Power animals - my shamanistic journey

Relationship with animals has been present in many cultures and there is a big difference between a totem, animal guide, familiar, spirit animal and power animal. It all depends who you ask or what path you are following. Familiars are often found in Wiccan practices while totem animals are in Native American practices. I recommend you to research all kinds of different practices and learnings before you chose your approach. Read about it and explore it before you find what best suits you.

I was thinking a lot about this post and wanted to write an informative article that would cover different approaches. In my fifteen years of exploring paganism, I have come across various things, diversity of people and their practices. I realized that would be a huge post because there is so much to say. I decided instead, to share with you my personal experience, my own journey to find my power animal.

I have always been attracted to nature, felt at home in forests and free in the wilderness. One of the best people I had a pleasure of meeting is a shaman who traveled through England and South America and spent years working on his spirituality and working on his connection to nature and himself. He spent time with druids in England and old shamans in South America who shared their teachings with him, as well as their ayahuasca. He was trained, mentored and educated by some of the most experienced people alive still practicing the Old Religion. I am forever grateful that he shared some of his knowledge with me and took me on my shamanistic journey.

Totemistic beliefs present in Native American Indian people, and the Australian Aboriginal people speak about how every human being is spiritually connected to a plant or animal. On the other hand, animistic beliefs from Pagan, Neopagan, Buddist and even Shinto path state that everything has a spirit. Animals, plants, and even objects. The term “Power Animal” comes from shamanic practice and represents an idea that certain animals (not all of them) can empower people by lending them instincts and attributes.

Have you ever heard of a term "Mama Bear"? We say that about a woman who is strongly protecting her child. That would be considered an example of connection with her bear spirit. Power animals are spirit helpers in animal form. We all have them and we can have more than just one. These animals provide guidance and are context specific. That means that a bear does not mean the same thing to one person as it does to another. It does have a certain set of skills and attributes but the relationship with each human is personal. There is not the bear that all of us connect to, there is the bear spirit and that spirit has a different relationship with different people, depending on the needs of an individual.

I cannot tell you what relationship you will have with your power animal, no one can. When you come across information in books and online, keep in mind that those words are associations that someone else has made. They do not need to have any similarity to your own personal experience. There is no absolute truth in paganism. There is no holy text that has answers that apply to all. You have to find your answers for yourself. You can receive a certain amount of formal education in shamanism but the main role of a Shamanic teacher is to teach you how to learn, not what to learn. We go to the spirits themselves with our inquiries.

Your power animal is not an animal that you admire. You could, of course, admire it but that is not her main role. It is your guide and a part of you. It was explained to me that for every part that I receive from my animal, I will give something back, keep that in mind too. A power animal is a spirit that does not have a physical form. When you welcome it to your body, you are allowing it to experience the physical world. Gifts that you will receive from it are special and numerous.

If you are willing to listen to your animal, it will give you messages and guidance and bring your attention to those things that are in need of some work, introspection or maintenance. Here is a list of some aspects of the relationship with your power animal:

There are great benefits of having a power animal by your side in your life and I do hope that you will embark on that journey of finding yours. I know my life has been enriched and blessed by their presence and I do wish I could explain it to you in detail but some things are just not that simple. I will, however, share with you my experience of finding my power animal.

I never did drugs in my life but when speaking to others about this, they always tell me it sounds like a drug-induced state of mind. I cannot emphasize enough that no substances were involved, only a special kind of breathing and drumming, loud drumming. There is a special kind of sound of drums involved, I remember it had 3 different parts. Each part was different is speed and rhythm. Breathing was wild and very unusual, I never thought a person could breathe in that way, but I managed.

I went on a journey to find a power animal two times in my life, each time it lasted 3 days and each time with success. We were in the beautiful part of Croatia, gorgeous nature that had a freshwater source that we used. We were sleeping in tents and if you wanted coffee in the morning you had to go to the water spring, carry the water back, start a fire and boil your water. Everything was cooked on the open fire. The first day was all about preparing ourselves. We meditated a lot, did introspection and various mental and spiritual exercises to prepare ourselves for the journey. There were some lectures too and discussions about what was to come.

When the day of my journey came, I was very excited and eager to start, a bit scared too but everyone said that was a perfectly normal feeling given the situation. We had to find a hole in the ground and luckily there was a big one not far from where we camped that led to an underground cave. Each one of us lied on the ground on our backs with our head facing the hole. We closed our eyes, relaxed or at least tried to relax and started to breathe in a special way we were taught. Drumming started and so did the tingling of my entire body. It was pleasant, like electricity that spread all over me. My breathing was following the rhythm of the drum and changing with it.

