"There's a bat in my room! It almost hit me in the face!" Ann runs out of her bedroom, make-up mirror in one hand, eyelash curler in the other, dressed on top in hospital scrubs because she is getting ready for the ER nightshift, and her undies. "OMG, I left the dog in the bedroom!"
Ann hurriedly cracks the door about six inches and calls Maeve out. Maeve, yawning, taking her sweet Maeve-ish time, saunters into the hallway, unclear what the rumpus is about.
Ann slams the bedroom door shut, and hollars down to Dad.
"A bat just flew into my bedroom!"
"I thought I saw one down here a little while ago," Dad calls upstairs from his lounge chair--the baseball game on full volume behind him.
"Why didn't you tell us?!!" Ann is quite perturbed, barely having escaped the infamous "bat-caught-in-long-hair" scenario.
"I was waiting till it calmed down and landed..." Dad calls back upstairs.
Leaving Maeve to me, and belly-rubbing duties at the top of the stairs, per usual, Ann rushes downstairs to help Dad locate several fishing nets with handles; several heavy-duty, ultra thick leather and kevlar gloves (which reach to the elbow and are probably best used when welding metal), and to call my cop brother, Kevin, who has wrangled bats out of several houses in Gardner, while on duty. (The most reknown was the home of two of his ex-nun's from Sacred Heart School, years and years ago...)
I sit with the dog.
Mom comes out of her adjoining bedroom, garbed in a summer nightie, her reading glasses on, her slippers firmly covering her feet in case of the need for flight. "I think there's a nest in the attic--I've thought it for years! Does your father have some fishing line? Where is the thing? Ooohh...." she runs downstairs.
"Mom, they don't have nests...we haven't seen any bat dung in the attic...it probably came inside when someone opened the back door to let the dog out or when Dad brought in his American flag from the porch..." Nobody listens. I scratch the dog's ears. She grins. We hear no bat sounds behind Ann's door. We just sit and wait on the stairs, observing.
Ann rushes back upstairs.
"Karen, you have any sweat-shorts around? I have to put on something before Kev gets here--we're gonna take the bat down...Man, I'm going to be late for work for sure!" Ann has lost the eye-lash curler and the mirror and now has her cellphone in her hand.
I leave Maeve to bark at Ann and Dad, who is yelling instructions upstairs. Mom has retreated to the livingroom and turned the baseball game down a notch. I can hear her over the din: "I'm telling you, they have a nest in the attic! They have been nesting there for years! I just know it! I get the heebie -jeebies everytime I go up there! We need an exterminator!"
Locating my trusty Old Navy sweat-shorts, I hand them to Ann. She tugs them on, conversing with Kev, who is on his way over from God-knows-where. (He isn't going to be happy.)
He arrives, post haste, screaming his truck into the darkened driveway. Ann and Dad show him the arsenal laid out on the kitchen table: fishing nets with handles; three industrial pairs of huge gloves--fingers stuffed and thick as sausages; newspapers; plastic bags.
Kev grabs gloves and a net, followed by Ann. Mom stays where she's sitting, feet up, in the livingroom. Dad is at the bottom of the stairs, giving "instructions". (Ann has forbidden him to come up to her room--too many things to trip over in the excitement of the chase.) Meanwhile, Kev opens the door a crack, then slams it, refusing to go into Ann's room. (I'm not sure exactly why...fear of stacks of videos and cds? ) He pushes Ann to the forefront, after she makes a crack about this...
I exit: to the laundry room. Maeve stays to watch. (I have found that whenever there is nothing I can do to help, which is often...sigh..., doing some laundry is at least a calming and positive action.) It is also quiet and cool down in the cellar.
Twenty minutes later, Kev stomps downstairs. He doesn't say "hi" or even "good-night"--just a grunted, "I got the bat." Then, he replaces Dad's fishing nets. Upstairs, Ann has returned my sweats and is finishing getting ready for work. Maeve is barking, just for the fun of it. Mom has continued to regale Dad about exterminators in the morning. Ann fills me in on the "hunt": Kev and she swatted the bat down, between a dresser and some books. They got the nets over it. Kev began to beat it with the gloves and the other net. Ann stopped him. By then, the little critter was dazed and more than confused. Ann made Kev take it outside and put it up high, on the picnic table, to recover, untangled from the net. "I just hope nothing eats it before it comes to..." Ann tells me, snapping her cigarettes into her backpack.
