Totem Animals

I want to explain how I see the subject of Animal Totems and why I have refused to give people or tell people what their Animal Totem is.

Simply put, the Animal Totem is a phenomenon in which an animal comes into your life that shows, reflects or otherwise assist you in a learning, healing or growing experience. This can happen a few times in your life or not at all. It’s ok if it doesn’t happen.
The key word here is “happen”. It’s a life thing, meaning some kind of interaction must occur before we can say that animal is your Animal Totem.
I will give examples from my life. In my grade school years I would love to jump from high places into water or jump from a high place to another high place, cliff to cliff. It felt like I was flying. I would run through the mountains and jump over logs to rocks to whatever. Then I started watching Hawks as they would fly very fast through the trees, under branches and even using their feet to push themselves away from trees on tight turns. High speed agility with no fear. I studied and integrated the personality of my Animal Totem, the Hawk.
About 20 years later I would do volunteer work at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida. We also worked with whales, sea turtles and other animals that needed help but it was the dolphins that seemed to want my attention. They can be very interactive and when we would swim together they would get close to me and swim in a slow, exaggerated manner, as if to show me something. I was wearing dive fins so I held my feet together and imitated their swimming technique with my body. I would hold my breath and swim under water. When I needed to breath I would come to the surface, blow the water out of my snorkel, inhale another breath then go back down under water, as they do. After a few minutes I felt my consciousness change and then I felt like I was part of the group. I would see them more often in the Sea and they changed my view of Sea life. Even the sharks were just another neighbor.
For a few years the Dolphin was my Animal Totem.
So here I am almost another 30 years later and I am living on my daughter’s horse farm and I am getting interesting reflections and teachings from the horses here. The Horse is now my Totem Animal.
See how this works?
There is also another way and that is to call to an animal for Totem energy. There are several ways to do this but they all entail an interview session to see which animal you should call to you, depending on what is happening with your life.
Don’t think that if you are living in the city that your Animal Totem can’t be part of your life. When we say “we are all connected” we must include the winged people, water people, four legged people and everyone else on the planet. You could be living far from the Sea and your Animal Totem the Whale yet your dog could bring you a whale charm that fell off another person’s bracelet. You could find Raven feathers in the parking lot.....

There are “Shamans” who will look at a person and give them an Animal Totem. I watched these kind of people go through a room full of people and assign Animal Totems to everyone, never hearing anyone’s life story, nothing.
I won’t do that. I would be sending the person down the wrong path. I prefer to take the time and thoroughly listen to what is happening with a person’s life, their dreams and emotions.

One of the many reasons I love working through Walter’s place is that he and I like to “keep it real.” My appointments with people have a two hour block of time. We may or may not use all of that time but we want to provide the opportunity for a real Shamanic session.
I plan to be in Dusseldorf this Spring, 2018.