The first type of drumming and breathing was to alter our state of mind, it was not yet traveling but letting go of our physical body. The next part came suddenly and without any warning. I was standing over my body and looking at the hole in the ground. I knew I had to go in, that was the whole point of it, to go underground to another world and find your power animal. For a moment there I was about to give up and was starting to panic but I told myself that this was not an opportunity to miss. I was there, whatever "there" meant and I had to go through with it so I entered the cave. My body was left outside but I entered the cave. I did not see myself, my arms or my legs, there was no physical me but there was spiritual me, energy me. I could look around and see as with my sense of sight and hear things like I had ears but there was no actual me in that cave.

I remember hearing the drumming all the way down but it did get faint a bit, like I was moving away from it. There is no right way to explain my movement because it was not walking and I cannot say if I was going up or down, it was more of a feeling of going through something, like space was denser and denser. We were told that animals would appear and that we can not choose an animal. Power animal chooses us. There were supposed to be a lot of animals coming and going and we would know which one had chosen us if the exactly the same animal appears 3 times from 3 different positions and establishes eye contact at least once. When that happens we had to merge with it and come back up to the surface. That coming was the third style of drumming and when we heard it we had to get back no matter what happened, with or without our animal.

So I was there, walking through the darkness and seeing nothing. I was supposed to see a lot of animals and there were none. I was starting to get scared that the third drumming would start and I would have to go back alone. I had a feeling of crying which was freaky. I could not feel my tears because I had no body but the feeling of sadness was there. Then something changed. I started getting pushed and pulled in various directions and then spun around while at the same time dozens of animals started appearing. They were coming and going, appering and dissapering. Sometimes I would see just a part of a leg or a head and it was hard maintaining my concentration and focus on just one of them. I remember I tried counting how many times I saw some of them but there were so many I got lost in my counting a couple of times and had to start again which irritated me because I knew I was running out of time and that drum will change its rhythm pretty soon.

There was an animal that appeared not 3 but I guess at least ten times. It was very patient with me and my counting and utter bewilderment and confusion with what was going on. At one moment I knew I had to merge and connect, take it in me in some way and realized that no one told us how to do that. How was I supposed to do that? Catch it? Hold it? With what? I had not fuc*ing hands. I felt powerless because I was like a spirit presence there trying to catch another spirit presence. I suppose my spirit animal knew that on some level and decided to help. Suddenly her head was clear and vivid right in front of me, breathing in my direction. It was as clear as it would be if I saw it in the real world. I have the chills just writing about this. The animal entered me. That is the best explanation I have for that. It entered me and was in me, a part of me. I do not know how much time had passed before I heard the third drumming. I was there, experiencing a burst of energy in me that was not me. It was not trying to take over, but the process of making me feel comfortable took some time. When the drum started beating differently we started going back, me and something in me.

When I got back, at the moment I stepped out of the cave I was in my body again. It was very sudden and unexpected it would be like that and I was not alone. There was something in my body too, an energy source that was not mine. During our first day, they told us that would happen and that we needed to allow the power animal to experience the physical world and our body. We could move, jump, run, dance, anything because it would not be us. It would be the animal, we just needed to allow that movement and so I did. I allowed it and it was a beautiful experience, right up to the point when the drumming stopped and I collapsed to the ground like someone shot me.

It took me some time to gather my thoughts and accept the normal reality. We were all lying there for some time but then they made us get up and talk about it. The third day was all about acceptance and contemplation. Gratitude and learning how to live our lives with this experience and with an animal still inside us. It was inside and we needed to build our relationship with it.

My power animal is a part of me, both of them. I did another journey after my first one and it was much easier because I knew what to expect. Both of my animals are in me and always present. I have learned so much from them and received things that I still trouble with explaining.

My advice is alway to learn and explore. Read and meditate. I can not tell you how to find your power animal. There are ways that I have heard that do not involve something as drastic as what I have done. Try it and see if it works. Do your research. There are meditations and steps you can take in your daily life to find your connection. It is said that when you often see an animal, in real life, dreams, pictures and written word that it must be your animal. I would not go so far and say that it is the truth but there is something about our animal guides that come and go in our lives. I have animal guides too and frequently see them but I only have two power animals that are a constant part of me.

For those of you who stuck to the end and actually read this post, not just scrolled through it, thank you. I know it is a bit longer than you are used to reading on steemit. Feel free to leave me your lovely comments and reactions. Keep your smile on and blessed be. I am sending you love, so much love...