Bat Crossing

During last night's binding and banishing rite, bats suddenly appeared overhead just as I began to dance. You don't see many bats in the area, it was my first time ever seeing them outside of the mountains. They were small, delicate and beautiful and made the sweetest chirping sounds that echoed into the night. As I was dancing swiftly round the ring, they swooped and dived overhead, shadows against the dark blue sky. Wormwood and sage incense wafted around the yard, the cauldron fire was low and red and the spirits were on the move while I fell into the trance, dancing and spinning and diving like the bats who joined my rite from the first drum beat to the last. When the music stopped, the six or seven little winged things disappeared over the river, through the pines, into the distance.

Sometimes when you're crossing (traveling, journeying, hedgecrossing etc), you tumble down into an abyss before waking up on the otherside, sometimes it doesn't feel like anything at all but a standstill of moments and then a sudden rush. It's different for every witch I think. For me, when the balm or ointment helps alleviate the burden of connection to the physical world, I either dance or sit completely still, depending on what I'm going and where I am going.

I don't fear the violence anymore, the tearing, the beating, the feeling of being mentally rendered to bits. I don't have much fear about the process anymore. It's more of a thrilling sensation depending. You can't always control where you go, it's not really up to you. Sometimes the spirits seem to be leading you somewhere you need to be, or more importantly, where "they "want you to be. I take my wooden key with me, and whatever else I'll need to bring me home or protect me. Last night I took nothing with me but a silver chain that reminds me of this world and a piece of etched black slate, a message I would need to remember to deliver. The entire time I flew, I could still hear the echos of the bats, I think they flew with me.

When the bats left, I came back into myself and watched them fly away through the painful haze of my mind and body and spirit all coming back together. I've collected literature, research and articals on bats my entire life, hopeing to be visited by them someday. I don't know what it is about them, they're just so damned facinating to me. If I had thought to have a camera handy, I would have tried to get a picture of them as they glided as low as my shoulders. The bat in folk magic has long been associated with witchcraft, and utilized in folklore as remedies for everything from visibility to night-sight. Everyone remembers them being mentioned among the witches of Macbeth. In my culture, the bat is the herald of the un-rested or ghosts, and is a shape-shifter and trickster, like coyote is for Southwestern skins.

Whatever their reason for dancing with me during that dark rite, I'm happy to have made their acquaintanceship.

Interesting

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