Introduction
We serve animals by giving them our love and attention. This week’s blog, entitled six ways Animal Medicine can serve you, is intended to show that whether playing with our dog or cat in the grass on a warm spring day, watching dolphins surf waves, or riding a horse like the wind, most of us love animals in whatever way suits us. More than a few of us go big, paragliding with eagles, hiking down jungle trails to spot a jaguar, or climbing with mountain goats, for instance.
Consider Familiar Animals to You
All of our animal connections contain a deeper structure that (like everything) points to a deeper understanding of our True Nature if we but look for it. All creatures mirror hidden aspects of ourselves due to us all essentially being One. Animal mirrors reflect aspects of our subconscious memories from traumatic to joyful and everything seemingly in between. Beneath the root of the subconscious is where we eventually tap into the Love We Are. Devotion to animals helps set us free.
Six Ways Animal Medicine Can Serve You
When you study the characteristics and behaviors of the animal mirrors in earnest and apply these to your role in life, you receive the following:
1. Clarity of Vision
You can see pesky shadows within your behaviors so you can heal through deepening inquiry to soothe those inner beasts. Recognizing the beautiful sparkling facets of your Light always shines free when you accept all of who you are. Resistance is useless. Playing with animal medicine can help you bring balance to all parts of your life.
Here’s an example. My neighbor, Jane (personal details altered), was having trouble in her new supervisory role at work. While respected by her superiors, she nearly had a mutiny on her hands from supervising her newly formed team in her first two weeks on the job. Jane wanted to see what animal medicine she needed to work with to heal the situation quickly! Jane closed her eyes and moved her hand over the Medicine Cards. She drew Badger.
Badgers are tough and rugged determined creatures that go after what they want with great passion and tenacity of spirit and limb, but aggressively so. Jane saw that she was so intent on doing the best job in getting to the root of the problems her predecessor left that she was driving her subordinates to the brink of exhaustion and rebellion.
Seeing her misplaced aggressive tendency with clarity sent Jane back to work, intending to find other ways of enlisting her team’s support. It didn’t take long for her to turn it around. Who knew a badger had such power? Talk about not knowing one’s strength. Our gifts only take us so far before they can turn into life-taking influences. Like animals, we learn to be vigilant.
2. Prophetic Omens
It was Indian Summer 2001, September 8th, at midnight. At the time, our nineteen-year-old, Kelly, came into our bedroom. “Mom. Larry. Come and look. I want you to see something in the backyard.” she said. She and her friends were sitting out there enjoying one of the last summer evenings of the season in Virginia Beach at the Oceanfront where we lived.
Curiosity piqued, we got up and went to the back door. A beautiful red fox was sitting in the grass, eight or nine feet from the door. Its unwavering stare fixed on us.
The kids said the fox joined them thirty minutes earlier and immediately sat down in front of them, stone still, staring at them without moving a muscle or blinking an eye the entire time. We watched her for another minute or two to see if we could tune into her possible message when she finally seemed to relax before sauntering away alongside the house.
An occurrence like the one described is considered different from the usual animal signs. It was an omen, a rare and unique occurrence you would never expect to see.
We talked amongst ourselves. Why was the fox staring at the kids and us like that? It wasn’t rabies, or he didn’t appear to have the symptoms. It was more like he was beaming at us with an intention.
Additionally, we read about fox symbology and “medicine” in Jamie Sams and David Carsen’s Medicine Cards, along with peeking into Ted Andrews’s renowned book on the subject, Animals Speak on the subject of foxes. Intuitively, we felt confident the fox was making us aware that things were happening that would affect us in ways that were veiled. Foxes can camouflage themselves quite well and are adept at sneaking unseen into a hen house. We wondered if something was sneaking up on us that we couldn’t yet see.
Three Days Later
We only had to wait three days to get our answer. Shortly after we woke up on Tuesday morning, three days later, on the 11th, we glued ourselves to the screen while we watched repeated videos of well-prepared terrorists sneak-flying into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York. The Pentagon was attacked, too.
A week later, our community of friends gathered in our living room to do a Buddhist tonglen meditation for those who perished in that horrendous act and sneak attack.
I’ve often thought of that fox omen since it stared us down in the backyard. What animal does that? Usually, they will look away if you stare back, but this guy was there to get our attention! There’s a lot in an omen.
