[Image description: Sycamore trees at the entrance to the Lodge]

Note: This theory only deals with information from the first two series of the show.

This post is going to detail native mythology as used in Twin Peaks, and will go some way towards explaining the meaning of both owls and trees/wood within the show.

Firstly – trees. Maeclair.net writes an informative post on how in some Native American faiths sycamore trees are seen as holding the spirits of the dead, you can find that here:

Mythical Monday: Folklore of the Sycamore Tree by Mae Clair

This makes a lot of sense in relation to sycamore trees within the show – the entrance to the Lodge is in a grove of sycamore trees, so it makes sense that this is where the link between this world and the next is the strongest. There are, of course, several other incidences of trees being connected to the afterlife in Twin Peaks. Firstly, there is the Log Lady.

[Image description: the Log Lady holding her log]

This is one of the most iconic quirks of the show, and something that is often passed off as “Lynchian” without much further explanation. Of course, the reason that the log knows so much is that it contains the spirit of the Log Lady’s dead husband, or so she says. This is another incidence of not only spirits of the dead within trees, but also – crucially – the trees or the wood being the way in which these spirits connect to our world, like a connection point. Although we don’t see her communicate with the Twin Peaks universe again in the series, Josie’s death is similar in the notorious scene where she seems to meld into the bedside table.

[Image description: Josie’s face superimposed over the drawer knob before her face becomes embedded in the wood]

Whilst it is true that the bedside table doesn’t communicate as Josie for the rest of the series, both when she is superimposed on the knob and later a part of it she is not just static but screaming in fear, trying to communicate. The wood is not just a place to house these spirits but creates a place where we are closest to them. This is amplified, we assume, by the significance of the sycamore tree and the trees’ proximity to one another when creating a physical opening. This is particularly important in the town of Twin Peaks, whose aesthetic seems built around wood – think of the Great Northern, or the log cabin. Twin Peaks is a place which is particularly close to the other world, which is why the spirits are so strong here. The cinematography and music of the show combine to create an aesthetic which is profoundly haunting (the only exception being the diner, unsurprisingly), perhaps an attempt to convey the atmosphere of a spiritually infused town, although I grant that this last bit is tenuous. The point that large amounts of Twin Peaks takes place in a forest called Ghostwood, however, does lend this theory some weight.

If the trees are the spirits of the dead of our world, then the owls are the spirits from the other world. This one was not so hard to figure out – the owls seem to have pulled the Major to the Lodge, and the Log Lady is keen on having a conversation where they can’t see her. They are only ever (as far as I recall) associated with evil, suggesting that they are specifically linked to the “Black Lodge” but don’t possess and kill in the same way as Killer BOB, nor do they communicate like The Man From Another Place – rather they seem to be messengers, or the eyes and ears of the Lodge in our world. They do seem to communicate with TMFAP however – he says that “where we’re from, the birds sing a pretty song”, underlining the birds as a link between the two worlds. Furthermore, in some Native American faith systems, the cry of the owl is associated with a coming death, and likewise in the Aztec and Mayan faith – these animals were seen as the messengers of death. Notably, for the Apache people, to dream of an owl meant that death was approaching. This, like the sycamore trees, seems to provide a clear link back to the Native American lore that permeates Twin Peaks, where the spirits from our world and the Lodge are present in the natural features which are so widespread in the town.