In the morning, the bat has disappeared.
Now, I have helped remove many wild and semi-tamed animals from classrooms, friends' homes, outbuildings on farms and ranches--both in the West and out here. However, my family gets much glee from "misadventures". Everyone is a fan of "Animal Planet". Tangling with animals is something I am not going to be invited to if someone else can jump in. But what they don't know is that I am also a believer that wild animals can be messengers. Like Native American Indians I have studied with and known, I have come to trust that there are reasons God sends wild things into our lives--and perhaps, if one ascribes to patterns of observation which have come down through the ages, one can decipher those messages. For me, bat coming to visit, and ending up in Ann's room, was carrying a message for Ann--and possibly for Kev, too.
Bat's presence has many meanings. Depending on the tribal teachings of any particular group, bat can bring all sorts of dimensional information. Most common, however, is the idea of rebirth--a necessary step in the creation of a healer or a shaman. Bat signifies the need to "get rid of the old" in order to be tranformed into something new: one's destiny.
In many cultures, especially in Central America, the initiation rites for healers, involve painful trials, humiliations (to destroy old ego), even sometimes a ritual "death"--the burying of a person in a shallow grave, covered by a blanket, for a whole twenty-four hours. When the person emerges, sane and intact, divested of old bad traits and habits, they have new-found healing powers and insights to help the tribe.
Ann is a psychiatric head nurse in a major metropolitan ER, on the night shift. Her trials are unrelenting. Her persona is hard-core "NURSE", and it sometimes gets in the way, after her shift is over. But her better side is gentle, caring, uber-generous and nurturing. She is everyone's "favorite Aunt"--and is a godsend to my parents, even as they are sometimes not so nice to her, in return. (That ongoing eternal critic we suffer with). Bat might be signaling to her that it is time to change a few old patterns and to accept the power that she has at her center. To acknowledge who she has been "in training to be"--and not to "bat away" her talents; to take in the positive that is offered to her and around her, not just the negative.
But, only Ann can know, for sure. Bat didn't come to me.
I also didn't remove him/her.
In the morning, I saw only the empty net on the picnic table.
Besides: I'm from California...
(I wish bat gave ME such a clear message and positive insight!)
Ann hurriedly cracks the door about six inches and calls Maeve out. Maeve, yawning, taking her sweet Maeve-ish time, saunters into the hallway, unclear what the rumpus is about.
Ann slams the bedroom door shut, and hollars down to Dad.
"A bat just flew into my bedroom!"
"I thought I saw one down here a little while ago," Dad calls upstairs from his lounge chair--the baseball game on full volume behind him.
"Why didn't you tell us?!!" Ann is quite perturbed, barely having escaped the infamous "bat-caught-in-long-hair" scenario.
"I was waiting till it calmed down and landed..." Dad calls back upstairs.
Leaving Maeve to me, and belly-rubbing duties at the top of the stairs, per usual, Ann rushes downstairs to help Dad locate several fishing nets with handles; several heavy-duty, ultra thick leather and kevlar gloves (which reach to the elbow and are probably best used when welding metal), and to call my cop brother, Kevin, who has wrangled bats out of several houses in Gardner, while on duty. (The most reknown was the home of two of his ex-nun's from Sacred Heart School, years and years ago...)
I sit with the dog.
Mom comes out of her adjoining bedroom, garbed in a summer nightie, her reading glasses on, her slippers firmly covering her feet in case of the need for flight. "I think there's a nest in the attic--I've thought it for years! Does your father have some fishing line? Where is the thing? Ooohh...." she runs downstairs.
"Mom, they don't have nests...we haven't seen any bat dung in the attic...it probably came inside when someone opened the back door to let the dog out or when Dad brought in his American flag from the porch..." Nobody listens. I scratch the dog's ears. She grins. We hear no bat sounds behind Ann's door. We just sit and wait on the stairs, observing.
Ann rushes back upstairs.
"Karen, you have any sweat-shorts around? I have to put on something before Kev gets here--we're gonna take the bat down...Man, I'm going to be late for work for sure!" Ann has lost the eye-lash curler and the mirror and now has her cellphone in her hand.
