The SPARC from an Owl
A new blog for SPARC by Sarah Skagen.
Image Description: A light blue notebook with a gold clasp on the front and a pink pen attached to the side sits on a cushion. The notebook has a sticker of a yellow owl on a white background. The owl appears to be in flight and looking straight ahead at the viewer while swooping through the air.
As a lifetime Northern Ontario resident, one becomes accustomed to seeing wildlife- bears in your driveway on a random Tuesday morning, deer eating out of your garden, and hearing chickadees asking for cheeseburgers in the mornings with a chorus of other songbirds in the background. (IYKYK- if you don’t, give it a google) It is because of this, that one beautiful summer afternoon when leaving Pancake Bay Provincial Park from a yurt camping trip, that I was astonished by the sight of a large white bird with a wing span that seemed to match my 5’1 frame swooping frantically from branch to branch at the treeline along the Highway 17. I had never seen anything like it. Beautiful, magical, and even in its terror it was one of the most graceful beings I have ever seen. It seemed to be attempting to flee several crows who actively swooped and pecked at this massive airborne miracle. The white bird, that I swear I had never seen before, was at least 5 times the size of each of these crows on their own. The carefully orchestrated aerial dance that the crows had painstakingly choreographed and were executing without error had the beautiful white being clearly incapable of matching their impeccably timed footwork. Each crow would take a turn swooping at the larger being, and then return to the treeline, one after another, preventing the giant bird any rest. Each time the massive flying entity recovered its place in the air, the next one was in its face causing disorientation and panic. The wingspan and turn radius of the crows were much smaller, they were much faster, and working together, they were clearly winning the battle. Suddenly, the white bird saw an opportunity to escape by identifying my car as a potential obstacle. It changed its direction so quickly that it reminded me of a pilot pushing down on the yoke of a fighter jet to reduce altitude and quickly turn toward the valley of a mountain range. The giant bird maneuvered gracefully and angled itself toward me; within moments it was staring into the passenger window of my car. He identified himself as a beautiful snowy owl and looked me in the eye as if to say thank you for creating the distraction he needed to escape. It was a mere millisecond that he stared into my eyes before he pulled back up to go over the top of my car, evading the attacks of the smaller black birds to fly into the treeline across the highway.
If you’ve ever looked a wild animal in the eye you’ll know that this is a gift that isn’t experienced by everyone. In that moment, something changed in me, and I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. The next day I found myself on a film set to do some work as a background actor, and then was invited to work on costumes by a friend who I had previously worked with on community theatre projects. As a woman who had never spent time on a set before, I was surprised at how easily I was able to interpret the systems that were in place. I had never imagined that so many of the skills that I had acquired throughout my life in various places and experiences would be transferable to an art project that I seemingly knew nothing about. I finished out the next three weeks on set as a crew member in the costume department.
I have always been a person who loves to build community, and I cared deeply about mental health and addictions. I have lived experience in both aspects, and understand the stigmas attached. I was in school maintaining a 4.0 average as a Mental Health and Addictions Counsellor. I wanted to care for and advocate for our community’s most vulnerable population. But, the film industry intrigued me and the ease at which I slipped into what I’d previously thought was a very foreign world, made me realize that I might have placed unnecessary limits on myself. You see, I thought that in order to succeed in the arts, I had to move away – that there was no way to keep Sault Ste. Marie as my place of residence and still be a professional artist. Alas, the gaze of that owl shifted something in me and I decided to lean into my creativity. I’ll spare those details for another blog post, but over time it expanded to be the way that I earn a living. I now adorn an owl tattoo on my right shoulder permanently as a reminder of the moment that seemed to shift my soul into new horizons as it flew over top of my car on the highway that bright and sunny afternoon.
I decided to write a play. I wanted to fulfill a bucket list dream and to stage and direct my own play for our local Fringe Festival. I wanted to write about tough subject matter, and to give voices to folks who couldn’t necessarily tell their own stories. I decided to write a play about Intimate Partner Violence. My plan was to write it, stage it once at Fringe, learn from it and put it away. I couldn’t have been more wrong about how that would work. Writing about IPV gave me the chance to heal parts of me that I didn’t know were broken, and it woke up a part of our community that I hadn’t expected to reach. Our Fringe show sold out completely in 24 hours, partly because of a stellar marketing campaign that was created by myself and a photographer friend, Chandra Barnett. This left many members of our community who wanted to see the show without the ability to experience it. With such important stories to be told, I decided to stage it again, on my own, in September of 2025.
Once again, the support from the community was overwhelming and the universe kept guiding me to make the stories bigger, brighter and easier to consume. I also noted an opportunity where some brilliant young female singer/songwriters in Sault Ste. Marie often didn’t have a place to showcase their talents, so I applied for a grant to build this growing show into a musical performance. The Ontario Arts Council awarded me a Northern Projects Grant to continue growing the show into a musical and this work has led me to meet some really incredible people and to open doors that I didn’t even know were there. She- The Musical will be staged in Sault Ste. Marie in September 2027.
