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THE VULTURE AS TOTEM

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The Golden Purifier(CATHARTES AURA)

PRESENTED BY:the Wanderling

The vulture is a very powerful totem. Its cycle of power is year-round. If you have a Vulture as a spiritguide or totem, it can show you how to use energy powerfully and efficiently. It glides effortlessly on thewinds, soaring to extraordinary heights while using little or no energy. The Vulture skillfully employsalready existing air currents against the pull of gravity, symbolizing the distribution of energy so thatgravity (or cares) do not weigh it (you) down. In the process the vulture does not use its own energy,but the energies of the Earth instead, the energies of the Earth --- or the Natural Order of Things ---being ONE of the mainstay sources in The Power of the Shaman. A very valuable lesson.

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"One day, when I was around ten years old or so, I went for a hike deep into the desert

unescorted. When my Uncle discovered I was gone he went looking for me. During my walk

I happened across the carcass of a dead rabbit and was fascinated by it for some reason.

When my Uncle found me after cresting a small hill he saw me squatted down with the

carcass. Joining me quite comfortably in a circle with the rabbit were three what were,

because of this incident, to eventually become my Totem Animal --- VULTURES. From

what he was able to discern from his initial vantage point I was neither afraid of them nor

were they remotely afraid of me. As well, and he swore this to be true --- although I have

absolutely no recollection of it and construe it as a possible total misinterpretation of

facts --- that the vultures and I were sharing meat from the carcass between us.

"When my Uncle told his estranged wife about the incident she suddenly was very

interested in me. You see, for some reason, in today's neo-Shaman environment there has

been a stress placed on finding one's "power animal." The contemporary neo-Shaman

workshops have a tendency to blind people to the fact that real animals are also spirit and

power, and every bit as important, or even more so, than than a spirit guide that appears in

some vision. His estranged wife, a Midewiwin Medicine Woman, knew that. In workshops,

the totem-animal-visions of participants are never frogs, gophers or garden slugs, they

are always wolves, bears, eagles, and falcons. If it were only so." [1]

The scientific name for the Turkey Vulture is CATHARTES AURA which means GOLDEN PURIFIERbecause as it goes about it's lifetime business it purifies the landscape and environment in it's ownnatural way, ensuring the continued health and life of other living things. The Vulture is a promise that allhardship was temporary and necessary for a higher purpose. Once a Vulture enters your life as a totemor guide, it will remain with you for life.

Vultures live and work together, both in cooperation and friendliness. They communicate with friendsand neighbors when they find something to eat. They let the others know where the food is. And whenthere is a big feast they communicate with neighboring flocks in distant roosts. Also, Turkey Vulturesthat range within California Condor habitat areas, when they find food they will go to the Condors andlead them to it. One roost was observed when they had a dead cow in their neighborhood. Theysomehow contacted a roost of 100 vultures about 30 miles away to come join them. Several days later,before they finished their feast, two more cows died. Within a day the vultures had contacted anotherroost to join them. At night all the birds visited together in the same or neighboring trees. There werenow three different roosts living together. When the cows had been cleaned up the several visitingroosts went home. (source)

In Greek mythology, the Vulture is the descendant of the Griffin. It was a very Buddhist-like, Zen-likesymbol of the non-dual oneness of heaven and earth, spirit and matter, good and evil, guardian andavenger. The Vulture is the avenger of nature spirits. Ancient Assyrians believed the Vulture was, likeNagarjuna's middle way, Sunyata, the encompassing overall non-separated union between the day andnight. Ironically, regardless of the less than good image the vulture is typically granted by most, thinkabout it:

Unlike the needs of nearly all other living creatures, vultures do not kill.

Their prey either dies or something else kills it.

Truly a most noble attribute for any living entity, flora or fauna.

Herodorus Ponticus relates that great men of legend were always very joyful when a vulture appearedupon any action. For it is a creature the least hurtful of any, pernicious neither to corn, fruit-tree, nor

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cattle; it preys only upon carrion, and never kills or hurts any living thing; and as for birds, it touches notthem, though they are dead, as being of its own species, whereas eagles, owls, and hawks mangle andkill their own fellow-creatures. That very same overall innate nature imbeded in the actions and life ofthe vulture, never killing or hurting a living thing or its own fellow creatures, is reflected for the most part,in and by the the actions and life of the person that truly has the vulture as a totem animal.

The noted Athenian writer Aeschylus (c. 525 BC-456 BC) says,- - "What bird is clean that preys onfellow bird? - Besides, all other birds are, so to say, never out of our eyes; they let themselves be seenof us continually; but a vulture is a very rare sight, and you can seldom meet with a man that has seentheir young; their rarity and infrequency has raised a strange opinion in some, that they come to us fromsome other world; as soothsayers ascribe a divine origination to all things not produced either of natureor of themselves."

