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

Animal Medicine

Over thousands of years, the Native Americans and the Toltecs have developed a way of life, values, and a form of medicine by respecting nature. The ancestral ways are dedicated to observing the animals and plants and understanding what they are revealing to us, in order to live life to the fullest. Every creature and plant on this earth has its own personal medicine and, for the Native Americans, this medicine is related to all that connects us to the Great Spirit, or God. It works on healing the body, mind, and soul. By deciphering the messages from the animals, we are able to increase our strength, our inner power, our wisdom, our understanding, and compassion.

The animals reveal their secrets, bring us answers, help us to reinforce our intuition, and shed light onto our life path. All we need to do is to understand their messages and apply their medicine to the challenges that we face in life.

Even within the Native American Indians and Toltecs, there are many traditions and tribes, such as the Hopi, Yacqui, Lakota, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Iroquois, Mayan, and Aztec, to name but a few. Due to the vast diversity of tribal teachings about spirit animals, I have included many drops of knowledge—not only from different Native American traditions, but also from other modern and ancient cultures around the world (such as the Hindus, Greeks, Egyptians, and Celts)—in order to relay the medicine of the different animals and how to apply their messages to our daily lives.

My purpose in compiling the index of spirit animals was not to cover all the medicine teachings of the spirit animals, but to encourage you, as the reader, to taste the sweetness of the shamanic waters and be inspired to dive deeper into the ocean of your own ancestral pool as you explore and expand your own relationship to your spirit animal and to nature as a whole.

The medicine of your spirit animal or guide can be used to clarify matters in your life. Take a look at the complex situations, repeating patterns of behavior, relationship issues, or challenges you face, and apply the characteristics of your main spirit animal to the situation. There are also a number of other animal messengers or allies standing nearby waiting to share their wisdom and gifts in order to help us on our life path. If a particular animal crosses your path or appears several times over a short period of time, it is probably carrying a specific message for you or wants you to share in its medicine, its teaching, its energy, its spirit.

For example, Bear tells us that we can find all our answers within. Deer asks us to look for the gifts on our path. Porcupine encourages us to express our creativity and our joy and helps us to come to the aid of others. Eagle gives us hope and helps us to bring our visions to fruition. Honeybee shows us how to appreciate the divine and the magic of life. Salmon teaches us courage and perseverance. You will find other examples of their medicine in the Index of Spirit Animals following this chapter.

Remember that every tradition gives a different explanation of the medicine of each spirit animal. Read the message that corresponds to an animal and feel whether it is right for you. Use your intuition to help you interpret it and communicate with your totem animal.

There are far too many animals to include every one in the index, and we would need more than one lifetime to understand their teachings and their medicine. If your particular spirit animal isn’t mentioned, try observing it in its natural habitat, work on your relationship with it, and ask it to teach you about its medicine.