In Central Texas Vulture arrives on the North Wind. We felt the first fluttering a week ago. In the Tejas Faery Working Group vulture is associated with the ancestors, the Llano uplift, bone, and is a stellar person of power.
Circles & Cycles; Guardian & Gateway
Esoteric associations with vulture go back into human prehistory. The celestial pole figured as an early conception of the divine, at least in the northern hemisphere. In fact, many of our Elder Gods were stellar. Around 12,000 BCE the northern pole star was Vega, the falling vulture.
Watcher & Transformer; Earth & Sky
Vulture stone from Gobekli Tepe ~10,000 BCE
In Egypt the predynastic (6000-3150 BCE) vulture goddess Nekhbet is one of the oldest deities and is connected to the dead, as well as birth. In fact, her city was one of the earliest necropoli. Vulture, soaring high overhead, was among the first raptor type birds to be associated with the “eye of god.” In Egypt, the goddess Nuit swallowed the sun each evening, it traveled through her body, and was reborn from her vulva each morning. The dead also became stars along the body of Nuit, the Milky Way, as she nourished them..
Beak & Talons; Sun & Wings
Many cultures have a history of defleshing the dead so their bones can be used for sacred purpose. This was often accomplished via what we call sky-burial. The bones could then be transported by family members, placed in the floor of a dwelling, or worn by a person as an amulet. It has been argued that metempsychosis was accomplished during, or at least aided by, the defleshing process, specifically as the bird of prey consumed the flesh, taking the dead into their own body then flying into the sky – the vault of heaven.
Crux, an important vulva constellation, disappeared below the horizon in the northern hemisphere ~2,000 BCE; Nuit arched
Above & Below
Roman writers associated vulture with the bird of prey that devoured dead bodies on continental Celtic battlefields. Even Dhumavati, the Hindu goddess, is considered to be a vulture goddess, known as the Smokey One. She is the remnants left over from the destruction of the universe. These remnants are themselves (or Hir self) the sub-basis of the elements that create the next universe.
until we buried them, Vulture ate all our ancestors
Vulva and Vulture
Egtved Girl
In ancient Japan the goddess of dawn, Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto, jumped up on an overturned tub near the cave where the sun goddess was hiding and danced on it lifting her dress to reveal her vulva. The gathered gods found this very funny and the laughter brought the sun goddess from her hiding place. In ancient Greek stories, the fertility goddess Demeter was in mourning following the loss of her child. Nobody could cheer her, so Baubo lifted her skirt showing her vulva to Demeter, helping the goddess to laugh again. In ancient Ireland, after the Dagda escaped the Fomoire by eating a lot of food, he drug his large penis along the ground, had to empty his swollen belly into a pit, and then had sex with the daughter of Indech, who had been taunting him this whole time, after she jumped on his back and her pubic hair tickled him.
The Egtved girl, a young woman buried in Denmark in 1370 BCE, was found wearing a revealing fringe skirt with a solar disk over her belly.
There is a beautiful connection between the star constellations association with vulva imagery such as Vega and Crux, vulture, the dead, the Milky Way, and rebirth — the Starry Vulva which the ancestors enter to travel through the otherworld to be reborn.
References
http://www.rigelatin.net/vulture/
https://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/nekhbet.html
https://balkancelts.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/catubodua-queen-of-death/
http://www.tsubakishrine.org/history/ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto.html
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cmt/cmteng.htm
Confessions of a Hedge Witch 