Diva was perfect as the Great Horned Owl. She is deeply connected to the natural world, endlessly curious about what surrounds her, and remarkably good at noticing the treasures other people might walk right past. She sees things. She feels things. And when she recognizes joy, she doesn’t stand at a distance wondering whether she’s allowed to have it.
She swoops in.
Maybe that’s what I love most about Diva. After a life that has required her to survive, adapt, question, and rebuild, she hasn’t stopped looking for beauty.
She sees the joy that is available and reaches for it.
How We Met
We met in the fields of Wild Zen Fest, where Diva’s energy sparked my brain almost immediately. She’s easy to smile with—the kind of person whose curiosity quickly turns strangers into people exploring something together.
At some point, Diva nested into my enormous bean bag bed. Tucked in and cozy, she started flipping through my Michigan bird books and testing the bird knowledge of everyone around us.
It was playful, but I noticed something else.
Diva pays attention.
She doesn’t simply look at the world around her. She engages with it. She wants to know what she’s seeing, what it means, where it came from. She picks things up. She asks questions. She trusts her senses.
She feels things.
And before long, we were looking for her bird.
Who She Is
Diva Tamu Gurung is a multidisciplinary HeArtist—an artist with heart—living in Traverse City, Michigan.
Her philosophy is beautifully simple:
“The treasures we seek are right here in the NOW. Right here in the Heart.”
And Diva practices that philosophy with her hands.
She gathers treasures from the lakeshore around Traverse City—rocks, shells, and pieces of the natural world that might be overlooked by someone moving too quickly. She transforms what she finds into custom artwork and spends her summers bringing those creations to events and farmers markets.
But the life behind that art has required enormous transformation of its own.
Diva was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, and grew up navigating questions of faith and belonging from an early age. Her father converted to Christianity and was excommunicated from his Buddhist community, and Diva was raised in a Christian household. Over the years, she has encountered and explored many expressions of faith.
Today, her art feels like one of the purest expressions of what she believes.
There’s no prayer required.
There’s action.
Diva got sober after the birth of her youngest child and raised her three children through her art. She left an abusive relationship and has worked to create something different for her family: a home grounded in peace, creativity, presence, and a kind of energy her children can actually feel.
She’s been through enough to understand darkness.
Maybe that’s part of why she recognizes light so quickly.
Why the Great Horned Owl
I asked Diva which Michigan bird she thought she might be, and for once, neither of us immediately had an answer.
She thought.
I flipped through the pages.
Then something strange happened.
Just as Diva said “Great Horned Owl” out loud, I turned the page and landed on the Great Horned Owl.
We looked at each other.
There it was.
Sometimes these birds arrive through color. Sometimes personality. Sometimes a story slowly reveals itself.
And sometimes the bird practically announces itself.
The funny thing is that afterward I kept accidentally calling Diva the Great Horned Eagle.
At first I thought I simply couldn’t get the name into my head. Then I realized there was something about Diva that kept making my brain reach for an eagle. The way she carried herself felt regal. The way she moved through the landscape felt expansive. I kept imagining her soaring.
But perhaps I didn’t have the wrong image.
I just had the wrong bird.
The Great Horned Owl carries its own kind of majesty. It can sit almost invisibly among the trees, watching and listening, and then suddenly open enormous wings and move through the world with power.
Stillness and flight.
Observation and action.
Diva knows something about both.
The Look
I built Diva’s Great Horned Owl from Charcoal Gray and Golden Brown, colors that already seemed to belong in the forest around us.
Her top began as a Charcoal Gray rayon Wild Rag, tied around her body so the fabric could shift and change as she moved. Around her waist, I tied a Golden Brown wrinkle rayon piece into a flowing skirt. A long Golden Brown rayon festival scarf gave Diva something to drape, stretch, toss into the wind, and eventually turn into wings.
There was something beautifully uncomplicated about the look.
Earth. Bark. Shadow. Feathers.
The Charcoal Gray brought depth and mystery, while the Golden Brown caught the light and warmed everything around it.
The pieces didn’t transform Diva into an owl.
They simply gave her something to fly with.
