Healing Rites of Passage

Twilight is the most magical part of the day for me. In college I would often walk out to a field, or lake, to watch as the world put away its daytime energy to snuggle into its nighttime routine. For me twilight was the magical hour and many of my poems were inspired during twilight hours. It felt as if there was more possible in that shortest span of time than throughout the entire rest of the day.

Not just as a poet, but as a death care worker too, I feel like the twilight hour is my sacred time. There are lessons and wisdom for us if we pay attention to what happens between daylight and darkness. As day transitions into night, so do humans transition from Earthly life to whatever comes next.

One of the greatest joys of my life is being able to walk with others through their twilight days. While the event of death happens in a moment – one minute your body is alive and the next it isn’t – the act of dying is a gradual process.

The other morning I was up before sunrise, and stood in the majesty of the morning twilight hour. It isn’t often that I am up before the sun anymore, so this was particularly delightful. Standing in my yard I discovered I was not alone in my appreciation of the magical hour.

It seems bats are twilight dwellers, too.

I watched as one and then another wove between the darkness of the trees and the lightening sky. They appeared out of, and disappeared into, thin air as if they were apparitions crossing through the veil.

That’s when I realized my alignment with bats. They’ve never been anywhere near being on my favorites list. I find their look fascinating – in 2 dimensional renderings – but in person I’ve been averse. Especially since we learned my daughter had been bit by one in her sleep a couple years ago.

Watching them navigate the twilight though, I was changed. I suddenly felt like I could describe what I feel like as a death care worker. It must seem to my clients that I appear out of nowhere just as their time of transitioning worlds begins. My purpose is strictly to navigate them through the twilight.

By now you know that when wildlife shows up in my life I am quick to look up it’s ‘medicine’. In doing so, I discovered the Aztec, Toltec, Mayan and Tolucan people honor the bat because it symbolizes rebirth and the transition into a new life. How appropo.

At this point, the thought crossed my mind that I might have to incorporate the bat into my logo…or get a tattoo.

At the very least I will be incorporating bat into my meditations and begin to ask to receive its very specific sacred medicine to help me in my work.

I will look to the bat for guidance and wisdom, for their expertise in navigating the twilight is what I need as I help others transition.

I don’t get to know people at their optimum operating capacity. I don’t get to know people at the high noon of their lives. I am not of the sunlight and yang energy.

I meet people in the twilight hour, seeming to appear out of nowhere. With eyes meant for this, I can see the path clearly and can plot the course. I am of the moonlight and yin energy.

I am a Walker Between Worlds.