I leave Maeve to bark at Ann and Dad, who is yelling instructions upstairs. Mom has retreated to the livingroom and turned the baseball game down a notch. I can hear her over the din: "I'm telling you, they have a nest in the attic! They have been nesting there for years! I just know it! I get the heebie -jeebies everytime I go up there! We need an exterminator!"
Locating my trusty Old Navy sweat-shorts, I hand them to Ann. She tugs them on, conversing with Kev, who is on his way over from God-knows-where. (He isn't going to be happy.)
He arrives, post haste, screaming his truck into the darkened driveway. Ann and Dad show him the arsenal laid out on the kitchen table: fishing nets with handles; three industrial pairs of huge gloves--fingers stuffed and thick as sausages; newspapers; plastic bags.
Kev grabs gloves and a net, followed by Ann. Mom stays where she's sitting, feet up, in the livingroom. Dad is at the bottom of the stairs, giving "instructions". (Ann has forbidden him to come up to her room--too many things to trip over in the excitement of the chase.) Meanwhile, Kev opens the door a crack, then slams it, refusing to go into Ann's room. (I'm not sure exactly why...fear of stacks of videos and cds? ) He pushes Ann to the forefront, after she makes a crack about this...
I exit: to the laundry room. Maeve stays to watch. (I have found that whenever there is nothing I can do to help, which is often...sigh..., doing some laundry is at least a calming and positive action.) It is also quiet and cool down in the cellar.
Twenty minutes later, Kev stomps downstairs. He doesn't say "hi" or even "good-night"--just a grunted, "I got the bat." Then, he replaces Dad's fishing nets. Upstairs, Ann has returned my sweats and is finishing getting ready for work. Maeve is barking, just for the fun of it. Mom has continued to regale Dad about exterminators in the morning. Ann fills me in on the "hunt": Kev and she swatted the bat down, between a dresser and some books. They got the nets over it. Kev began to beat it with the gloves and the other net. Ann stopped him. By then, the little critter was dazed and more than confused. Ann made Kev take it outside and put it up high, on the picnic table, to recover, untangled from the net. "I just hope nothing eats it before it comes to..." Ann tells me, snapping her cigarettes into her backpack.
In the morning, the bat has disappeared.
Now, I have helped remove many wild and semi-tamed animals from classrooms, friends' homes, outbuildings on farms and ranches--both in the West and out here. However, my family gets much glee from "misadventures". Everyone is a fan of "Animal Planet". Tangling with animals is something I am not going to be invited to if someone else can jump in. But what they don't know is that I am also a believer that wild animals can be messengers. Like Native American Indians I have studied with and known, I have come to trust that there are reasons God sends wild things into our lives--and perhaps, if one ascribes to patterns of observation which have come down through the ages, one can decipher those messages. For me, bat coming to visit, and ending up in Ann's room, was carrying a message for Ann--and possibly for Kev, too.
Bat's presence has many meanings. Depending on the tribal teachings of any particular group, bat can bring all sorts of dimensional information. Most common, however, is the idea of rebirth--a necessary step in the creation of a healer or a shaman. Bat signifies the need to "get rid of the old" in order to be tranformed into something new: one's destiny.
In many cultures, especially in Central America, the initiation rites for healers, involve painful trials, humiliations (to destroy old ego), even sometimes a ritual "death"--the burying of a person in a shallow grave, covered by a blanket, for a whole twenty-four hours. When the person emerges, sane and intact, divested of old bad traits and habits, they have new-found healing powers and insights to help the tribe.
Ann is a psychiatric head nurse in a major metropolitan ER, on the night shift. Her trials are unrelenting. Her persona is hard-core "NURSE", and it sometimes gets in the way, after her shift is over. But her better side is gentle, caring, uber-generous and nurturing. She is everyone's "favorite Aunt"--and is a godsend to my parents, even as they are sometimes not so nice to her, in return. (That ongoing eternal critic we suffer with). Bat might be signaling to her that it is time to change a few old patterns and to accept the power that she has at her center. To acknowledge who she has been "in training to be"--and not to "bat away" her talents; to take in the positive that is offered to her and around her, not just the negative.
But, only Ann can know, for sure. Bat didn't come to me.
I also didn't remove him/her.
In the morning, I saw only the empty net on the picnic table.
Besides: I'm from California...
(I wish bat gave ME such a clear message and positive insight!)
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