The Session
We wandered into the forest at Smiling Acres, photographing Diva in that beautiful threshold where the open field gives way to trees.
Eventually we stumbled upon an enormous tree.
Standing beside it, Diva suddenly looked very small.
I loved that.
Here was this enormous personality—someone whose smile can fill a field—quietly sitting beneath something much older and larger than either of us. For a moment, she simply watched.
Then she moved.
The wind caught her scarf. Her arms opened. The Golden Brown fabric lifted behind her, and suddenly the woman sitting quietly beneath the tree was flying through the forest.
That’s when Diva told me something I haven’t forgotten.
She had come to Wild Zen Fest carrying a question:
Am I even a fun person?
I almost laughed because by then I had spent enough time with her to know the answer.
I watched the whole world become more fun when Diva was in it.
Her smile sparkles. Her curiosity makes you curious. When she notices something beautiful, you want to look too. When she spins, you want to spin.
Maybe fun isn’t something we either are or aren’t.
Maybe it’s something that becomes available when we allow ourselves to notice what’s already here.
Diva notices.
And then she swoops in.
Color Connection
The colors of Diva’s Great Horned Owl weren’t bright, but they didn’t need to be.
Charcoal Gray carries shadow, stone, and the quiet depth of the forest. It reminds me of the part of Diva that can sit with difficult things without pretending they aren’t there. Her life hasn’t been built by avoiding darkness. She has walked through it.
Golden Brown feels different.
It is earth warmed by sunlight. Dried grasses moving in a field. Bark glowing at the end of the day. It carries something grounded and ancient, but there’s warmth inside it.
Together, the colors remind me of the way Diva creates.
She walks along a lakeshore and notices a rock.
A shell.
A fragment.
Something the rest of us might step over.
Then she picks it up and asks what else it could become.
Perhaps that’s the real color connection here. Diva doesn’t need the world to become brighter before she can find beauty in it.
She has learned how to find the gold inside the gray.
Soaring
There is something powerful about watching someone who has spent years surviving begin to ask different questions.
Not How do I get through this?
But:
What do I want now?
What feels peaceful?
What feels beautiful?
Am I having fun?
Diva has rebuilt pieces of her life through sobriety, motherhood, creativity, curiosity, and action. She has questioned inherited ideas about faith and discovered ways of expressing belief through the things she actually does: making art, raising her children, connecting with strangers, gathering treasures, and creating peace where there once wasn’t enough of it.
Maybe that’s why I kept imagining her soaring.
There are times when Diva reminds me of the owl sitting quietly beneath the canopy, taking everything in. She watches. She listens. She feels.
But she doesn’t stay perched forever.
When something calls to her, she moves.
When there’s beauty, she notices it.
When there’s joy, she reaches for it.
And when the wind catches her wings, she flies.
Maybe joy isn’t something waiting for us at the end of healing.
Maybe learning to recognize joy when it appears is part of how we heal.
Join the Flock
Diva’s Great Horned Owl arrives as one of the final portraits in the Michigan Birds ↗ portrait series. Thirty people have now stepped in front of my camera and allowed a bird to become a way of exploring identity, color, movement, belonging, and the parts of ourselves that are still becoming.
The portraits may be finished, but the flock isn’t done moving.
On September 11th at 6 pm, Rewind is hosting us for our FLASH MOB Dress Rehearsal, where anyone who wants to become part of Michigan Birds can create a bird-inspired look, learn Whitney Pyles’ Praise You choreography, and get ready to take flight at Rosa Parks Circle the following evening. On September 12th at 6 pm at Rosa Parks Circle, the birds leave the photographs. The Joyful Disruptors will gather at Rosa Parks Circle for our Michigan Birds flash mob, transforming thirty individual portraits into a living, moving flock for ArtPrize. Join the FLOCK PARTY ↗ for more details.
Find Your Bird
You don’t have to be one of the portraits to belong in this part of the story.
You don’t have to be a dancer.
You don’t even have to know your bird yet.
Come curious.
Come ready to play.
Maybe follow Diva’s example: look around, notice where the joy is, and swoop in.
The portraits are finished. Now it’s time for Michigan Birds to fly.
