Bat Tattoo Pics And Meaning

The bat can symbolize:

• Dying to our ego
• Loving our enemies as ourselves
• Going within to touch our inner demons
• Exploring the underworlds of reality (which can be scary)
• Renewing our thoughts and beliefs on a moment-to-moment basis

Bat symbolic meanings: Illusion - Rebirth - Dreams - Intuition - Initiation - Journeying - Inner Depth - Communication

The bat is largely misunderstood and so therefore many of its symbolic meanings are inappropriately fear-based. However, the very savvy Native Americans approached the realm of animals from a position of honor - knowing that all things are connected.

The Native Americans recognized that the bat was highly sensitive to their surroundings and so therefore was considered a symbol of intuition, dreaming and vision. This made the bat a powerful symbol for Native American shamans and medicine people. Often the spirit of the bat would be invoked when special energy was needed, like "night-sight" which is the ability to see through illusion or ambiguity and dive straight to the truth of matters.

It is a symbol of communication because the Native Americans observed the bat to be a highly social creature. The bat has very strong family ties. They are very nurturing, exhibiting verbal communication, touching, and sensitivity to members of their group.

The bat is a symbol of rebirth and depth because it is a creature that lives in the belly of the Mother Earth. From the womb-like caves it emerges every evening at dusk, it is reborn every evening.

Here are some pictures of bat tattoo for inspiration:

Bat Tattoos

Story behind bat tattoo

Some of the legends may be based on truths. For example, bats are night creatures. They shun the daylight, and even avoid bright moonlit nights. But, of the 900 or so species of bats, only three are vampire bats that drink blood. Their food of choice is cows and, due to the anticoagulant in their saliva, they can feed off the animal for 20-30 minutes. The other 890+ species satisfy themselves with fruits and bugs. Not very frightening.

Early Christian art, which depicted angels as having bird wings, similarly depicted demons as having bat wings. Early Christian beliefs, found in the writings of St. Paul, actually said that women’s hair attracts demons – so they should leave it covered during church. This lead to a longstanding tradition that women wore hats to church, and the longstanding but untrue myth that bats fly into hair. With such a history, it’s no surprise that a bat tattoo will conjure up images of night creatures, bloodsuckers, and other such macabre interpretations.

Native American mythology seems to compromise between the two interpretations above. In this culture, the bat is seen as both a symbol of death (because of the night) and a symbol of rebirth (because bats sleep with heads down, just as a baby is before birth). The bat represents the need to die a “ritual” death before developing into a new being, and was often a key animal in initiations for shamans.

Tribal Bat Tattoo

There are so many bat tattoo pictures out of which you can select the best

Flying Bat Tattoo

bat tattoo design for mens tattoos

bat tattoos

Vampire bat tattoo

Bat Tattoos Design