love bats into the enormous night, you cave in.

On the way down to Round Spring, an ancient site in the Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri yesterday afternoon, I wanted my shamanic initiation to be validated somehow for my mom. I reminded her of my memory of the bat I saw as soon as I arrived in Portland in 2006, at the very corner where, little did I know at the time, lived a person who called himself Dark River, who would introduce me to a sacred plot of land in southern Oregon where I would meet other shamans and continue journeying with them. I told my mom that the bat is a symbol of a shamanic death, similar to a baptism: an initiation into a new life. It is also a symbol of love, I told her, of energy.

When we arrived into the campground that my mom wanted to take me to, there was a sign that said, "Ampitheater. Slide Show Tonight at 8:30." A poster outside the restrooms next to our site indicated that the topic could be anything. So we decided we would attend. "What else are we going to do," I said. "It's not like we have T.V." Mom said. We had three hours until the show.

After setting up the tent, I fell asleep reading from the book Gut Symmetries, by Jeanette Winterson, a book Dark River recently gave me as a gift. I awoke, knowing I was just in time for the show. Just to be sure, I asked my mom what time it was. Eight o'clock.

By the time we walked down the road to the ampitheater, the forest was dark, and the trees were alive with the rhythm of the cicadas. The friendly female park ranger announced that the slide show presentation was on bats, demystified. Many stereotypes which normally give bats a bad reputation were replaced with the truth. For example, contrary to popular belief, bats are not blind, they do not typically have or spread rabies, and if they can detect from far off a minnow's fin two centimeters above the surface of the water, they will not fly into your hair, girls! Some of these debunked myths obviously were meant to be a little ridiculous.

One, however, really caught my attention. There was a photo of a bat who was protecting another bat (who had a broken wing), with its own wing. The ranger asked, "What do you call it when one person sacrifices itself for another?" It was obvious to me, a message: "Love?" I said.

I received information on how to build a bat house, and we were told to respect any signs we saw outside caves that indicated they were closed, since there is a disease affecting the bats, a white fungus that seems to be a growing epidemic in the North East U.S., and we think humans are the carriers. The Round Spring Cavern, there in the campground, was closed, "due to bat gate construction."