Bat: Rebirth

A long time ago, after watching "The Birds" on television, I opened a closet door, and a dark form flew out and fluttered around the apartment. This first encounter with Bat might not have been as frightening had I not just become highly sensitized to terror of flying creatures.

Many years later, when I first moved to the country, I sat outside one evening and saw birds flying when all birds belonged in their trees, asleep. And these birds were awfully quiet when they flew. It took me a while to figure out that Bat had once more flown into my life. This time I knew much more about this nocturnal being. I had learned respect for Bat's powerful medicine.

Many people are afraid of Bat. They may think it's because it's a flying rodent or they believe it sucks human blood or gets tangled in human hair (neither is true). It has been also -- erroneously --associated with evil. This may be because of their symbolic association in many cultures with death and rebirth. This is due to its association with the night and its habit of sleeping upside down.

The animal world can give humans no more powerful medicine than the appreciation of life as a circle, one in which death is always followed by rebirth -- whether in this or another dimension. Bat can also help us to confront the "little" deaths of change, transition, and transformation.

Any change that is large enough always brings about the death of the old and familiar. Moving about in a new environment may feel like a rebirth. Though this is an exciting concept, in reality it can be disorienting and frightening.

Bat helps to move through the necessary shedding of the old and embracing of the new. One special guidance tool it symbolically offers is sonar navigation. Like Dolphin, Bat uses echolocation to guide it, and one of the most lovely sights on a summer night is a graceful bat ballet.

So if we study and attune to Bat, we can learn to swoop with grace through transformation and rebirth, trusting that our own inner guidance system will help us find our way.

Bat is available as a Wild Earth Animal Essence. and in power stones.