The Influence of Power Animals
The practice of shamanism is ancient and sacred. It is a system that recognizes the interconnectivity of all beings and hails from all around the world through many different cultures. Shamanism has brought meaning, wisdom, and miraculous healing to many humans and non-humans over the 100,000 years since it was created by our Ancestors. The fact that it still lives and breathes amongst this modern era is a testament to its innate power.
When I teach my students how to perform Power Animal Retrievals, the concept of Power Animals can be unclear at first due to some misinformation. Power Animals are helping spirits who reside in the transcendental realm of the Lower World. These compassionate beings have lived on this Earth, have died, and have gone back to the Light, and then have volunteered to be of assistance for humans and non-human kin. They are etheric allies, teachers, confidants, and sweet friends. They show up to partner with us. They know everything about us… sometimes even more than we know about ourselves. In general, the helping spirits know exactly what we need in order to push us to grow - spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Usually, that push isn’t so comfortable, but it is done out of love for the potential that we have inside of us. The presence of our Power Animals speaks to us on a deeply personal level with messages and teachings that resonate with our own individual energy and needs. Power Animals are available to assist with a particular challenge in our life. Just like our human friends, they can come to us for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
Over thousands of years, shamans from many cultures around the world have worked with Power Animals. Shamans have honored the form of them through merging (energetically becoming one with), by dressing up in regalia resembling their Power Animals, as well as by hunting and ingesting the animals in this world who take on the same form as their own Power Animals (to bring power into the shaman). Students often ask me this question: Why have shamans historically retrieved Power Animals for others? The answer: Because these benevolent spirits bring an energetic empowerment back into the recipient’s energy body, which is deeply healing.
Shamans traditionally treat dis-ease in all forms, and with any dis-ease, there can be a loss of power, which perpetuates the capacity of incurring more severe forms of dis-ease. Power Animal Retrievals can allay the symptoms of depression, anxiety, feeling ungrounded, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, overpowered, alone, hopeless, and helpless. We can unconsciously "give away" our power to others in various ways by listening to advice that doesn’t align with our own truth. Our power can also be “taken away” when, for example, someone in a position of authority challenges us and we feel we must acquiesce. Power Animals are pure energy in the form of an animal that brings us medicine for the time that we need it. Contrary to popular belief, we do not choose who are Power Animals are (even if we have an affinity for their form). Indeed, they choose us.
In shamanism, all beings are seen as equal, loaning us with different medicine that we need at a particular time. With the lack of human hierarchal concepts governing this ancient system, there is no difference between an ant’s power and a whale’s power. In some shamanic cultures, this lack of competition is carried out in communities where every member of the community is seen as having unique gifts to offer the whole. As Westerners, we need to be more cognizant of the romanticized ideas of Power Animals, and utilize direct revelation with them to discern the medicine they are individually loaning us.
A shamanic practitioner is typically driven to delve more deeply into relationship with personal Power Animals through the experience of a shamanic journey. These helping spirits become personal confidants that cannot be limited by any archetypical definition found in books or myths. In fact, looking up a Power Animal in a book is actually limiting the power that it is engendering! Archetypes that are found in books don’t evolve, but a personal relationship very much does. Gathering information from books and external sources can be somewhat meaningful, but attributing all the characteristics of a Power Animal from an external source limits the depth of the capacity of the personal relationship one can develop with them. If a Power Animal has chosen to work with someone, and that person commits to working with this spirit, they then carry its power - and that power can never be embodied in a book!
The biggest thing to understand about Power Animals is that, like any relationship, it must be fed. The power of a shaman is only as strong as the bonds made with the helping spirits. As I’ve said to many clients and students: The more you honor your Power Animal, the more it will show up for you. Spirit is all about reciprocity! Other ways to honor a Power Animal might be by donating to a sanctuary or an to endangered species organization. Remember that getting to know them in their energetic form, and practicing non-attachment of their physical form is one way to begin to understand the limitless power of these beings. When we stay attached to their form, it limits the power they are loaning us.
Lastly, the identity of one’s Power Animal is sacred and should be kept close to the heart. I coach my clients and students to only share the identity of one’s helping spirits when that helping spirit gives you explicit permission. And even then, don’t brag about them, as that will give one’s power away! In shamanism, bragging is not encouraged because it goes against the grain of the non-hierarchal concepts. Bragging only serves to feed the ego, which stands in the way of the true work that needs to be done between spirit and human.
Here is a message from the group of Power Animals I have worked with over the last 14 years who wished to share this message with readers:
We Power Animals are indeed formless compassionate spirits now, with the wisdom of having lived in a body on the Earth at one time - in some cases many times in different forms! Not only can we now have non-attached, compassionate, and sometimes humorous perspectives to gift you, but we can give you our eyes to perceive your world without the limited human lens, which is the dis-ease of your era. This is important in order to quell rigidity of the thinking mind and hierarchal experience of the human world. Humans have been programmed to perceive their lives in sometimes uninspiring, stagnant ways. We Power Animals can help you re-learn your life through the power of our divinity, and also the power of our senses that we once used when we once walked the Earth. Each of our powers is incomparable; they are simply different, and just what you need at the time we become consciously connected with you. In most cases, we have been watching you for a long time, and know you better than you even know yourselves. We provide teachings for your growth as well as love and guidance. Honor us and we will show up for you in the most surprising and inspiring ways. We love to surprise you. We are not in books, we reside in the transcendental realms and our powers cannot be limited by the human thinking mind.
