Most people think of totems or animal guides as a figurine you collect, pictures you post or hang, or designs on t-shirts. Rarely does anyone actual….gasp…interact with an animal they are attracted to. I mean, how many people actually go out to be close to an eagle or even out to see where they might fly? Or think about being close to wolves other than at a zoo or even then? How many of us think about getting close to a bear other than by video on YouTube or at the circus? They are just images and we go on our merry way with life.
However, when you are working with the Akashics they become much more interactive and it can be shocking to the system when we’ve limited our contact to animals in such a way that we only see their pet or entertainment potential. When working with animal guides in the Akashics we can be lead to have the full sensory experience of that being. By that I mean that you can be thinking about it or seeing it beside you and the next thing you know, you are it. For some people that is a seamless transition which brings a rush of recognition and joy in a new sense of how to interact with the world. Running as a four-legged is a very different experience from doing so as a human. Besides the speed available, the capabilities for jumping, sight, smell, sound while running are all a rush.
However, it can also be quite a shock. I remember that it wasn’t until I worked with my four-legged totems several times that I had an aha moment that transformed some of my own internal processing. For decades I had those ‘can’t run fast enough’ dreams in my sleep, but not only could I not run fast enough, I always found myself using my hands and arms to make myself go faster, as if my legs were too slow, and I always felt as if I was dragging myself up an incline. I realized that I was, in my dream state, combining my need to run faster, therefore as a four-legged, with my humanness in the situation and so was trying to run on all fours as a person. 😛 Still happens, but at least now I understand it and I use it as a key to become lucid in my dreaming.
The transition can be even more dramatic when we break out of this fixed notion about land based creatures. Most people immediately associate their guides with land based mammals, but what happens when your main totem is a winged? This can be even more dramatic as how they experience the world physically is much different from us. As I’ve pointed out to students recently, if you maintain too much of a hold on your human concept of a body, you will get into funny situations because flying animals have no arms and no hands. Yes, they have wings, but they don’t use those as appendages for gripping or standing on (other than bats, which are flying mammals). Balancing on the ground because a completely different thing as a bird because your wings need to be used like a tightrope walker with a pole rather than as arms that counterbalance legs. Head and put become two ends of the balance so using a tail, something we don’t usually have, become requirements. And that’s just the logistics of standing! Flying is a whole other enterprise and then there is the landing. Let alone food……The concepts are endless. If you let go of the human experience then becoming winged is effortless, but you have to open your mind wide and let go of expectations.
Being a swimmer can be one of the biggest transitions for people as it taps into our lizard brains need for self-preservation. Water, for humans, is life-giving in the right situation (not salty, taken internally through the mouth, used as a caustic cleansing solution for wounds, in the right quantity) but can be deadly in quite a number as well. We are unable to breathe it as an atmosphere, it’s weight can crush us, it can prevent us from receiving light, which we need to maintain our health both physical and mental, and it can freeze us or boil us if it’s at the wrong temp. So just that part of being a swimmer can cause us to recoil from the element, let alone experiencing what it is to be a swimmer totem. Again, releasing the human experience of water and allowing the experience of a swimmer to take precedence can lead to amazing discoveries of self and of the world around us. Having experienced whale as an animal guide I find that not sweating the small stuff is much easier because everything really is small. 🙂 And the concept of time, of need, of reality being so very different when you can plunge to the limits of light within an ocean of connectivity I can switch off the screeching stress of a self-created now and slip into something much more eternal. That helps me get through the day.
So, if you have the chance, if you are willing to open yourself to something more, try interacting more directly with your animal guides. Let them lead you into new explorations of who you truly are. I think you’ll find joy and peace and so much more in the process.