Class Archeive 09-03-2013 Amimals and Archetypes

NOTICE: On September 8th we will be giving the message at Unity Church's Sunday Service (10:30AM): ʺWhat Does it Mean to Trust Life?ʺ, where we will explore how to build a foundation of trust on which to base your life. Our afternoon workshop at Unity, starting at 12:30PM, is ʺMirrors in Relationshipsʺ which will deal with some of the archetypes of relationships and how to work with them. All are welcome at either or both of these events.******* AND NOW TO ʺAnimals and Archetypesʺ.

Picture of Buffalo Bear and crow. Lots of people like buffalos, at least if my Face Book pictures are anything to go on. Quite a few like crows too. Spiders and snakes are not so popular. Wolves can stir up emotions on both sides with equal passion and ferocity. So what are we looking at here? Many of the animals you love or love to hate you have no personal experience of. But you can still be excited and inspired by pictures and photographs of these creatures. Why is all of this so important? Some part of the soul, at least, is strongly attracted to a particular "animal totem" and its "animal medicine"for whatever historic, karmic or mystical reason. Honor that attraction! The direct encounter of an animal can be both very exciting and very moving, or, on the other side, downright scary. I have only ever seen a bear in the wild once, on a somewhat remote and wooded mountain in West Virginia. It was a thrilling but tense moment that was over all too quickly. Both parties eyed each other warily and then the bear loped off and watched us from behind a bush

Mood card from The Robin Wood Deck with dong and wolf howling at the moon The Moon card in Tarot pictures two pillars, one on each side, opening up into a dark and somewhat desolate moonscape. In front of the two pillars are a dog on one side and a wolf on the other, the tame or domestic and the wild. Dogs, of course, are very loyal and very much centred in the human world. They are the wolves that drew close to humans and became part of our familiar world. But the wolves themselves are still part of wild and untamed nature, separate from our constructed and controlled human world. The "call of the wild" lives in all of us in some fashion. It is or represents some deep, dark draw to an exciting, mystical and quite primal unknown that isn't quite safe. Native Americans call the wolf "Teacher" because Wolf is able to go off alone but then return to the pack which he or she is still a part of. Your own feelings or experiences of Wolf may be quite different from that but equally valid, at least for you. The Moon card in Tarot is about the hidden, mystical parts of self and life, some more unconscious and unfamiliar than others. Nature is one of the ways to get in touch with these parts. Animals can both teach you about and connect you with some very different parts of yourself which will be a very healing process. Never underestimate the potential power of animal medicine to inspire, heal and make whole.

Two of pentacles from the Ancestral Tarot. picture of an indian with his energy interlocked to a bear by a lemniscape. There are many books written on the significance and symbolism of animals. There are also books about healings found in nature and with animals as in Dr. Lewis Mehl-Modrona’s "Coyote Medicine" and "Coyote Healing". (Dr. Mehl-Madrona was practicing in Pittsburgh a few years ago.) But ultimately you come to your own feelings and experiences around any particular animal or bird because that is what it is showing you. The Law of Gravitation or Attraction is operative on all levels and plains of life, drawing each one to the experiences that he or she needs. Like attracts like at any and all moments of time and place. You encounter that which ultimately can heal your soul. But you are likely to face first challenge, then healing. Bear’s retreat into the quieter, more solitary places of nature can be something that you need. But you don’t stay there. At least, our own message is always that we cannot stay there, much as we might have a desire or a tendency to do so. The mother bear, that hibernates in her cave during winter and gives birth to her young there, will eventually come out of her cave, if for no other reason than to eat. So Bear can teach you about the need to withdraw and hibernate for a while, but then re-emerge to face the world. The withdrawing or the reemerging can both be challenging and fearful experiences, depending on your personality and on your circumstances.

Zen tarot Past lives Your minds are made up of images and archetypes, some quite recognizable from your social and cultural upbringing and experiences of this lifetime, others quite obviously from other times and places. These images and archetypes are the basis for your thoughts and perceptions, as well as your emotions and emotional reactions. Many of them are very ancient and go back to humankind’s primal experiences in the world. You have all been hunters and herdsmen, as well as adventurers, explorers, discoverers, even sea captains and fishermen. In your paleo periods, as opposed to your neo periods, you have all been much closer to nature, and felt more part of it, spiritually as well as physically. The spiritual connections might be especially true of your Native American or perhaps Celtic-Druid lifetimes. Much of this is pre what we call "civilization" and also pre Christian. It represents a very different part of your mind and of your experiences in the earth, and one that more recent religious beliefs and indoctrinations have most likely put you at war with and made you afraid of. In fact, you have probably had lifetimes where you have been isolated, exiled or banished for connecting with the natural world in a spiritual way. Many images from the natural world, as well as your fears of the natural world, will show up in your dreams and can be worked with there. Phobias of spiders, snakes or mice (See this video of the grasshopper mouse. It is a voracious predator. phobia totems-picture of a cobra a spider and a This is the stuff nightmares are made of.), or even of cats or birds which we have also encountered, all of these can be worked with in some fashion. Your phobias of the natural world, just like your nightmares of the dream time, are particularly powerful archetypes of fear and conflict within the mind. Native American teaching speaks of animal totems as personal guides, teachers and healers from the animal world. It seems to me that your phobias are also power animals that you reject because you fear whatever it is that you associate with them. For me it is spiders and I have had many dreams and nightmares about spiders, starting at a very young age. I still recoil from spiders but I have, intellectually at least, accepted Spider as a totem and teacher. We plan on exploring some experiences around animals and the natural world in this Tuesday's class.

I want finally to return to Buffalo and a very moving experience I had a number of years back in a meditation. I found myself looking at a cave painting of a buffalo. The buffalo was grazing, with its back turned towards me. Gradually I was drawn up into the picture over the back of the buffalo. As I became part of the scene, I felt an immense love and gratitude for all that was around me, especially for the Buffalo, and enormous and rock bottom sense of security that I would be taken care of and supported, no matter what. It is interesting to note that for the Plains Indians the Buffalo provided them with much if not most of what they needed: food, clothing, skins for shelter, sleds or travois and tools. This experience in meditation has also made me wonder more about the function of cave paintings and their religious and spiritual significance. I feel very drawn to and excited by cave paintings now. Also, we saw lots of buffalo on our trip out west last year and took lots of pictures, including of their backs! We came up behind two of them trundling along on the road into Yellowstone. I told Charque that they were our totems.