Power Animals
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What are Power Animals?
A standard practice in shamanic healing is “power animal retrieval”. Though this is far from being a cure-all, having a power animal gives the seeker of healing strength and better defence against negativity. It is an empowerment after all. Regular work with one’s power animal will speed up spiritual growth.

Power animals are spirit beings. They are real, though they cannot be perceived with the five senses. Everybody has a power animal from birth. Sometimes this is called a totem animal. The totem animal is a particular power animal, which is yours for life though it can leave you under certain circumstances, leaving you “disempowered” and dispirited. There is a kinship between you and your totem animal, you share certain traits. For example, if your main power or totem animal is a herd animal you may feel more secure when being in a group. If it is a solitary animal such as a tiger, you will probably be happy in your own company, enjoy solitude and find strength when you are alone.

Every animal has its strengths, special powers and lessons to teach you. When you align yourself with your power animal you come to know your strengths and weaknesses and make the most of your powers while avoiding pitfalls. Say, your totem animal is a snake, and you are used to eating at least five meals a day. While having many small meals is generally considered healthy and good for the metabolic rate, that habit may not benefit a snake person. Snakes eat infrequently and have times of fasting in-between. So regular fasting may benefit you as well if you are a snake person. Your power animal may be more powerful in the day or night time, in a particular season (winter obviously won’t be the power season of a bear person as the bear hibernates). Also depending on your power animal one or several of your senses may be more highly developed than in the average person. This can be helpful in shamanic work or for getting messages from Spirit. So get to know your power animal and know yourself!


Working with Power Animals
Power animals can help you in various ways. If you know how to journey (shamanic spirit journeying) then you can take your power animal(s) with you on your adventures. They will help you find things in the Otherworld, protect you from enemies, fight for you or with you, give advice to your problems and empower you in various ways.

You can mentally call your power animal to you when you are in a tight spot or need help, for example, when you are walking at night in a dangerous area and feel threatened. If your power animal is a big and strong animal that would scare people, calling it may put people off messing with you. If you call your wolf or tiger you are likely to be left alone. This may not work if you call your bunny. It may however increase your speed of running away!

What Power Animals Can Do For You...
Once I was healing a 13 year old girl who was traumatised as her parents had split up. Her mother had brought her for healing. At the end of the session I finished off by retrieving a power animal for her. To my surprise it was a parrot. I couldn’t make much sense of this until the mother said her daughter was very poor in English (as a foreign language. This was in Germany). She also was very shy in school and hardly ever spoke up. I advised her to call the parrot to her in these situations. During the following weeks the young girl became a lot more outgoing in school. She spoke up quite boldly and her English improved dramatically over the next few months, so much that she ended up having much better marks at the end of the term! In any case, whether you are shamanically inclined or not, the power animal will improve your life. It will do so more drastically if you work with it actively rather than just forgetting about your power animal. If you lead a boring life solely in material reality and do nothing spiritual at all, the power animal may leave you again. The relationship between a human being and a power animal is a symbiotic one. You as a human gain the primal power and instincts of the animal working with you, as well as protection and power, of course. The power animal also grows spiritually by rendering service to you and experiencing human life and consciousness.

Strengthening the Bond
To keep your power animal happy you can dance it regularly, ideally to the sound of a shaman's drum. Another way of connecting more deeply with your power animal is to spend time in the environment it likes. For instance, if your power animal is a dolphin, it will appreciate you going swimming regularly. A deer or wolf may enjoy walks in the woods, etc. I often make my clients dance their power animal right after they received it. As Westerners most of us are very self-conscious about dancing or “making a fool” of ourselves.

However, when the animal takes over and you experience the power first hand you are more likely to keep working with the power animal afterwards. It becomes real for you and then there is genuine enthusiasm in the relationship with their power animal.
 
Loss of Power Animals
As mentioned above, your totem animal, or main power animal normally stays with you for life. Through shamanic work one can acquire more than one power animal. Shamans and shamankas (female shamans) often have a good number of power animals. Some power animals will only stay with you for a short while, until certain lessons are learned, then they move on to be replaced by other power animals later. This is natural and there is nothing wrong with it. However, there are various negative circumstances that can lead to a premature and permanent loss of a power animal, even one’s totem animal and in the worst case scenario to loss of all one's power animals!

1. One way of losing power animals is by not honouring them. If you ignore the animal world as a whole, thinking humans are superior, etc, or if you treat animals unethically, don’t be surprised when your power animals leave you!

2. Leading a boring material life, totally unaware of spiritual matters can also make your power animals leave you. Your power animals don’t care about money, titles and degrees. They care about power. Are you journeying, dreaming, meditating? Or are you just in the treadmill, living the rat race? Remember it is a symbiotic relationship, so if there is nothing in it for your power animals, if you ignore them, are unaware of them and do no spiritual work at all they will eventually leave.

3. A big trauma can cause your power animals to leave you.

4. When you become totally disempowered through whatever reasons, including through habitually giving your power away to others, all your power animals can leave you.

5. Through sorcery and “black” magick your power animals can be taken away from you or blocked from working with you. They can even be wounded or destroyed. I had problems with some of my power animals after meeting a vampire shaman.

(You can read about the methods those black magicians among shamans employ in my article Vampires Suck! Hopefully this will prevent you from falling in the same trap I did and from losing your power animals. If you have already lost your power animals due to sorcery I can help you! Just e-mail me!)

