Forgot to mention this earlier:

Saw two things recently that I view as manifestations of someone I consider one of my aumakua. (Considering the timing, this is not surprising, just something neat I wanted to share.)

First one was while driving on Tuesday. Saw a large redtailed hawk circling over 66 while driving out to Harrisonburg with Dusk for the Hate Crimes vigil he was speaking at. Nothing really out of the ordinary with that, I see them a lot along that road, and I always choose to view it as family saying hello. The next instance was rather more blatant, though:

Last night, I'm walking to rialian's house from the metro. I'm passing by a school. All of the sudden I hear something, and I turn around and just a few feet away a very LARGE owl (not really sure what type, I'd tend to guess a Barred Owl but I didn't really get a good look at its markings, it was dark out and I was kind of startled to see it at all) has come to rest on top of the school, looking straight at me. I greeted it out loud and it didn't even bat an eye, it was very obviously unafraid of me, and I really got the impression that it had landed right there because i was walking past, rather than in spite of my presence. Not a hawk or falcon, but still a raptor, and the feel and timing were both right. I wish I had remembered to tell people about that when I actually got to Ri's, but we started talking about other things and I forgot about it before a good point to mention it came up.