Be as it may, the Assyrians, Greeks and other early civilization city-states were actually late comers tothe use or representation of vultures in ritual, religious, or shamanistic rites.

In the 1950's the husband/wife archaelogist/anthropologist team of Ralph and Rose Solecki beganexcavating a cave site 250 miles north of Baghdad along a tributary of the Tigris River called theGreater Zab that rises out of the Turkey-Kurdistan border area. The cave had been used for burials byan ancient tribal people called the Zawi Chami around 8870 BCE (plus or minus 300 years, according tocarbon-dating) --over 10,000 years ago-- which is well over 4,000 years before the beginnings of anyof the various cultures mentioned above. In their dig the Soleckis found a number of wing bones of largepredatory birds, which turned out to be Gyptaeus barbatus (the bearded vulture) and Gyps fulvus (thegriffon vulture).

Vulture image with a headless man at Çatal HüyükOne image depicts a human figure in a vulture skin

In 1977 the journal Sumer published an article by Rose Solecki entitled Predatory Bird Rituals atZawi Chemi Shanidar where she described the findings, going on to suggest that the wings had almostcertainly been utilized as part of some kind of ritualistic costume, worn either for personal decoration orfor ceremonial purposes. She connected the finds with the Vulture Shamanism of the proto-neolithicÇatal Hüyük community in Central Anatolia which, by the way, was 2000 years later in time, and severalhundred miles away in distance. Recognizing the importance of their discovery, however, Rose Soleckiconcluded the article by saying:

"The Zawi Chemi people must have endowed these great raptorial birds with special powers,and the faunal remains we have described for the site must represent special ritualparaphernalia. Certainly, the remains represent a concerted effort by a goodly number ofpeople just to hunt down and capture such a large number of birds. Either the wings weresaved to pluck out the feathers or they were used as part of a costume for a ritual. One of themurals from a Catal Hayuk shrine ... depicts just such a ritual scene; ie, a human figuredressed in a vulture skin"

Can Göknil in Creation Myths From Central Asia To Anatolia: Images From The Creation Myths OfThe Turks writes:

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"Shamanism is a system of belief common to the Turks of Central Asia. Both men and womencould be Shaman priests and among old Turkish groups they were called Kam. Kamsdressed in elaborate garments to display their supernatural powers. Accompanied by thebeating of drums in their rituals, they believed they could fly with the aid of their own guardiananimal. During such flights they reached various levels of Heaven or the Underworld. Uponreturning to this world, they used the information they had learned during their journey for thebenefit of their followers".

The following from an unknown source:

"Each place and location has its own power and potency. By raising our consciousness aboutthe geo-cosmic specificities of gravity, light, magnetism, solstices, equinoxes, lunar cycles,indigenous plants, animals, climate, and so forth in any given area, we can come to value thevariety of diverse cultures and regions whose multiple knowledges all serve to enhance lifeeverywhere on our planet. Most of these geo-cosmic teachings can only be acquired in theparticular region in which they occur. If we are to awaken our own Shamanic abilities, perhapslost in the mist of time, then we must attune ourselves to precisely those same forces as theymanifest themselves in our own bio-regions. In some cases this may require us to learn aboutour region from the indigenous tribes in our area; in other cases we must set aboutdiscovering the power of the places in which we live on our own. We need not run away toother "exotic' cultures, but begin exploring our own backyards."

TALON AND SCRATCH MARKS FROM THEGIANT BIRD

SEE ALSO:

WE DO NOT HAVE SHAMANS:The Case Against Shamans In North American Indigenous

Cultures

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The Woman Avian Shapeshifter

Dangerously perched for the second or third time from a highly angled prone position on theedge of Fajada Butte --- the lonely 400 foot high core remnant of an ancient mountain risingfrom the floor of Chaco Canyon and home of the sacred Native American solar calendar calledthe Sun Dagger --- for no other reason than pure curiosity or an adrenaline high, I beganwatching three vultures lazily circling at about the same height across the valley ... and scaryor not, to drop a few rocks over the edge as probably any ten-year old boy might be expectedto do no matter where they were.

