Whoo's There?

We had a surprise visitor in the Dragonfly Class today.  A Great Horned Owl.  A lovely woman cares for injured raptors and brought this beautiful owl to school to share with her grandson's class.  We are studying owls and she kindly brought the owl to the Dragonfly Class as well.

What an amazing treat!  The owl has a permanently-injured wing.  An owl with a disability!  :)  You can see that her feathers are askew closest to the camera.  She was either hit by a car or flew into a car and broke her owl-wrist (part of her wing).  She can no longer hunt.  She was so other-worldly with her studious attention of our kinder and first grade students, her stillness, her sense of knowing, somehow, more than we could even hope to know as humans on this earth.  She was a secret-keeper.  I know why owls are called wise.  Her energy was above us all :)

I might make her my new mascot, because she did not regard herself any differently due to her disability.  She was not sad or lost.  She was all-owl.  Her limitations did not diminish her energy.  She was fantastic.

Another pretty leaf photo.  Before meeting the owl, I took the class on an Autumn Hike to inspire poetry.  The leaves are splashing color across the sky.  I felt myself pushing too hard.  I'll pay for the extra efforts tomorrow.  But seeing the sun through the leaves was magic.  A beautiful day :)