By: J Nighteagle
Keep in mind that frightening images are more often then not projections of your own fears. They may also be expressions of resistance. Its amazing sometimes how programed we are not to accept that cant be rationally explained at the moment. Most people have some degree of programming of the idea–“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”
When you start exploring the inner realms and their play upon the outer world through nature it can be a little disturbing. There is often a sense of being vulnerable and unprotected, of having no control. If you find yourself encountering fear and resistance, think about your favorite pet, and imagine yourself taking it along with you in the exercise. This will calm you, and its energy is always loving and protective to you in the inner realms
With exercises such as those that follow, individuals often wonder if they are experiencing a true shamanic journey. The difference is simply the depth of the experience. In a true shamanic journey, you are actually in it, felling it and experiencing it first hand. It will not always follow a prescribed pattern. In meditational exercises such as the following, you often observe yourself experiencing the situation or imaging how it would be experience. With time and practice the meditation can become a doorway to a true journey.
Most exercises to discover one”s totem follow a basic pattern:
1. Relaxation.
2. Entering a cave or a tree.
3. Leaving the cave or tree to enter a meadow or natural area.
4. Experiencing peacefulness of nature.
5. Allowing the totem to enter the seen.
6. Allowing the animal to speak to you–its movements, sound, form, color, etc…will give you a message about its power. You may even hear its thoughts in your own. Allow it to tell you or show you how it has helped you in the past and how it will do so in the future.
7. Give thanks to it for making it self known, and ask it for some tangible confirmation in the next week or so it is truly your animal totem.
Such confirmation can come in many ways. You may see its face in the markings of a stone. It may come to you in a dream. You may encounter figurines, pictures or television. Programs on it, but if it is truly your totem, there will come some confirmation of its presence it tangible form, in a quantity that is more than coincidence.
