Special Days, Rebirth, and Now I Am a Location (Destination?)

Alright, to continue from yesterday, here’s the card

Have you ever gone to a wedding on your own anniversary?  I hadn’t, until yesterday.  Slightly surreal.  But festive.

Sarah and Tyler

 (Or, Tyler and Sarah.  Oops.)

     I’ve known this beautiful young woman her entire life.  Her mom and I have known each other since we were in the 7th grade.  I met her dad when we were in kindergarten.  My parents have known her grandparents for 45 years.

   Isn’t the cake pretty?  Those little boxes were the “treats” -you filled them from this fabulous selection.

  Cute idea huh?

    We didn’t take any pictures of us, because… well it wasn’t about us.

   But we were all dressed up, so I had Daniel capture the moment when we got home.  (With help from the dogs, of course.)

   (That awesome pentacle hanging on the wall behind us is what I have “decorated” my new front porch deck with.  So far.  Yeah, I know.  But I’m workin’ on it!)

   Earlier in the week I spotted several foreign license plates: Arizona, possibly Montana (I might need to get my eyes checked), either Iowa or Ohio (a four letter state anyway, see above remark about my eyes).  And then on the freeway yesterday I saw one plate I had no idea where it was from, and two from Canada (hi Lynne): Alberta and British Columbia.  I really thought we’d see so many more, it being all weekend-y and all.

    We have an addition to the Important Things blog listing.  Kristel is all the way on the other side of the world from here (and she has a special cake day, with recipes).  Thank you Betties for joining me, and contributing so much already.  And thanks so much faithful JulieLanders for sticking with me.  Even though I wonder sometimes if what I write 1. ever makes any sense at all, or B. is funny only to me.

   And the BIG news is…… I AM A WEBSITE NOW!  Yes, my Hurricane bought me a domain.  Just like she is now HannaBrooksOlsen.com I am now UrthaLun.com.  Not sure how that will effect things.  (Affect things?)  But it’s way exciting.  (If you already clicked on the subscribe option, and continue to get updates, then you are probably perfectly fine.)

Our card for today is from the Animal Medicine deck.  There really isn’t a “description” so I am going to just give you exactly what the book says.  As always, take from it what applies to you.  (I am noticing quite a theme lately though.)

Bat  ~  Rebirth

“Steeped in the mystery of the Meso-american tribal ritual is the legend of Bat.  Akin to the ancient Buddhist belief in reincarnation, in Central America, Bat is the symbol of rebirth.  The Bat has for centuries been a treasured medicine of the Aztec, Toltec, Tolucan, and Mayan peoples.

  Bat embraces the idea of shamanistic death.  The ritual death of the healer is steeped in secrets and highly involved initiation rites.  Shaman death is the symbolic death of the initiate to the old ways of life and personal identity.  The initiation that brings the right to heal and to be called shaman is necessarily preceeded by ritual death.  Most of the these rituals are brutally hard on the body, mind, and spirit.  In light of today’s standards, it can be very difficult to find a person who can take the abuse and come through it with their balance intact.

  The basic idea of ancient initiations was to break down all the former notions of “self” that were held by the shaman-to-be.  This could entail brutal tests of physical strength and psychic ability, and having every emotional “button” pushed hard.  Taunting the initiate was common, and taught him or her to endure the duress with humility and fortitude.  The final initiation step was to be buried in the earth for one day and to be reborn without former ego in the morning.

  This ritual is very similar to the night of fear practices by natives of Turtle Island.  In this ritual, the shaman-to-be is sent to a certain location to dig his or her own grave and spend the night in the womb of Mother Earth totally alone, with the mouth of the grave covered by a blanket.  Darkness, and the sounds of the animals prowling, quickly confront the initiate with his or her personal fears.

   As the darkness of the grave has its place in this ritual, so does the cave of Bat.   Hanging upside down is a symbol for learning to transpose your former self into a newborn being.  This is also the position that babies assume when they enter the world through the womb of woman.

  As Bat has appeared in your cards today, it symbolizes the need for a ritualistic death of some way of life that no longer suits your new growth pattern.  This can mean a time of letting go of old habits, and of assuming the position in life that prepares the signals of rebirth, or in some cases initiation.  In every case, Bat exemplifies rebirth of some part of yourself or the death of old patterns.  When we resist our destiny it becomes a long, drawn out, or painful death/rebirth.  The Universe is always asking you to grow and become your future.  To do so you must die the shaman’s death.”