My Batty Vacation

This past week, I went to see my father in upstate New York. A series of milestone events had occurred, including his seventy-fifth birthday, father’s day, and his wedding anniversary with my step-mother. All of we step-siblings gathered with them to celebrate, though only I stayed a whole week. I had planned the trip well in advance, so I could attend a “Women Warrior’s Retreat” on my way home. This was at Temenos Retreat Center in Shutesbury, MA. I don’t know how long the website will be up, but it can be found here (and is offered by the Pagan singer Kellianna, so upcoming events will appear on her website).  http://www.kellianna.com/3Goddess.php

Towards the end of the week at my dad’s place, we started having bats come in the house in the evening. I would turn out all the lights in the house, turn on the porch light, and hold the door open until they flew outside. On the night in question, I had to repeat this FOUR times. I felt like I was working air traffic control at JFK. The next night I only had one bat. This was it, perhaps because we had gone to increasingly great lengths to shut every door and window we could think of. I have asked my dad and he says there have been no more bats since I left, and it had never happened before.

This brings me to part two. At Temenos, I was staying in a very rustic lodge with several other women. I was on an air mattress on the porch. First night out…bat. I really started to think that they were trying to give me a message. I thought about bats and what I’m able to casually observe about them, in order to glean a message.

Obviously, I love bats as a symbol of the night, Goth, and all things spooky. That’s mostly why I built this blog around a bat theme (the fruit bat, due to veganism). But what is underneath these associations?

One of the most common associations with the bat is its nocturnal nature. Bats are out in the night—the time when humans have always felt the most vulnerable to our natural (and unnatural) predators. A bat swooping by our light or our fire (or our face) gives us an instinctual fright.

Bats are the only mammals with wings. Although not all bats are alike, I will deal with the most common associations for a moment. They rely on their hearing and the vibrations of sound to navigate their dark world. As such, they are a symbol of intuition, clairaudience, and “second sight” in general. Their attunement to vibration also makes them a totem of sacred sound, and sound healing.

A Gorey illustration underscoring the death/vampire/bat connection

Bats are also an enduring and multi-cultural symbol of rebirth. With rebirth, of course, comes death. This may be death of the body or a part of the ego, or of any sort of phase in our lives. Humans have observed how bats retreat to their caves, abandoned houses, or crevices (mostly by day) and equated it with a type of death, or “return to the earth.” When they swarm back out in their appointed hour, they are a symbol of that which overcomes or masters the magical processes of death.

 The Fabulous Fruit Bat, as previously noted, is a little different. Known as a “megabat,” most varieties are larger than their batty relations. Fruit bat or “flying fox” wing span may reach five feet. As fruit and nectar eaters, they are important pollinators in their habitats, just like butterflies, birds and bees.  They have better vision than other bats, as well. With more than a thousand sub-species of fruit bat, there is plenty of variation. Yet in general, they are types of bat that live in jungle or other tropical type climates, and have evolved away from an insect diet into these other habits. Many still use echo-location to navigate, but they also have a great sense of smell. Due to their evolutionary skills and their role in pollination, I see the fruit bat not only as a totem for vegan pagans, but as an animal guide into mastery of survival, and the perpetuation of life. The fruit bat as a pollinator is an ecowarrior.

In my own batty encounters this past week, I was dealing with the more common cave dwelling, echo-locating, insect-eating bats. And the image of rebirth kept beating me (metaphorically, thank heavens) over the head.

As part of my Women Warrior’s Weekend, we actually did a rebirth ritual, in which we all went down the mountain at night and took turns crawling into an actual cave. This was a man-made stone cave under a tree’s roots, which is very ancient. You may wonder what rebirth has to do with a topic like “warriors.” The reason is that the path of the warrior, as advanced by our retreat, has more to do with anchoring in the authentic self, standing up for that self, and having no need to dominate others. This understanding of the warrior is present in the better schools of martial arts, for example. The death of false, unbalanced, or inauthentic aspects of the self is part of his path. And we must help ourselves before we can effectively help others. For vegans, the path of the warrior is important. We are a visible minority whenever we eat around others, and we have to find a way to ground ourselves in the authenticity of our own choices about veganism (whatever those may be). As a vegan for whom animals and the ecosystem (and human rights/hunger) are also important, I see my veganism as the core of my warrior path (as well as every other aspect of my path).

As our retreat facilitators were suggesting the cave ritual, one said, “I’ve seen a lot of bats around here this weekend!” as affirmation of our plans. So once it got dark that night, down the mountain we went. We chanted for one another as everyone went down into the cave in pairs. When we first arrived by the tree, the cave opening looked like a tiny knot hole at the base of the tree. I was pretty intimidated, though I was game to try. By the time we each scrambled up the embankment by flashlight, however, we could see it was a perfectly accessible entry. Once we were in, the lights that guided our descent were put out. Sitting in perfect darkness in the round cave, built of round stones, with the earth and treeroots dripping rainwater from above, we entered the womb of the Great Mother. We each took a new spiritual name, if we felt inclined, as part of this process. I am not entirely sure what aspects of myself and my life have now “died,” and exactly what will be reborn, though have my theories. As I move forward, I plan to continue working with my batty guides and teachers.

How do we practice the lessons of the bat? Here are a couple of ideas:

·         Listen

·         Learn about sacred sound (the magic of vibration and attunement)

·         Be at home in silence, and the dark

·         Respect your own instincts and intuition

·         Learn from the instincts and intuition of others

·         Be open to the power of letting go (death in all its various forms)

·         Be open to the magic of new life (rebirth)

Here are a couple of bat conservation groups to learn about and hopefully support:

http://australianbatclinic.com.au/     (Johnny Depp approved)

http://www.batcon.org/              (Edward Gorey’s batty charity of choice)

 

And if you are interested in upping your fruit bat cred, and getting support from others on the path, here is an upcoming festival for earth warriors, in which most of the facilitators from my weekend retreat are involved:   http://earthwarriorsfestival.com/

 

An Egyptian Bat Vampirizing Fruit

Fare thee well, Fabulous Flying Foxes!