Around 1994, Alicen suffered a miscarriage and was very upset from the experience. One month after this miscarriage, on the night of a full moon and on the night of her first period since the incident she had a very strange experience. She awoke in the night to the screeching sound of a bird in the bed room. She looked around in the semi darkness and suddenly she felt a flutter of wings and moving air and she saw a naked body of a woman with a Barn Owl's head and wings, fly through the wall of the bed room directly over her head and vanish into the facing wall. Quite bewildered at this experience she woke me up. I thought at the time she must have dreamt it and told her not to worry too much about it. She insisted it was not a dream and the next day she looked through all the books we had that might give her a clue. One book on Goddess's by Janet and Stuart Farrar yielded a clue. We found out about a Goddess called Hecate who although had my guises, would sometimes appear in the form of a barn owl. She was amongst her many tasks, taking souls of unborn children back to the dead. We thought this explanation was the closest we could find, especially when it said that she often appeared on the full moon. Not knowing why she had this experience, she soon got on with life and concentrated on her writing career.

She did however fall pregnant again around six months later. Despite being overjoyed at being pregnant, she harboured worries if she would carry the pregnancy full term. She kept asking me if things would be alright, and I kept saying of course they would and told her not to worry, but secretly not knowing what was going to happen. Then one night, I too had a strange experience in the form of a dream.

In the dream, I was with Alicen in the woods nearby to our house in Buckinghamshire, and we spotted an injured Barn Owl on the branch of a tree. I flew up to the tree and took the Barn Owl down and said to Alicen that we had better take this injured Barn Owl to the vets to have it checked over. At the vets, the Owl was healed and then the vet said they had better give it a test flight. So the Owl flew upwards and out of the window and was promptly swallowed whole by a much larger Albatross type bird. I was very upset to see my little Owl eaten, especially after I had rescued it. I walked home with Alicen all up set and down in the dumps, and then a strange little thing happened. A Barn Owl landed on my shoulder! I was overjoyed and thought this must be my little Barn Owl. However, that knowing part of me, interjected in the dream and said it was a sister of the first Barn Owl. With this knowledge I took off in the air and flew up into the now night sky with this new Barn Owl. I was very happy and overjoyed as we flew together in the night on a full moon over church yards and fields, rather like the little boy who fly's at night with the Snowman in Raymond Briggs' book and film. I felt very spiritual and pleased.

The next day Alicen happened to mention once more that she was worried about losing this pregnancy. I then decided to tell her my dream. I thought that the first Owl who was eaten, was the first baby who maybe could have been injured, hence the miscarriage, and was now being taken back to where it came from, to join it's higher self maybe . I thought this was because it was being eaten or possibly absorbed by a bigger bird. The Owl who landed on my shoulder was possibly indeed the sister of the first baby. The fact that this new Owl was flying in the night sky with me, indicated that we would both have an adventure together on Earth. Also, I told Alicen, I believed it had to come in the form of an Owl to me so that it would unify her previous experience with my one. We could easily tie the two experiences together. She felt a lot better after I had told her this and also asked me to write it down as she felt it important.

We started to get some strange experiences after this also. Not long after we were driving at night down a road when we came upon a Barn Owl just sitting in the middle of the road looking at us. We looked at each other and then looked back at the Owl. The Owl just took off and flew up and over the car. We were pretty stunned to say the least!

We had a baby girl ( as indicated in the dream) on the 15th August 1995. Not long after Morgan ( our new daughter's name) was delivered, Alicen asked me to fetch some things she had forgotten in the delivery room on the ground floor of the hospital. So I went to use the lift and found that it was taking some time to arrive, I decided it would be quicker if I took the stairs. As I went down the stairs, I passed a very heavily pregnant lady coming up the stairs with her partner. I overheard part of their conversation, which said 'When are we going to see your friend who has the pet Barn Owl?'

Needless to say, upon hearing that I was pretty stunned! Hecate was maybe making herself known once more!

A day or two later, some friends of ours, who knew nothing of our strange story came to see Morgan in the hospital with Alicen, the new proud mum. They brought a little present they said for the baby wrapped in Tissue paper. We both unwrapped it to find a little candle..... in the shape of an Owl! Alicen and I just looked at each other with our jaws wide open!!

Some time later we both discovered that Morgan's birthdate, the 15th August, is celebrated in Italy as Hecate's day! This was getting more and more stranger by the minute!

When Morgan was about three, we were featured in a TV Documentary about dreams and spoke about our story as above. We had to explain to young Morgan what it was all about and showed her a picture of Hecate that I had painted as a result of mine and Alicen's experiences. About a year later we were on holiday, camping. Alicen had just gone to the shower block whilst I was washing up the tea things out side of the tent. Morgan was playing around me. She suddenly came up to my side whilst I was doing the dishes and hid behind my legs. I asked her what the matter was. She said she could see Hecate. I said to her, 'where is she?'. She replied she was over there in the small group of trees and staring at her with scary eyes. I looked over and could see nothing of course. However, with our own experiences, I was not about to dismiss my daughter's very valid one. I said it would be fine and that Hecate had just come along to see if we were having a nice holiday. When Alicen came back from having a shower, I told her what had just happened. She looked at me in a very worried way. We said nothing more about it. The next day Alicen suffered a miscarriage after three months of pregnancy. Morgan knew nothing about this at all! Hecate, we thought had come to claim a soul of an unborn baby.

So there you have it, three separate family members having joint experiences in different ways possibly from the Goddess Hecate. I always doubted that Goddess were real beings before Morgan's own experiences. Now I am not so sure.

Morgan does not like to talk about it now, and anytime Owls come into the conversation she tells people to shut up!! She is a bit nervous of the whole experience she had, and does not want to repeat it. Strangely enough, Morgan had to be brought home once from a friends house in tears as she claimed she kept seeing an old lady following her and her friend around the house. So I think my daughter is very psychic, and so is Alicen.

I have told this story to groups when showing my art that features some Barn Owls in it, and one woman came up to me afterwards and said that she had just suffered a miscarriage and then not long after had a tarot card type reading. The first card that was turned up was of a Barn Owl! She was greatly relieved in a way to know that she was not the only one to experience similar things.

Neil Geddes-Ward Copyright 2003