My totem animal guides are a large butterfly and a young eagle hiding behind the butterfly. I attended a guided meditation where we were led on a journey through woods, tunnels, meadows, etc. I was told by the Guide that the Butterfly represented housecleaning...for me to get rid of what wasn't Me anymore (that wasn't serving me), to add color in my life via variety (could be literal or just taking a class and expanding my view of the horizon. The Eagle represented transformation and since it was young, it meant a new beginning. A big change. And to see the big change, I needed to follow the Butterfly representation first and as color came into my life, the Eagle would grow.
I'm sceptical about this, I don't think spirit animals are real. Perhaps we can feel close to certains animals but to draw from this the conclusion there is a real link between animals and humans, I do not think it's true...
I've always found this concept fascinating, and not just as something cool, but something that can truly help us to understand ourselves and grow consciously throughout life. I've only done nominal research into it, but your previous post was very insightful. Before continuing in this thread, I took these too quizzes. The first gave me a Bear, the second gave me a Hawk. Both have strong elements of truth regarding my personality, and place right now. What's interesting is that my last avatar was a bear because I felt connected to bears. I never used to like them, then suddenly, I felt differently about them, like I could identify a bit. What's also interesting is that I've always had an admiration for hawks. Here's what the quizzes said: Bear: Hawk: I hope to learn more in following this thread further.
What I've found in my meditations is that different animals appear to me at different times. There was a period, last year, when I was doing a lot of meditation and noting my dreams. In this period, or shortly after, I started having strange dreams in which--very vividly--I would get almost photo quality stills (in addition to the action) of certain animals. One night the was a huge black bear. He was massive and aggressive, and he terrified me, but he wasn't exactly dangerous. It seemed only to want to scare me, or to encourage me to action. The next night (or shortly after), a great yellow snake, large and crafty but not dangerous, appeared to me. On another night I met an elephant, and on another, an owl. Meditation is truly valuable, essential really, in self exploratino as far as I'm concerned. Paying attention to dreams can also be very helpful. I need to devote more time and energy into meditating (since I have the time and my crystals) and noting my dreams. They have been somewhat unusual lately, since I had an energy worker do a little healing and help me understand my crystals.
Hawk, according to the test. Close to Owl next, which was my first thought. Then a Raven, which would have been my second thought. I always saw myself closer to an Owl or Raven.
I sometimes think of myself in this context as a bear. Strong, powerful, stubborn. Though maybe I could be a dragon?
I have always been close to dogs and it feels like I understand dogs better than the average person. Not sure about the spirit animal thing but dog is definitely closest animal to me.
Of course there's a link. We ARE animals. We have plenty of instincts and react to the earth in subconscious ways that we're yet to understand, like every other animal.
So recently I changed my Avatar to a tiger, as you all can see. A few days before I made the change I felt a subtle shifting in the energies in my life. It wasn't enough for me to notice right away or pay much attention to, but the day of the change, I felt it very strongly and distinctly, perhaps not as explicitly as someone like my sister might have. I was just strongly aware that something had changed and I suddenly felt connected to the tiger. Finally, I looked up the tiger as a spirit animal/animal guide/ animal totem and found this. http://www.spiritanimal.info/tiger-spirit-animal/. It says: Another website had this to add: After looking at the link above and some other websites in 20 minutes of googling and some meditation, I've determined that the Tiger is my new animal spirit guide. The link above lays out pretty much exactly what I've been experiencing since I "accepted the tiger energy." There may be something to this, after all.
Idunno about spirit animals, but if I were an animal, then I would be an owl 100%. There are many reasons, some obvious and some subtle: I am INTP. Look at any chart associating MBTI personality types with animals, and you will see the owl as INTP. I have identified with the owl since long before I knew my MBTI type. The owl has an understated beauty to it. Its body has a simple shape, its coloration is designed purely for pragmatic purposes (camouflage), its call (at least the one it is known for) is a humble, harmonious "hooo", and it flies silently. Just look at an owl's face. You have no idea what is going on in its mind, but you know for a fact that it is pondering the mysteries of the universe. The owl is nocturnal. I am as nocturnal as humans come. It is as if my personality wakes up late at night. I am a skeptical person. The owl is the skeptic of the animal kingdom. Here is proof:
As birds go, research would suggest owls are actually kind of dumb. Their little brains are mostly devoted to hunting, which they're better at than even hawks. Wise though? Not likely
I don't really understand spirit animals but I've seen enough to know they're real enough. Ironically, with science and logic gaining popularity it's likely that we could see magic return to the world. One of my friend's was telling me about this idea that magic used to be real but the church has spent the past 2000 years snuffing it out for the sake of control. I don't think it is too far fetched. Humans throughout history have believed (and still do) in some form of magic. Now that the monotheistic dominion on society is slowly losing its power to commit atrocities - people are returning to these "weird" "fantasy like" belief systems. People will tell you that it's because of trends, drugs, whatever, but it's just as likely we are slowly returning to way we are supposed to be. More in tuned with the earth and the universe.
That's an interesting point @AVCortez. What I think happened is, there are all sorts of phenomena that used to be referred to as 'magic' simply because people didn't have the knowledge base or tools to understand it. Throughout history, religious groups devastated the knowledge of human civilisation, Hypathia murder by rabid Christian monks (all men, incidentally), burning healer women and midwives as 'witches' by the Inquisition, destruction of advanced ancient civilisations by white colonisers, storming of Alexandria library by Muslim hordes, it goes on and on. We as a civilisation have been robbed of progress and knowledge by the patriarchal, misogynist monotheistic religions who seeked total control and exploitation of humanity for personal gain, by gaining monopoly on nature of everything. Science happened throughout this period, it was persecuted, mostly, but every time it got wings, it suffered from the same patriarchal, misogynist structure that aimed for monopoly on nature. So women were excluded, and with them the intuition and the comfort with a degree of uncertainty. For a while, science was as dogmatic as religion, laughing at everyone who believed or contemplated something science didn't yet understand. Luckily, with feminism reversing some of the patriarchal damage (after all, ancient knowledge in all its forms incorporates Mother Earth, and God/Goddess duality of some sort), the intuition returned to science, and now science simply acknowledges the lack of understanding, but it no longer so fervently ridicules new and outlandish ideas. And it is here, in the age of enlightenment, where superstition and science, myth and reality, natural and supernatural co-exist. For all we know, one day animal spirits will be as detectable as Higgs Boson is today? Maybe the line between life and death will no longer be so firm? Maybe not, but, these things are no longer dangerous to contemplate, and I for one love this magical world of ours, in all it's proven and unproven wonder
@jazzabel - the inquisition, Salem witch trials... everything that happened during the middle ages. So much of it has been about putting down magic. My friend reckons it's because they wanted Jesus to be remembered as the last person to have magic (he did have some gnarly tricks up his sleeve). The problem with science at the moment is not the people who know, it is the people who don't know. The people who take a very limited understanding of content, grab hold as if it were scripture, then beat it into everyone around them. It really is evangelical and the more i discuss it in "real world" (I'd argue that forums are real as well) and online communities the more I worry that science is just another belief system to feed the masses. For me, life after death is not a matter of if, but what. For me we're sitting on the brink of a paradigm shift - we started with flat earth, we're in the round earth next we're looking at multiple earths (i got that from a ted talk). Multiple parallel dimensions. It's really exciting and there's actually a chance we'll get some answers to some really big questions in our lifetime.
