“Tenebrae ~ Eastern Screech Owl,” an original contemporary acrylic painting, copyright, wildlife artist Susan A. Walton, S. A. Walton Studio, Hudson, Florida.

This is an original acrylic painting of a rufous phase Eastern Screech Owl, inspired by an antler-loaded wooden beam in an old fellow’s tool shed in Alabama. The man certainly liked venison, and this was his favored place for leaving the smaller mementos of years of hunting which my brother photographed and shared with me. These three sets of antlers in the foreground were the ones I singled out from many in the reference photo of probably some 25 sets on those trusses. It is my habit to put some grouping of three in every painting or work of art and sure enough, my eyes were drawn to these three.

The buck, or male deer, has royal connotations from acting Old World times, and the crown of a regal stag, Lord of the Forest, is his antlers. Similarly, Americans admire the antlers of the New World’s White Tailed Deer, which they often keep as mementos of a good day in the woods, whether these antlers are small or great. Seeing these three New World “crowns,” once carried by lively little whitetail bucks, just casually hooked over the beams of a dark old shed to dry and then seemingly forgotten, looked stark and forlorn. What a humiliating way to go, for the princes of Forest and field : captured crowns hanging on a weathered wood beam, too small to impress or be respected. But they weren’t truly abandoned or forgotten, they just seem to be, from our unknowing perspective.

The painting is titled “Tenebrae,” which is Latin for ‘darkness,’ or ‘shadows,’ a term familiar to Lutherans and Roman Catholics. It is part of an ancient 7 or 8th century tradition where a series of candles are extinguished incrementally after each of the services’ divisions, or nocturnes. The church gets darker and darker, to remind parishioners of the darkness that covered the earth when Jesus was on the cross, the darkness over those who rejected Him, and the darkness when He at last expired on the cross. (The remaining central candle, the Christ candle, is hidden away.)

When it is completely dark, a very loud, harsh noise is heard, likened to the sound of the closing of the tomb, reflecting the enormity of what God has done on our behalf.

While it is a serious, somber service, it is not a memorial service. It is a service of awed gratefulness - we know Easter Sunday is coming and can picture the great stone rolled away, and the joy of what that means, after all. But we easily forget, when things are going well and we have all that we need; and we also forget when everything seems to be going wrong; so the Tenebrae service is a sort of attitude adjustment for our far too-busy, inattentive minds.

To emphasize the seriousness of Tenebrae, including an owl on the beam with the antlers seemed an appropriate nod to an old cultural tradition. My best friend here in Florida used to recount how her folks believed that hearing an owl outside their window was an omen of imminent death in the family, and I had heard older people say that before on occasion, though it wasn’t part of my own family’s tradition to become alarmed at the calling of an owl outside the window, at least not normally. There was this one time…

But I digress, and will save that story for later.

I reside right next to an old red maple tree in which highly vocal owls nest every year, and hearing their calls is an almost nightly thing. If there was anything to the old wives’ tale of doom, by now there shouldn’t be anyone left to listen.

But maybe there is a reason for the once common belief. When a family is young, going strong and all is well, there is a lot of noise: children laughing, parents fussing, celebration of this and that, friends visiting, and the clatter of chores being done by many hands. The owls could carry on outside such a family’s cabin and not be heard above the lively din. But as time wears on, the kids grow up and leave, and the remaining occupants are weary and alone in their old age. There is less going on, less that they are able to do, and there are a lot more quiet moments.

Perhaps one gets ill, one spouse tending to the other in silence. At such times, an owl outside can sound loud and clear by comparison, and when a person passes, the memory of “that owl a calling” around the same time as the death of a loved one stands out.

But I think they had it wrong. The owl isn’t an omen, it is an example of love. It is merely faithfully calling to its own loved one in the darkness, in hope of and expecting to hear a call in return, each call a little closer than the last until they are reunited again. When things are at their darkest, there is One who sees even in the darkness, One who knows you and is always calling. He will fly to you and fly with you through the longest night.

This wildlife art painting of a screech owl is on gallery-wrapped canvas which is painted on all sides and does not require a frame, although it could be dressed up in a floater frame if desired. Hardware included, it is ready to hang as-is.

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