Teaching Story - Part 2
Originally Published in the Awakened Soul Newsletter sent February 18, 2024
Message from Mother Earth - Guatemala, 2017
After spending a beautiful afternoon in the pools and enjoying a picnic lunch, Hugo took us by jeep to a nearby cave. This cave is home to the largest fruit bat colony in Guatemala. It also has evidence of being a sacred place with an altar and was known to be a place for vision quest for the Mayan shamans of the past. Because of Hugo’s knowledge of this cave, he brought us to an area far from the beaten path where, with the help of our headlamps, we very carefully edged our way over boulders and down to a cavernous space with running water. There was a point I said to Hugo “I can’t do this, I can’t see, and my legs are too short to make the drop down safely.” He looked back up at me and said, “you have to do this Sue and just trust you will be able to make it…” and so I did.
We came to the place in the complete darkness where a river was running out of the earth, and to the side of the river rapids was a pool of still, cool water. It was here that Hugo lit candles and placed them around the pool and told us to “jump in!” Once again, a feeling of being out of time and recognizing, ah, this is going back to the womb of the mother. Lying there in the water, I surrendered to the opportunity to have a rebirth experience. As we were preparing to leave the pool area, Hugo said, “The way out is even harder!” I looked to where he pointed and could see the way led up quite high taking another dimly lit rocky trail leading to a pretty tiny split in the earth that would lead to the outdoors.
Looking back at him, I said, “a birth canal!” And he simply smiled. So with Hugo as the midwife, we climbed up the perilous path and squeezed through the opening.
As we exited the cave it was dusk. Hugo took us to the main cave entrance where we sat as hundreds of thousands of fruit bats took off around us into the fragrant night. Although we could feel the brush of their wings and the wind moving around us, they missed our heads and bodies! It felt like a blessing of the fruit bats.
As a totem, the bat symbolizes death and rebirth. It also symbolizes fertility and prosperity. It is associated with the principles of transition, intuition and the unseen world.
There were many gifts and lessons from this day. The choice to move beyond fear and surrender to the experience of stepping down in the almost total darkness and then slipping into the cool pool of water stays with me. It invited me to have more trust in myself, my companions, God, and the natural world. I am grateful.
Next post the final chapter of this teaching story.