The three vultures were soon joined by a fourth and in my mind I thought how cool it would beto have the Da Vinci glider my uncle and I had built and launch it from the cliffs and join them.The group was slowly moving away, drifting south and higher on the thermals. One of thefour, whether it was the new one to the group or not, widened its circle flying incredibly closeto where I was on the ledge, so close individual feathers could be seen and it seemed, but notprobable, eye contact made. The vulture circled around toward the group. Thinking theremight be a second pass I waited, but in the process of the flight, somehow lost visual contact.The vulture group continued to drift south, but now distinctly with only three members.

With no sign of the bird returning I decided to inch my way back away from the ledge towardthe ruin entrance. In a slow turn while rising to my hands and knees in order to scoot backinside where it was safe to stand, I caught what was nothing more than a fleeting glimpse ofwhat seemed to be a person, almost shadow-like, not my uncle or the elder, but possibly awoman, along the ledge several rooms down. Covered with goose bumps and scared out ofmy mind I scrambled into the ruin and hid in the corner of the crumbling half-height wall insuch a fashion that if a person did pass by they would be unable to see me.

I glanced slightly over the wall and could see that it would be easy for anybody to recognizethat the ground-surface of the ledge between the ruin and the edge had been disturbed quiterecently by a someone or something going in and out of the structure. I decided to hop thewall between the rooms thinking that if someone did come into the room and see thebackpacks and equipment they might think whoever owned the stuff was out on the butte andjust leave. I raised up in a half-crouch to slip over the wall into the other room when I wasconfronted by a woman on the other side. At first glance, in the shadow of the cave, backlitwith the bright blue sky, she looked like an old lady with long white hair and wrinkled face, butas we both moved to strengthen our positions I could see surprisingly, she was not old at all.Her face was smooth and young and her hair long and black, the whiteness I thought,apparently caused by the brightness of the backlit sky. She carried a small pouch-like bag tiedat the top in the palm of her hand. With her thumb and the first finger of her other hand shespread the top open and stuck in two fingers, pulling them out covered with a fine whitepowder. For some reason I was no longer scared, I even leaned forward as she put her handout as though she wanted to touch my face. She put three marks across my forehead twofingers wide, each time returning her fingers to the pouch to replenish the powder. She alsoput what felt like cresent shaped marks on my cheekbones starting at the top of my nose andgoing outward toward the bottom of my ears. She also put one downward on my chin. Shethen turned and walked away. When she reached the exit she turned back for only a moment,shaking out the pouch much like one would shake out a handkerchief, the wind comingthrough the portal catching the dust and swirling it into a white cloud. In the second the dusttook to dissipate she was gone.

When my uncle and the tribal spiritual elder I was traveling with returned from the Daggerhigher up on the butte and heard my story they began a search in the direction she wentoutside along the abandoned ruins. They found the pouch and the tie-string laying in the dirtand tracked her to the edge where it got too narrow to walk and too far to jump, but no sign ofthe woman.(source)

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The Egyptian Goddess Maat

The Egyptian Goddess Maat is usually depicted with the wings of a Vulture. Maat is thepersonification of the order of the world. She and her totem represented the norm of things,the way the universe worked, the conduct of its creatures. They represented morality, justice,social and cosmic order -- the balance and harmony of the universe.

To the Pueblo Indians, the Vulture was the symbol of purification. Its medicine would restoreharmony to that which had been broken. They used Vulture feathers for grounding duringshape shifting ceremonies to make sure that they would return to their own body and mind. The Vulture also dispelled evil, discharm objects and recover slain warriors.

In alchemy, the Vulture is the symbol of sublimation. The confirmation of the relationshipbetween the volatile aspects of life and the fixed aspects of cosmic and psychic forces.

People with Vulture totems often can see auras and colors around people and things. TheVulture can see the thermals rising from the earth and uses them to soar into the sky. TheVulture can also teach you patience. It will soar for hours, high in the sky, using the aircurrents.

One quick thing before moving on. It must be remembered, having a vulture as totem is not thesame as being a Vulture Shaman any more than having a bear as totem would make you aBear Shaman. Some people confuse the issue. There is a big difference. For one thing, justbecause you have an animal totem as a spirit guide does not mean you are a Shaman or aShaman of that particular animal. For example, Salvador Lopez, a member and highlyrevered spiritual elder of the Cahuilla band of Indians and thought to be one of the teachers ofCarlos Castaneda, was said to be a special class of Shaman called a Bear Shaman,Shamans who have received their power from grizzly bears and who possess many of thequalities of the grizzly, especially their apparent invulnerability to fatal attack. However,nowhere was it ever said his totem animal was a bear.

The Vulture saves the World

In the earliest of times, the sun lived very close to the earth - so close in fact that life upon the

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earth was becoming unbearable. The animal world got together and decided to do something about it. They wanted to move the sun further away.

