Animal thinking?
Which animal would you like to be? Who would be your spiritual guide, do you feel a particular empathy for an eagle, a wolf, tiger, elephant, monkey, whale, what appeals to you about them, are they powerful, clever, caring, kind, swift, or wise. Each one of them can represent a way of thinking, being in the world, they embody strengths and weaknesses, they have lessons to teach us and different points of views that are valid but not necessarily universal. The world is made up of the whole of the animal kingdom and every individual part makes up a greater whole and would be worse without the others, they are the great interdependent web that brings balance in the long run if not in the short term. What is the role, the counter balancing force that you wish to play in this great stage show that is life, your animal is a guide to how you want to be within it.
However your choice of guiding animal is not as important as how you feel about them, what they mean to you, they are not meant to be shown off, the status of them is not important, or whether they are prey or predator. The same as when you are on a date (with a human, though no judgement here!) you should not be going through a checklist of their good and poorer points, rather focusing on how the other person is making you feel is a far better source of knowledge about whether they are good for you. As it is with an spirit guides, if it is a mouse, do not be embarrassed that you are being humble, weak and fearful, after all a mouse can make an elephant dance in terror, it can go places no one else can, it is nimble, fast and brave in a large world that is out of it's control and it probably just makes you are a realist.
The spirit animal might be your alter ego, the one that expresses your true nature, or it might be your opposite there to teach you to overcome your weaknesses, a partner who nurtures your potential, the shadow side of your nature which needs to be brought into the light. What role they serve is up to you to decide and explore, you might think to be a tiger is the most wonderful thing in the world, to be self-sufficient, powerful force of nature, however as you sit with your tiger, you might reflect on their solitude nature and decide that being part of a pack of your own choosing might suit you better, and whilst you are never going to be a dog, you could see yourself as a hunting wolf working within a strong pack, could be a better route for you. You are not limited to just one guide, what is appropriate when you are young can be changed with age and wisdom, or just the sheer experience of being a tiger for too long.
Our shadow side is what is casted by the light of our lives, our notions of who we are, our life situations, what opportunities we have had. If life has always been a struggle, being a strong animals is entirely suitable, that is what you have had to be, that has been your path, but things change, you do not always have to be alone just because those are the cards that you have been dealt, in a nature, tigers do not get to grow grey hairs (nature is ruthless) but humans do not have the same pressures of natural selection, we get to move to better place both physically and metaphorically. Not everyone makes it but plenty of people do, we have the opportunity to make our worlds safer, better, more caring, we get to change the world around us, we get to improve on nature with our technologies and higher natures.
That is the point of our spirit animals, just getting to meet them is something that is solely in the reach of humankind, we are spiritual being capable of moving past our physical world, we think, dream, imagine, we believe in something beyond just our primal nature, we do not just survive and reproduce without thinking. Having a mind is an unique and wonderful thing, a tool that can be put to use for great good and terrible consequences, it is a mind that can create viruses and cure them, make slaves and free them, it can make weapons and ploughs. There is nothing the human is not capable of at either extreme, but it when we use our nature in an elegant, compassionate and skilful way, we can change the world. It is wonderful that we can experience and enjoy the company of animals in that spiritual quest to make ourselves and the world a better place.
Why some people would deny themselves the company of their spiritual animals is beyond me, to feel the presence of their inner tiger that wordless, thoughtless strength, if a picture is a worth a thousand words, then a mental presence is a whole book. Whether you believe it is real or not, does not matter, you can say it is make believe, hocus pocus, but you can still imagine it and to the mind, your conscious presence, it is just as real as gravity, it is there and you can sit with that tiger, and once you realise that, you can have the company of an entire zoo. When you need wisdom you can call upon the owl, need guile and inhabit the fox, cunning the rabbit (read Watership Down as a guide to the spiritual world and it becomes a different book, it has more to teach adults than children), there is the stubbornness of an elephant and the freedom of an eagle.
There is so much strength contained within the imagination of the mind that is not restricted to just our internal world, you can change the world by making it real, by having belief in things that are not real even if intellectually you know that you are imagining things, it does not mean you can not benefit from them, you can not use them as a tool. After all we all use money, and that is nothing but a belief, a kind of faith that we all share, not using belief is leaving one of our most powerful tools at home, it leaves us weaker and defenceless against those who have faith without reason.
Why would anyone leave one of the powerful tools in our box to rust through lack of use, our imagination is limitless, it can create anything that we wish and by separating our thoughts into rabbit thinking, tiger thinking, elephant thinking, we make those thoughts more manageable. Human love to categorise and label, whilst doing this without recognising that this is a distortion of reality is dangerous, when you do it deliberately it can be so useful, it breaks our thoughts into smaller parts and helps us deal with them one at a time. When we see a thought that does not align with being a strong wolf of the pack we can see that it is unhelpful, being jealous does not help or serve the pack, and we get to deal with it skilfully by letting it go (and letting it be is the action of letting it go) or by examining where it came from (normally fear or insecurity that comes from fear).
Animal thinking simplifies the world, each animal contains it's own lessons and as we grow as beings of consciousness those animals becomes more complex and deeper in meaning, they are the shorthand of spiritual growth. Instead of having to remember that you have chosen to become an integrated members of the human pack and all the reason why, love, deep relationships, trust, the pursuit of greater missions, you can just say, that is tiger thinking and I want to be a wolf, it is a shortcut past a lot of thinking. What path you are personally pursuing is up to you, but if you are not on a path, you are wandering around the forests of life without a direction, so find your guide whatever form it might come in and follow it to a better place.
