Discovering Your Spirit Animal: The Wisdom of the Shamans - Lucy Harmer 2009

Foreword

If all the beasts were gone, then we would die from great loneliness of spirit . . .

This part of a well-known speech by Chief Seattle is a warning for our times. We live in an age when beasts are fast disappearing from our landscape—often at a terrible pace. As modernization spreads and populations expand, the imbalances in our societies are growing ever more extreme. We need connection with “all our relations” more so now than ever, including the animals that share this beautiful planet with us. As human beings, our connection to nature is vital; our own well-being depends on it. And yet, this connection is becoming increasingly difficult for us to maintain. We are born into cities or towns that are built for industry, or we live in countryside that is overfarmed and stripped of its natural habitat for wild animals.

We seek ways to be connected again—to our fellow humans, to animals, and to nature itself. We look for any way that we can. One of the most ancient ways we find is the way of our ancestors: the practice of connecting our spirit to the eternal spirit of our teachers and allies, including those in the animal kingdom. Earth medicine, or shamanism, as it is commonly now called in the West, is the original ancestral way of all peoples. Inherent in these old ways is the deep understanding that as human beings we have always been intimately connected with the earth, and with all beings and nature around us. Indeed, in some cultures it is considered so important to have a strong connection with a spirit animal ally that if you do not have such a connection, your spirit slowly dies. In this wonderful book, Discovering Your Spirit Animal, Lucy Harmer takes us on a journey to discover the magical world of shamanism for ourselves. She provides us with simple, clear exercises that help us once again connect with the powerful medicine of the spirit animals around us.

I first had the pleasure of journeying with Lucy in 1998. Having introduced hundreds of people to the wonderful technique of shamanic journeying, I can definitely say that Lucy is clearly among the most talented of voyagers into the realm of non-ordinary reality that I have ever met. Her clarity of vision is unsurpassed. In this book she writes with humor and compassion, with insight and clarity, on the ancient ways of shamanism, the way of all tribal peoples throughout the world. She brings to life the medicine of each animal and connects this to our human experience, adding great value to the rich pool of writing available to us who live in the modern world—much needed, when our direct and natural connection has been lost for so long.

Lucy’s easy language and sense of fun permeate these pages as she introduces us to the unseen worlds. Through practical and easy-to-follow exercises, she gently encourages us to connect with, and explore, our own spirit animal’s nature—discovering more about ourselves as we do so. The journey she takes us on, in uncovering and understanding the medicine of the different spirit animals, acts as a beacon of light to deciphering the messages that our four-legged brothers and sisters bring us in our daily lives.

Read this book—but above all do the exercises Lucy shares with us; run, dance, jump, or fly with your spirit animal! As we give love to our allies and ancestors in the spirit world, our connection with them is strengthened, and they are able to help us more in turn. My prayer is that as more people grow to remember and experience the power and help available to us from the animal kingdom, so our love for animals, and our value of them, may grow—until, like the unstoppable roar of the lion echoing across the plain, our voices rise and an end is put to the senseless destruction of habitat and slaughter of wild animals.

Pip Waller

Medical herbalist, shamanic practitioner, teacher, and author of Holistic Anatomy for Healers, Heretics and Alternative Folk