The fox was the first to volunteer, and he grabbed the sun in his mouth and began to run tothe heavens. After a short while, the sun became too hot, burning the fox's mouth, and hestopped. To this day, the inside of the fox's mouth is black. Then the opossum volunteered.He wrapped his tail around the sun and began running toward the heavens. Before longthough, the sun became too hot, burning its tail, and he had to stop. To this day the opossumhas no hair upon its tail.

It was then that vulture stepped forward. Vulture was the most beautiful and powerful of birds.Upon its head was a beautiful mantle of rich feathering that all other birds envied. Knowingthat the earth would burn up unless someone moved the sun, the vulture placed its headagainst it and began to fly to the heavens. With powerful strokes of its wings, it pushed andpushed the sun further and further up into the heavens. Though it could feel its crown feathersburning, the vulture continued until the sun was set at a safe distance in the sky away fromthe earth. Unfortunately, vulture lost its magnificent head of feathers for eternity.

OSHUN: Ibu Kole, the Vulture

One of the seven of the Seven African Powers as found in Orisha and Obeah is Oshun,also associated with Ibu Kole, the vulture. It is said in ancient days Oludamare/Olofi becamedisgusted with humans and their behavior, turning away from their needs and prayers.Resources were depleted and famine spread throughout the world. As far as Oludamare/Olofiwas concerned the human race could end forever. Because vultures fly higher than any otherwinged bird, Oshun transformed herself into the form of a vulture in order to fly to the heavensand intercede on the behalf of humans and save her children. Olodumare was so compelledby such spiritual virtue that he fulfilled her request.

The Vulture and the Trickster

One day when Trickster was walking about with no particular destination he heard a shriekfrom above. When he looked up, there unexpectedly was a very large bird headed right forhim. It was a Turkey Vulture (cathartes aura). When it got near, Trickster said, "Well, youngerbrother, you are certainly lucky to be able to fly around and have such a good time! I wish Icould fly like you. You could carry me on your back, if you had a mind to, for I like the way youdo things, that is why I say this." "All right," said the Turkey Vulture, "you can climb on myback." So Trickster mounted up, but the bird had to exert itself mightily to get airborne, indeedit had to use all its powers to leave the ground. Finally they were soaring high in the air, andTrickster was full of enthusiasm, "Indeed, my younger brother, this is a fine time we arehaving. It is very pleasant to fly about like this." Then the vulture dipped his wing and peeledoff so that it was all that Trickster could do to hang on. He shouted, "Be careful! When you flylike this I could fall off!" So the vulture righted himself and glided as he had before. Tricksterwas once again happy and chattering about how much he was enjoying himself.

Now this vulture knew full well what sort of man Trickster was, and how he acted; so hedecided to give him a little of what he had been giving others. He circled about until he camedirectly over a hollow tree without a single branch; then, suddenly, he pitched violently whenhe was over the tree, and Trickster fell right into the hollow. "Alas," cried Trickster, "what anevil thing to do. You have turned the tables on me!" Thus the Turkey Vulture had tricked theTrickster, one of the few creatures in all of Native American lore to have the "power" and guile

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to one-up the Trickster.

THE GOLDEN PURIFIER

In Buddhism the Golden Purifier is COMPASSION, Karuna in Sanskrit. Compassion works forus in allowing us to perceive the pain, anguish, affliction, agony, torment and distress ofothers clearly, through allowing it into our experience also. It is then something that has movedfurther out of the realm of the ignored or the unconscious into the realm of the included, theaccepted, the conscious. Compassion is spacious, allowing the way things are to exist, tochange, and to end. Particularly it allows pain to end. This means that it must be patient, notin any hurry to force pain to end or to try officiously to get rid of pain. It is the active side ofwisdom and is the Buddha's supreme or GOLDEN PURIFIER. The Buddha's compassionallowed him to realize that there is still something that can be done by a fully Enlightenedbeing. It was compassion that motivated him to teach "for the benefit of those withdust in their eyes".(source)

Do you then approach the study of Zen -- or Shamanism -- with the idea that there issomething to be gained by it? This question is not intended as an implicit accusation. But it is ,nevertheless, a serious question. Where there is a lot of fuss about "spirituality,""Enlightenment," or just "turning on" it is often because there are vultures hovering around acorpse. This hovering, this circling, is not what is meant by the study of Zen. There is no bodyto be found. The birds may come and circle but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone,the "nothing" that was there, suddenly appears. (source)

ODAC DARA ARAD CADO(click)

See also:

MEDITATION ALONG METEOR CRATER RIM

LEGEND OF THE GIANT BIRD

FLYING OINTMENTS

VULTURE PEAK

THE TREE

DO YOU THINK FLYING IN

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THE SKY IS MAGICAL?(click image)

DARK LUMINOSTIY

KAM

Kamship is an important part of the pre-islam Turkish belief system. Kam, Kaman or Shamanleads several ceremonies for communicating between this world and the world of sprits. Theyalso lead several rituals for birth, death and marriage, the periods of transitions. They fightagainst bad sprits with their symbolic knives or wooden swords. The wooden sword,representing the justice, is a symbol for the peaceful solution of disputes. One can not learnkamship, instead one should descent from the family of a kam. It is believed that the sprit ofthe grandfather passes to the grandchild, this is very similarly observed in dedeship inAnatolia.

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HIKING AND MEDITATION

ALONG METEOR CRATERRIM

Totem information provided through the gracious services of:Lin's Webas well as:

ANIMAL SPEAK: Dictionary of Bird Totems

VULTURE GRAPHIC COURTESYKeith Wedoe

FOOTNOTE [1]

My uncle's wife was a powerful curandera in the tradition of 'la Catalina,' and like 'la Catalina,' held inawe by most that came within her presence. Tall and straight-backed, with perfect posture and beautiful

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skin, instead of taking steps she appeared to almost glide when she walked. In restaurants and publicplaces people were reluctant to sit near her table and the help was afraid to serve her. Some have saidthey had seen a glass of water slide across the table to her hand without her even moving her arm.

Upon hearing the story regarding myself and the vultures she was certain, at least as she viewed it fromher own perspective, that if my uncle had not come across the the circle when he did I would have flownoff with them, or, if not then, the six-foot wingspan raptors would have carried me off with them as if Iwas one of their own (again, her perspective).

Years later my uncle told me something he had never told his wife nor discussed with me. The distance Itraveled that day, from the point I started to the location he found me, was way to far for me to havecovered given the time, especially considering the level of my own abilities, the terrain, heat of the day,etc. He told me he had tracked me some distance quite clearly, then my tracks suddenly just ended asthough I had disappeared into thin air. Knowing I didn't have a large supply of water or any at all hecontinued to look in areas he thought I might seek out and just happened across me --- many, manymiles from where he had last seen my tracks. How I got there he couldn't say with any amount ofcertainty. However, he told me, and he kept it a secret from his wife even to the point of burning myshirt, that my shirt below both shoulders as well as part way down the back and along my sleeves werepunctured in spots and appeared to have what he called grip marks on them. So too, my skin had red

abrasions almost like minor scratches as though my arms had been clutched by something. He told mehe was sure I had been carried off and if he hadn't happened across me I may had been carried off evenfurther, maybe even never to be found.

In that my uncle was not able to get me to tell him verbally --- OR I was unable or unwilling to put intowords my experience of what happened that day --- my uncle suggested I sit down and draw whateverpictures came to mind that related to the event. All of those drawings are long since gone as are anyfinite memories of same, except for one. I remember it clearly as if only yesterday because of the strikingcomparison my uncle made between one of my drawings and an ink and watercolor drawing byLeonardo Da Vinci. They were nearly identical, desert landscape and all. The major exception wasthat where Leonardo's drawing depicted a lake with a shape similar to a bird, my drawing, althoughhaving a similar shape, was instead, a SHADOW of a giant bird.

Leonardo Da Vinci: Bird's-Eye View of a Landscape. 1502.Pen, ink and watercolor on paper. Windsor Castle, Windsor, UK

Why all the fuss about giant flying creatures, giant birds, and giant feathers, and all somehow and insomeway related back to the Wanderling?

Basically, the Wanderling's uncle stated many times that he felt the reason for his destiny and

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fascination regarding all aspects of giant flying creatures went back to an incident that involved the flyover of a giant airborne object that the Wanderling witnessed as a young boy. The object, of anunknown nature and an unknown origin, was seen by literally thousands of people along the coast ofCalifornia barely three months into World War II. Eventually to be called the Battle of Los Angeles, theincident is mostly forgotten now. However, during the early morning hours of February 25, 1942 thewhole city and surrounding communities were in an uproar as thousands of rounds of anti-aircraft shellswere expended in an attempt to pull down whatever it was in the sky that night. The slow moving object,said to be as big or bigger than a Zeppelin, was caught in the glare of the searchlights from SantaMonica to Long Beach and seemed impervious to the the constant barrarge of shells. It eventuallydisappeared out over the Pacific after cruising along the coast and cutting inland for a while. The hugeobject was never clearly explained and was basically hushed up without response from the authorities.