OWLS. As a creature of two realms, the owl is a multivalent symbol admitting of both benevolent and malevolent interpretations. Like most birds, owls represent higher states of being (angels, spirits, supernatural aid, and wisdom), while their nocturnal nature and ominous hoot ally them with the instinctual world of matter, darkness, death, and blind ignorance. In a series of etchings he called Los caprichos, the Spanish painter Goya depicted owls as the dark forces of the irrational.

For many early peoples, owls were associated with the baleful, devouring nature of the Great Mother, and their sinister aspect as birds of ill omen prevailed over their benign connotations. In the Egyptian system of hieroglyphs, owls signify night, death, the sun that has sunk into darkness; in the Hindu tradition, they represent the soul and Yama, god of the dead; and in China, images of owls carved on funeral urns...