  She defends Antonio’s family with sagacity, after they plead, just like Athena would use her powers for a good hero who called upon her for help.

These two characters are from wildly different cultures, across hundreds of years in time, and geographical locations, and yet repeated.  Something about the human spirit wants to connect to a character of perfect wisdom. We yearn for relatable, human characters on whom we can call rely for answers. There is a desperate desire, a hope, and maybe even a faith that our leaders be infinitely wiser than we. We make decisions based on our knowledge—which we know is limited and flawed—and maybe that scares us.

Both these women are powerful and strong, not because of their physical strength, but because of their wisdom. They use their knowledge to justly resolve conflict. What better characters to place our trust in to lead us at the forefront?