Throughout my writing process I was introduced to a wonderful woman named Ann Rauhala who is a retired professor of Journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. She took the opportunity to interview me for the book that she was writing on Intimate Partner Violence, which will be published in October of 2026, and I’m flattered that “She” and some quotes from my interview are included in her chapter on survivors. The trajectory of this play has also brought me to form wonderful friendships with many exceptional people, one of them being Adrianna Prosser who has brought a formidable skillset to the script and is helping to expand the horizons of this show to a place that I didn’t know we could reach. She is a death doula, actor, writer, director, and most recently a Bachelor of Social Work student who is equally as passionateabout building a strong foundation for untold stories to be heard. Not only have these women become trusted advisors and influences, but I’m blessed to be able to call them friends. Had I not taken the leap to try something new, I never would have made these connections. I never would have elevated my thinking to attempt to reach heights I never would have imagined I was capable of.
As with any creative project, it can become difficult to see the forest through the trees and the hard work will unwittingly seem daunting and unforgiving. The evolution of a project can become a painstaking labour and sometimes there is a great feeling of isolation as you attempt to weave the strings together into a fabric that will hold the right content. I was introduced through a mutual friend to a woman named Isabel Michaud. Isa a fabulous grant writer and talented visual artist and the owner of the Galarie Sans Clous in Sault Ste. Marie, she also is a board member of the Réseau SPARC Network. She alerted me to an application to participate in the first Northern (Ontario) SPARCs Incubator with seats available for 12 artists. The voice that limited me came to my thoughts again and told me to apply but not be surprised when I didn’t make the cut – that I should throw my hat in the ring and even though I would never be chosen. I applied in December, and forgot about it until I received the email in late March that I had been selected to take part. I was excited, but really felt like I didn’t have a lot to contribute. After all, I really only knew one project, and my music business, and my children’s band – limiting beliefs and intrusive thoughts are awful.
I was largely intimidated because upon receiving the bios of the other folks who would be in the incubator, I didn’t seem to add up to their accomplishments. They all had formal training, and a BA of some kind or another – they seemed to be educated and polished in ways that I definitely had not had the luxury of achieving throughout my life as a teenage mother who lived in survival mode. I was the rookie on the playing field who knew that if she just kept her feet moving she had a pretty good chance of scoring; even though the footwork was messy at times and my coordination didn’t always match that of the competition. I scored some touchdowns based on the blocking of some really qualified team members, but really felt like my successes were based on luck because I hadn’t been formally trained to work in my craft.
Leaving my home without my partner and being away for “work” was something that hadn’t happened in a very long time, and I was actually afraid- not just nervous or apprehensive, but actually scared. So I did what every self-respecting, middle-aged woman would do. I over-packed, cried, unpacked, repacked, cried again, and shook as I started the car and left the driveway. My partner is a wonderful man and deserves an award for listening to me process my emotions aloud whilst seeking validation from him every time I feel like I’ve stepped out of my league onto a new court. I swear that it is him propelling me forward that allows me to continue making the choices that I do to follow the path that my heart and universe builds for me.
I really didn’t know what to expect walking into a room full of strangers for an arts incubator, but I was instantly at ease when I saw Rachel Marks. She graciously invited me into the room, encouraged me to sit down and make myself comfortable, and her kind smile and somewhat boho vibe reminded me of someone I knew. She reminded me of me- but the version of me that was not afraid. She was the version of me that knew strength, kindness, boundaries and creativity. This voracious woman reminded me of myself and I instantly knew that this was going to be an amazing week. If my read on her energy was right, and she was like me, I knew she was going to have everything under control.
As I sat at the table waiting for others to arrive, another kind lady put down some stickers of the SPARC logo and encouraged me to take one. To my surprise (because remember, I had forgotten that I had applied and it had been some time since I looked at the website) the logo was an owl. Not just any owl. An owl, staring in my face, with its wings spread swooping through the air. I was immediately drawn back to the moment in my car, and could then feel the excitement and assuredness fill inside of me.
You see, when an owl looks at you, especially in broad daylight, it is said to be a sign to slow down, observe your surroundings carefully, and to pay attention to what you might have been ignoring. It is a sign of wisdom, intuition and transition. Across many cultures, the owl signifies strength, prosperity, and transformation. I truly believe that when the owl looked at me, it blessed me with the power to examine what I held within me and to allow it to blossom, instead of suppressing my growth because I was unsure of myself.
My week at SPARC was not only a transition, it was a transformation. In those workshops that were guided by industry professionals, my abilities were validated; my self-doubt overpowered by encouragement, kindness and love. I was reminded that my worth does not come from the small crows that swoop and peck at whatever sense of stability I give myself. My worth is determined by my flight to new spaces and experiences, and to pass along the gift of transformation to others when they might not feel like they have the power to continue on the creative path; to follow the spark from an owl.
