Badger Bite

On May 20, 2018, I recorded a very brief dream:

“I saw a white badger coming toward me. It reached me, turned, then turned into a black badger. It bit me and walked away. I did not experience fear or pain when it bit me.”

Over all the decades that I have been recording my dreams, I had never dreamt of a badger, so I was very intrigued by this dream. I researched badger symbolism in many books. In The Dictionary of Symbols, I read that in Japan the badger symbolizes cunning, a kind of trickster animal. The Welsh saw the badger as symbolizing slyness and deceit. Those explanations of the symbol of the badger didn’t seem to work for my dream, so I kept looking. Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews, is a valuable resource for delving into animal symbolism. What Ted Andrews wrote about badger symbolism helped to open up my dream. He wrote that the keynote of badger symbolism is “bold self-expression and reliance—keeper of stories”. He also wrote that the white strip on the badger’s head indicates that a badger is a “keeper of much light.” A badger’s strong jaws “ties the badger to the mysteries of the ‘word.’” (Writing has always been my main avenue of expression. This dream came on a Pentecost Sunday, which hinted at another layer of meaning in this dream. During Pentecost, Jesus opened the “Word” in His apostles.) Badgers are remarkable diggers. This hints at the ability to see beneath the surface of things. (Dream work is one of the ways I see beneath the surface of things.) Badgers are loners and solitary. (I am an introvert). p. 246 -247, Animal Speak

Our dream group had decided to make masks for our dream creativity, so I made a badger mask, using paper, feathers, pieces of an egg carton and a plastic fork.

I also wrote a poem as another way of exploring this dream:

BADGER SPEAKS

I am badger.

I live in a hole

I am cousin to the weasel.

I am not a mole.

I am black.

I am white.

I am day.

I am night.

I am shadow.

I am light.

I can kill you

or cure you

with just one bite.

I am the white badger.

I am born of your grace.

I can be aggressive

and right in your face.

My bite gives you healing.

I am the black badger.

I take on your darkness

and open your feelings.

I carry the burden of your loss and disbelief.

I return to my hole black with sorrow and grief.