Rat as a Totem

Mar 19, 2009 18:37

Reposted from my magical/animistic blog Dimension Bomb by lupabitch's request, in addition to a few extra notes I'm posting here before solidifying them in more detail on the blog ( Read more... )

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Comments 7

moonvoice March 19 2009, 23:28:55 UTC
I'm going to cheat here, as I've already written an article on the feral rat (based mostly on brown rat) here:

http://www.wildspeak.com/vilturj/totems/wrat.html

I've never worked with rat personally though; except to do this article and the accompanying illustration.

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muninnskiss March 20 2009, 00:36:26 UTC
To me Rat is intelligent and sneaky. S/he's a scavenger, taking what ever s/he finds. S/he teaches you to keep out of the way of danger and to find things. S/he's all about solving things and learning.

I've never worked with Rat, so I could be wrong.

FFF
~Muninn's Kiss

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primaldog March 20 2009, 10:24:40 UTC
Intelligent? Sneaky? Why of course! You'd have to be to live the type of lifestyle a rat does, unless of course you're a feeder rat or a lab rat *g* Rats are superb learners and survivors, working with Rat would be very beneficial to anyone going through trouble. They provide excellent help in running the rat-race of life and navigating it's little mazes.

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muninnskiss March 20 2009, 16:02:28 UTC
Interesting article about the Rat King, by the way. I just got a chance to read it. I had never heard of the folk lore version. And your explanation of the totem makes a lot of sense.

FFF
~Muninn's Kiss

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fireincarnation March 20 2009, 02:22:19 UTC
I have eighteen pet rats, and they undoubtedly influence my opinion of rat totem. They are unbelievably smart, determined, and clever. They are such loyal and careful mothers!

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primaldog March 20 2009, 10:21:58 UTC
Oh indeed they are. I love simply observing them, and giving them puzzles to figure out. When I had a couple breeder females, I enjoyed watching how they'd dote over their pups. Definitely something some people could learn from.

Eighteen, huh? I used to handle whole colonies when working at the nature center in Jersey. Now granted they were feeder colonies, but hey. I'd love to have a colony of my own, but unfortunately housing is an issue for that large a number, lol. You must have quite a big space to keep them all in, huh. How do you keep up?

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fireincarnation March 27 2009, 00:30:12 UTC
Sorry about the delay in replying, our internet went out almost a week ago and just turned back on today.

The hardest thing with having so many rats is keeping up with them. I use a modified rabbit cage to hold all of the large boys, and a modified cockatoo cage to hold most of the lady rats. They take up a lot of my time, at least an hour a day just cleaning up after them. I don't have any children, so my pets are my kids.

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