I saw this on a post on the blog of: http://www.queenofcups.org/ for this date and was facinated with it...had to capture it to ponder!
Death Lessons
I did a search for "opossum totem" and came across a sermon called Reflections of a Circling Oppossum. The preacher tells of encountering a possum circling in the middle of the road, having been hit. He, like me, moved it off the road. Two weeks later he encountered it again, all skin and bones.
I knew the starved creature, which could barely stand on its weak and wobbly legs needed to be put out of its misery, that it was dying a slow and agonizing death. But how could I do it? I'm not the type to bash a creature's brains out. Besides, the encounter was already making me late for work. I decided to let nature takes its course and leave the animal to its own fate. However, as I began backing the car out, the opossum walked directly to the middle of my long driveway and stopped, almost as if it were intentionally blocking my path. At this point I felt, for whatever reason, the will of the dying opossum, some divine intention and intervention, or Jung's synchronicity of events, that it was my job to kill the animal. I had prevented its inevitable fate two week earlier, and now I had to set things right. I grabbed a five-gallon bucket from the garage and scooped the willing animal into it. I then placed the lid on tightly so the animal would suffocate. When I returned home that evening I dug a hole and buried the dead animal.
I'm still not sure what all this means, if anything at all. But if I look to the way of the opossum, I think I can find some meaning. Opossums, as you may already know, are notorious for "playing dead" when threatened. We even say of other creatures, even humans, who exhibit similar behavior, that they are "playing possum." Opossums, however, aren't playing at all when they appear to die. When frightened the animal's brain and nervous system actually throws the animal into an involuntary catatonic state, during which its heartbeat and respiration are actually lowered. In this state, which may last up to four hours, the animal drools, defecates and its glands emit the musk of death. In this sense then, the opossum becomes a symbol of death and resurrection. There is even a myth amongst the Oceanic peoples that in the beginning a man of the Opossum totem died and later came back as a child. When the child grew up and died a second time he went up to heaven and became the Moon, since the Moon dies and is reborn.
Could this be the secret of my circling opossum? Is this creature who is such an excellent survivor, and one who clings so well, teaching us about the circle of life and death, and that we must not cling to life, that we must learn to let go. The opossum agrees with Jesus who says, "If you cling to life you will lose it." It's and odd paradox, for most of us, including all creaturehood, who cling to life when we are frightened of losing it. The opossum, on the contrary, surrenders to death, and in so doing, returns from its state to live again.
If, in the future, I see another wounded opossum in the road, I will likely again move it to safety. But I will never again do so without thinking of the huge responsibility we all bear toward both life and death. We hear so much in our culture about how sacred life is, how abortion is murder, euthanasia is immoral, and Jack Kevorkian, who seems to have a perpetual opossum-like grin on his face, is a murderer. But the opossum teaches us that facing death is as important as facing life. We cannot complete the circle otherwise. It's not that I'm planning on actually dying, or not dying, anytime soon. But we die in many ways, each time we experience a loss. Out of that death, however, like the opossum we can rise anew if we are willing to let go.