As a result of losing one’s power animals one becomes weaker, easier to be affected by bad luck, psychic< attack, and even more prone to disease. This is such common knowledge among shamans that no matter what complaint a seeker of healing has, the standard procedure is to retrieve a power animal for them, and then do whatever other healing is needed following the power animal retrieval. Having one’s power animal back or an additional one to help is always beneficial!


Power Animal Retrieval
To find a new power animal or retrieve a lost one, the shaman or shamanka, on behalf of the seeker of healing journeys in the Otherworld - to be precise into the client’s Underworld - to find their power animal. Power animal retrieval in itself can bring about healing though it usually is complimentary to other healing techniques. In short: a competent shaman needs to know more than just power animal retrieval. To find the power animal the shaman /shamanka needs to be able to enter the Underworld of the one seeking healing and find the correct power animal for them. Sometimes several animals show up. An inexperienced shaman may grab the first one or take the one they think most likely for the seeker of healing. It is of utmost importance that any preconceived ideas, or ego are kept out of this work! The shaman or shamanka must work with great focus and integrity. Power animal retrieval can go wrong, when done by inexperienced or negative persons as the following example shows:


An Involuntary “Demon Retrieval”
On shamanic workshops beginners usually work on each other. Occasionally this goes wrong as I have seen with my own eyes. During a shamanic beginners workshop the participants were to do a power animal retrieval for a partner. Two women worked together. One of them, let’s call her Carla, had about two years of experience with shamanism, the other one, Sandra (not her real name) was a beginner. Carla at that time still had a lot of negativity and entities. She retrieved what she thought was a lion for Sandra. In retrospective I don’t think she was focussed. Anyhow, Sandra immediately felt ill after the “power animal” retrieval. Later that day she suffered from bloating and felt very heavy.

A few weeks later I met Sandra again on another workshop. She told me she had been very ill ever since that power animal retrieval. She still suffered from bloating and heaviness which had started with the retrieval -- prior to that she had felt great, she told me. She was convinced that something "wrong" had been blown into her and asked me to check her for demons and entities, and if I found any, to extract them. She trusted me as I had done healing on her before and she knew I specialised on extractions. So I looked. I was very shocked to see that she had a huge demon in her solar plexus, blown in by Carla! I extracted and destroyed it, and Sandra immediately felt better.

I later questioned Carla about it, and it turned out she just saw a lion and couldn’t feel there was something wrong, so she took it and blew it in! Carla at that time hadn’t dealt with her own demons yet, so she attracted what resonated with her – which was demonic energy -- and blew it into her partner unquestioningly! I am happy to tell you that Carla has made a lot of progress since. But let this serve you as a warning: people with demonic energy shouldn’t be healers! And if you have any sense, don’t let them work on you, and NEVER let a negative person blow something into you!

But don’t let that example scare you off! Power animal retrieval is completely safe and very beneficial when done by an experienced shaman who works with integrity. It also feels really good having your power animal in you and with you, and being able to call on it any time you need it. Plus, your power animal will give you protection, strength and teach you the lessons you need to learn! The retrieval just has to be done properly and then it will be very beneficial for you!

To ensure maximum benefits for the seeker of healing the shaman or shamanka (female shaman) must have total control over his / her mind. I always make sure that I retrieve the power animal that my clients need most at that time of their lives and for the challenges they are facing -- not the one I think they need. Rational mind is not part of the equation, nor is ego. In fact I never allow myself to guess what somebody's power animal might be or what animal would be useful for the problems they are having. Instead I let it happen by itself.

Neither is it about grabbing the first animal one sees once in somebody's Underworld, as inexperienced "shamans" are prone to do. Experience and skill are needed to track and retrieve the correct power animal. This can take time and must not be rushed. Though generally I am quite fast with power animal retrieval, there have been cases when it took unusually long. Often this is an indication of resistance in the one seeking healing. It is important never to let any expectations or ego get into the work but to be completely open to whatever happens.


Wisdom of Power Animals
Many times the power animal will have a message for the seeker of healing. This message may be conveyed to me in words, in symbols or by the behaviour of the power animal. For example, one time a power animal was running in a circle, indicating the seeker of healing was running in circles in her life. She later confirmed that was exactly how she felt. The message of the power animal is to help one achieve wholeness. It may be anything such as a suggestion to eat healthier, reduce meat intake, exercise more, a need to spend time by the sea or in the forest, certain herbs to work with, negative patterns to give up, boundaries to keep, etc. Whatever the message is, I convey it to the seeker of healing as it is. It is amazing how accurate messages from power animals are!

A power animal, once retrieved gets “installed” in you and will then be with you for good (provided you honour it and keep it happy!). From then on the power animal will protect you and enable you to draw of its power and wisdom any time and in any situation.

So get empowered, get a power animal!


You can book for a power animal retrieval or any other shamanic work directly with me.
You do not have to travel halfway around the world as I can do power animal retrievals, soul retrievals and any form of shamanic healing as a distance healing.
If you want to become a shamanka or shaman and learn how to do power animal retrievals for others attend one of my workshops!

Just e-mail me and let me know your needs and wishes!

Copyright © Avalon Sakti Tiamat, August 2008

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