Snowy Owl’s Medicine, Meaning, and Spiritual Significance

Owl is synonymous with the Gift of Higher Knowledge and Insight. They carry the medicine of Sight Beyond Illusion.

Owl is a symbol for wisdom. This is because Owl can see that which others cannot, which is the essence of true wisdom. Where others are deceived, Owl sees and knows.

The Snowy Owl : Animal Spirit: It's Medicine, Symbolism & Significance of its Appearance in our lives:

Empath - Intuitive - Oracle - Divine Identity Clairvoyance - Great Mystery Keeper -  Mystery Teacher - Tracker/Shaman Soul Retriever  - Mediator - Revelation of the Hidden - Conscience - Astral Travel - Ascension

The Owl is thought to be one of several Animals blessed with the Medicine of Shape-shifting, that is the ability for them to change their form from that of the Owl to a human form, and back again. This is a gift helpful for astral travel and soul retrieval. With the Owl in particular, this shape-shifting ability is closely linked with Lunar Magic since this beautiful creature is sister to the Moon. In observing the phases of the Moon, we witness ever shifting and changing cycles that affect all within the domain of Luna, including the inhale and exhale of the Ocean's waves. 

In Celtic tradition the Owl was used by the Shaman as the eyes and ears of intuition and perception. 

In Native American traditions, the Owl is called the Night Eagle. The owl power animal has a special connection with the night and the moon, while the eagle is connected to the sun. Owls are considered fierce night Eagles, birds of prey who have no qualms about going in for the kill.

If Owl is your personal medicine, no one can deceive you about what they are doing, no matter how they try to disguise or hide it from you. You may be a little frightening to be around, since so many people have ulterior motives which you see right through.

If you are unaware of your medicine power, you may take your keen insights and abilities for granted. Others never do. You may frighten them and reflect their blindness, for you cannot be fooled. Owl medicine people know more about an individual's inner life than that person know about herself or himself.

Source: Sams, Jamie and Carson, David. Medicine Cards (Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1988)

As this pertains to Owl Medicine as a Messenger, different owls represent different roles as Messenger. For instance, the Snowy Owl is the Animal Spirit that is a messenger who is responsible for carrying wisdom from the Elders and the human with whom the Snowy Owl resides will have the gift of channeling the words of the elders via inspired written words or intuitive channelling.

It is said that if you meditate with the owl, the answers to your questions will be revealed. Listen to the voice inside of you.

Owl people can see into the darkness of their souls and the souls of others. Owl also helps you to recognize that there is a dark side to your nature that should not be ignored or repressed. You need to see that it is there so you can come to terms with it.

Snowy Owl's ability to navigate in the darkness makes her not only a master Spirit Guide for soul retrieval and the reclaiming of lost parts of the soul, but she is also the guide that helps us go into the void of the Great Mystery to call forth ancient wisdom, knowledge and secrets that have lain dormant for ages to help us remember the fullness of our being, and create the new earth.

You have to see to know. You have to know to see.

The Snowy Owl : The Spiritual Significance of its Appearance in our Lives

My relationship with Snowy Owl was renewed and powerfully strengthened this past week, while I experienced a tremendous resurgence of awe and wonder of receiving the wisdom that lies within.

While in Cusco Peru, a number of years ago, a Snowy Owl came to me and wanted to climb inside my mouth. I remember thinking this was odd, but not feeling afraid and not understanding how visions could simultaneously be vivid and real and illogical and unreal, I invited the White Owl to climb inside my mouth.

It climbed down my throat, and took up residence inside my belly. Dancing around and flinging its feathers, it was inviting me to be joyful, and join in the dance. The Snowy Owl's wingspan opened and closed inside my body as she hopped on one foot then the other in a circle. It was the most happy little Owl, it's two feet with talons, stomping around inside of me, and kicking up white feathers like a snow globe inside my heart.

When I shared this vision with my teachers during my integration ceremony their response was:

"Ahhhh yes, it's very clear."

I remember thinking "What is clear??? Nothing is clear to me?" But this was their response to much of what I shared with them.

Though I didn't understand any of it at the time, I was relieved to know that I had "done the right thing" in letting the White Owl climb inside my mouth and dance around in my body and take up residence inside me. At the same time, I felt strange that I was okay with what had occurred. I can vividly recall the feeling of opening my mouth and letting the Snowy Owl climb in, but I would not understand the massive significance this experience would have on my life and personal view of the world until many years later.

White Owl people, are seers of divine wisdom and are said to be oracles of secret knowledge from the Elders or the Wisdom Keepers.

In fact, Owls are Medicine Messengers, and each Owl has a different medicine message. Snowy Owls, in particular are the carriers of the Wisdom from the Elders and if the Snowy Owl is your spirit guide you have the gift of channeling the words of the Elders via inspired written words or intuitive channeling.

Had I understood that channeling was a gift that had been imparted to me, and furthermore the gift of writing wisdom from beyond, not necessarily from me, but from a place of knowing, I might have felt a lot more confidence in the coming months as my life began to shift in strange and irreversible ways.

This understanding certainly would have been enlightening information for me to receive at that time... but it would not be until years had passed that I would fully understand and completely receive the medicine that came to me in that first vision ceremony.

I have learned from my teachers, the ones in this realm and the ones beyond, that nothing is conceptual, especially when it comes to animal spirits, and the messages they bring to us when they appear in our lives, and the medicine and wisdom they impart to us when they walk with us in this world.

Most often the teachers will answer your questions with very few words, and almost no explanations are given in shamanic training, because nothing is conceptual or symbolic as we experience things in Western culture.

The Maestros didn't answer my questions about my visions of the White Owl with grand explanations. To them, it was all very clear.

The Great White Owl, had come to teach me her wisdom and be a soul companion on my path.


Chloë has studied under several indigenous medicine people, and is a certified Native American Healing Arts Practitioner. Over the last decade she has been trained in ceremonial practices and shamanic healing techniques from two living traditional medicine paths, one in North America and one in South America. Her unique approach to teaching mental and emotional wellness, encompasses studies in traditional knowledge, shamanism, energy medicine, plant medicine, and entheogenic therapy in traditional or ceremonial treatment settings. She has a Master’s degree in Indigenous Studies, and is a professionally accredited mentor & teacher, certified in multiple healing modalities, such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or tapping) and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), as well as having meditation instructor certification. Chloë lives in the Arctic Circle of Northern Norway, studying the traditions and knowledge of the indigenous Sámi people. For the last ten years she has worked with entheogenic plant medicine ceremonies with an indigenous Healer from the Shipibo tribe in Peru, and has also received initiations and teachings from the wisdom keepers of the Q’ero people. Chloë travels regularly to Peru to lead spiritual journeys for mental wellness and deep healing.

Wisdom of the Four Directions Apprenticeship 2024

As our planet stands upon a precipice of enormous change and transformation, each one of us has a choice to make. How will we participate in the great turning of our times?

Chloë Rain

Chloë Rain is the Founder of Explore Deeply. She has been trained in ceremonial practices and shamanic healing techniques from two living traditional medicine paths, one in North America and one in South America. She is a certified Native American Healing Arts Practitioner and has a Masters degree in Indigenous Studies from the Arctic University of Norway, where she spent four years researching the sacred landscape of Sápmi, the land of the indigenous Sámi people.

Through her work she hopes to inspire more people to listen to their soul’s calling, and cause them to look a little closer at themselves, at the natural environment that surrounds them, and at other people and our beliefs of separation, race, culture, and religion.

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