3. Connect with Animal Medicine within the Comfort of your Home
While there’s nothing like entraining with Nature and seeing animals in their natural habitats, this can be an indoor study, too. We wanted both. While we’ve had plenty of animal adventures outside, we’ve also learned from those we’ll never have a chance to see. Let me explain.
The Medicine Cards
Larry and I bought the Medicine Cards just before we married. During a visit to New York, we saw them in Sam’s bookstore in Manhattan. We began picking a card daily for a couple of years. The idea was to pay attention to each animal’s characteristics and traits and learn from them. Little did we know then how our practice would open up captivating experiences with animals — for the rest of our lives.
Even though we deeply loved Nature and all of life, flora, fauna, etc., and this attracted us to the cards, we wanted to go deeper into animal symbology. We all have an intuitive connection with Nature and Earth’s other creatures. Playing with the Medicine Cards helped us develop our animal connection awareness.
Some Examples:
4. An Expanded View of Life when Feeling Limited
We were both stressed out as we lost our work simultaneously and had to downsize our lifestyle fast. We were standing in front of our condo, feeling the uncertainty of our current predicament. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an enormous red-tailed hawk swooped down behind Larry’s ankles, touched the ground behind him, and then pushed off, spreading its magnificent wings as it rose up behind Larry. It flew up to a nearby balcony and perched on its railing, looking right at us.
Taken aback would have put my reaction mildly. It was so unexpectedly wild and profound, especially when another hawk, presumably the first one’s mate, a smaller version by not much, flew down, touched the ground beside us, then took off as did the first. It flew up to meet its mate.
Hawk is considered a messenger. We took this omen message that we weren’t standing alone after all but covered by something more significant than our limited mindset. We would be alright, that our world was much bigger than the limitations we placed on ourselves and the fears we entertained. And we were all right. We ended up exactly where we needed to go – to do work we loved instead. Hawks have shown up whenever they’ve had an important message to deliver.
5. Bringing Grace to Grit
When my daughter, Kelly, was in the hospital the last time, Larry and I felt wholly saturated with sadness when not actively supporting Kelly’s needs. Intensive care unit policies would not allow us to stay with her 24/7 and sent us back to our quarters each night. In a daze, we drove back and forth to the hospital morning and night down a seemingly endless boulevard with four lanes separated by a grass median down the middle.
One morning, a white heron appeared as we turned onto the boulevard, flying alongside the driver’s side window. It filled us with joy as it flew beside us the entire twenty-minute green-lighted distance to the hospital. Larry could reach out and touch its wing feathers. There are respites to grief and sadness, and white heron reminds us that all is well at the highest or deepest levels of the Life Game in the middle of the deepest trenches and traumas.
6. Better Days and Pointing to the Light of our Being
In Ecuador, our lives are filled with Hummingbird Medicine, serving our hearts, and Divine Nature with Childlike Joy, the primary hummingbird medicine. Sometimes, the tiny birds get the zoomies and dart around the terrace at breakneck speed, nearly shearing off the tips of our noses in the process. They visit flowers and homemade nectar alike.
We feel blessed to be awakened in the morning by their greeting the day outside our windows. The hummingbirds are the last thing we see in the evening before closing our blinds as night falls and they retire. I’ve never seen one beyond 6:48 PM or before 6:24 AM.
In the time we’ve been here, we’ve become experts, watching their mating rituals, nests built in trees next to our windows, an egg or two, white and the size of small jelly beans deposited within a day or two. We’ve seen their babies hatch, bed fed, grow, and within two weeks, fully-fledged to begin their new life away from their parents.
Ancient stories here have these tiny sparkling creatures being the only ones who can look directly at the shining face of Great Spirit — with the Condor giving it the boost it needs. Fierce warriors, these little beings reflect Light from their brilliant feathers of green, blue, violet, and teal and touch all our lives.
“I’ve written a lot of songs with hummingbirds in them. None of them ever came to anything, but I wrote a few lines last month. It went like this: ‘Listen to the hummingbird whose wings you cannot see. Listen to the hummingbird, don’t listen to me. Leonard Cohen
Conclusion
Today, we visited six ways animal medicine can serve you and your well-being. There are many more than six, and maybe you have a story to share about how Animal Medicine has helped you.
We would love to hear about your unique animal connections in the comments.
Love and Blessings this Coming Week to You and Yours,
Kaye
