What if you're already receiving signs?
Jul 17, 2026
Article by Sarah Papp
I pulled off my eye mask, rolled out of bed, and immediately grabbed my journal. That was not a typical “processing-the-day” type of dream.
It started fairly typical. I was outside in the sun, on a deck with a group of women I didn’t know, somewhere I couldn’t quite place. I looked up and saw a bird cutting across the sky. It was a hawk, I thought, or a falcon. And then I realized I was wrong.
“Oh my God — look!” I heard myself say while pointing. “It’s a white spotted owl.”
Just then, she flew out, opened her wings, spreading every feather slowly like a dancer pausing at a note, as if to say I’m an owl.
She was enormous and beautiful. She did a somersault in the air. I remember the shock of her movements, thinking, I didn’t know owls could move like that. She looked like she was floating rather than flying, unhurried, completely unbothered by gravity.
Not only that, but it was daytime. Even in the dream I knew I shouldn’t be seeing an owl in daylight.
“How are we seeing this right now?” I said to the other women. No one had an answer. She was simply there, doing what she wasn’t supposed to be able to do.
Then she came down to land and hopped over to me.
I knew before she reached me that she was kind. She reached out and placed her talon on my hand, but when she touched me, it didn’t feel like a talon. It felt soft and warm, like a human hand.
“My name is Patricia,” she said, but her beak didn't move. She sounded like a kind, older woman, and wiser than me. She said more that I cannot recall, but it felt like I needed to remember her name. Who knew, I thought, that owls had entire personalities, lives, and voices as rich and kind as ours.
I knew that she would return.
My hand cramped, and I had to pause a few times to shake it out while I continued to write down every detail of the dream.
You don’t get a white spotted owl in your dream and not pay attention, I thought, while also feeling that I needed to reach out to my friend, Marisa.
Marisa is newer in my life. While I knew she’d be into any dream with a white spotted owl, I hesitated to share the dream immediately, knowing she was hosting a retreat and likely busy. So I texted her a simple, “Thinking of you! Hope your retreat is going well.”
She wrote back with some beautiful pictures from the retreat. And then the nudge to text her about the owl came again, even stronger. Okay, okay, I thought. So I shared about the white spotted owl and that I could swear her name was Patricia.
I didn’t know why I was sharing the name.
A few minutes later, she called me breathless.
“Sarah. Oh my god!”
Marisa was co-hosting the retreat with Jenny. Earlier that day, Marisa, Jenny and Kim had taken her dogs for a hike and wandered up to a labyrinth. When the three of them reached the center, Jenny shared that her mom had passed on that day a couple of years before. Kim looked at her. Her dad had crossed over on the same day, two years ago.
Marisa asked their parents’ names. Kim’s dad was named Nick.
I was tracking all of it, amazed, and then Marisa said, “Sarah, Jenny’s mom’s name was Patricia.”
Goosebumps.
Marisa went on to share that in the evening, she opened the retreat with an intentional circle, naming the loved ones, the ancestors, the angels. She named Patricia. She named Nick.
The next morning, Jenny woke up worried. Her dad had fallen and was in hospice. She felt the guilt of being away, but she knew she needed to be at the retreat. She asked her mom for a sign.
“You texted me right after that,” Marisa said.
“What?! But, why would Patricia come to me?” I asked Marisa. “I’m not there. I don’t even know Jenny.”
Her answer stopped me completely.
“This is the magic of it all. You received a sign for you and for her, for someone you don’t even know. It’s a way of showing us we’re all one. We’re all connected.”
Humans have known for most of recorded history that dreams were sacred. They were shared in a circle, interpreted by elders, treated as transmission. We are among the first to have been taught to dismiss them. To roll over, check our phones, and call it nothing.
I don’t think it’s nothing.
A few weeks later, I was knotted up in feelings of grief and confusion, trying to unthread the longing for my mom from the exhaustion of caregiver drama.
I felt pulled to the woods near our house. I usually hike the muddy hills, but that day I felt compelled to sit. Life can turn cold in moments of fear and longing. I found a spot by a creek I had never sat at before. Where are my guides now, I wondered.
“I would love an undeniable sign,” I said out loud. “That you can hear me. That you’re here.”
A moment later: a sharp sound through the trees in front of me. Is that a hawk?
Then —
Hooo... hoo... hoo...hooo… hooo…
And then, from behind me —
Hooo... hoo... hoo...hooo… hooo…
No way! I swung my head around. That sounds like an owl. In the daytime.
I recorded it. I needed to be sure I wasn’t hearing a mourning dove and jumping for an owl. I looked it up to learn the calling was of two great horned owls, calling back and forth.
What does that mean?, I typed into my phone.
My phone responded:
Great horned owls form strong, long-term pair bonds. The back-and-forth hooting is how they say:
“I’m here.”
“I hear you.”
“We’re together.”
I looked up. It was as if time stopped.
Photo by Michael Hoyt on Unsplash
We are living through a loud and frightening time. The noise is real. The fear is real. And underneath all of it — quieter, steadier, warm, and older than any of it — something is still speaking.
It speaks in dreams you wake up from and must write down. In nudges to text a new, amazing friend. In owls calling back and forth through the trees on the exact afternoon you asked to be heard.
You may not get an owl. You may not feel like you’re receiving any of it, but you can ask.
Ask the Universe, your guides, your ancestors, whoever feels true for you — show me. Give me an undeniable sign that you hear me. Come find me in my dreams.
And then pay attention to what feels right. This will not come from your logical brain. It comes in nudges. It might even feel like something silly idea you initially question, but also feel an urge to do anyway.
We are so connected, and there is more magic on this earth than we often see in our busy lives. You may be the one who receives something meant for someone you don’t even know.
That’s the life we cannot see running through everything. When you see it, experience it, and engage with it, it feels like we’re not traveling this hard journey without a guide ready to help carry the load with you.
With love and owls,
Sarah
Sarah Papp is an Identity and Leadership Coach, ICF-PCC Master Certified, with 14+ years of experience helping ambitious women reconnect with who they are beneath the roles they play. She trained under Martha Beck and now serves as faculty at Wayfinder Coach Training. Her work sits at the intersection of coaching, psychology, and spirituality. She has coached leaders at Fortune 100 companies, worked with the Chopra Center, and her work has been featured in Oregon Magazine and MindBodyGreen.
Article originally published at sarahpapp.substack.com
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