10 Ways to Connect with Power Animals

Great Horned Owl

A power animal is an archetype that represents the entire species of that animal. When we connect with a power animal, we align ourselves with the collective strength, wisdom, and archetypal energies of the entire species. Owl, for example, carries the archetype of the wise one, the seer, the prophet. Power animals are the gatekeepers to the deeper truths that exist in our collective consciousness. They are valuable allies who can help us navigate the inner planes of consciousness during shamanic journeys. Without this alliance, the practice of entering a trance to journey into the inner realms is risky.

With an earnest desire to connect, we can develop close, reciprocal relationships with power animals. We also discover through relationship with them that the animal spirits may have very individual and specific teachings for each of us. Similar to the way friendships develop gradually, our relationships with power animals grow and deepen based on repeated interaction and building trust over time. Here are 10 ways to connect with power animals:

1. Hang pictures of animals around your house or work area.
2. Read books about animals.
3. Observe an animal in nature to learn more about it.
4. Take time every day to meditate and tune into an animal.
5. Put on music and dance to help welcome the energy of a power animal into your body. Embody the power animal and move like it would move.
6. Give gratitude to a power animal whenever it shares a piece of wisdom or supports you in any way.
7. Simply visualize and call upon an animal. When you call or invoke the power of an animal, you are asking to be drawn into complete harmony with the strength of that creature's essence. Meditate with it. Ask what message it has for you. How does it want to be honored? What does it want to tell you?
8. Contemplate what it means if you're not comfortable with a power animal. If you dislike or are afraid of an animal, it's especially important to connect with it and learn its wisdom. The message it holds for you will be particularly meaningful. Power animals help us connect to the parts of ourselves that we've lost or denied, so it may be mirroring a trait or quality that is ready to come back to help you be in your wholeness.
9. Put items on your altar to honor a power animal and represent its energy.
10. Ritually feed and honor helping spirits with offerings such as cornmeal or a "spirit plate" with bits of food placed outdoors at mealtime. Cornmeal is a good offering because corn is a sacred gift from the beings that live in the spirit world. The one offering the cornmeal first breathes on the grains so that the spirits know who is offering the gift. To learn more, look inside my drum guide Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits.

The Therapeutic Drumming Network

Kalani Das

Kalani Das is a Percussionist, Orff-Schulwerk Music Educator, Board-Certified Music Therapist, and Host at the newly launched Therapeutic Drumming Network. The Therapeutic Drumming Network is a place to share articles, products, programs, and information related to the use of drumming and rhythmic experiences to promote positive change. They welcome professional drummers and percussionists, drumming facilitators, music educators, music therapists, musical healthcare professionals, music and medicine practitioners, and anyone who has a passion for music and helping others.

According to Kalani, drumming is considered 'therapeutic' when it is engaged intentionally as a means of creating a positive physical, cognitive, emotional, and/or psycho-social outcome. It's not as much about the specifics of the drumming, as it is about the intention and outcomes. There are many types of music making that may or may not produce positive physical, cognitive, or emotional results. Therapeutic Drumming represents those drumming experiences that ARE aimed at creating positive outcomes. To learn more about Therapeutic Drumming, read "9 Ways Drumming Can Be Therapeutic" by Kalani Das. 

Playing Community Drums

Community drums are large drums that can be played by many people at the same time. A community drum symbolizes the heartbeat of a drum circle. Community drums are usually open to any participant who wishes to join in, however it is a "sign of respect" to ask permission before you sit on a drum. Each drum is different, but there is some basic protocol when you play on a community drum: Have respect for the drum and the drum keeper. Anything being passed at a community drum should be passed clockwise around the drum, never over, across or counterclockwise. Do not rest anything on top of the drum except for a drumstick or blanket when instructed by the drum keeper. Community drums are usually covered with a blanket when not in use.

Some drum circles like to open each gathering with a round of drumming on a community drum. One way to do this is to ask a community drum keeper to set up the beat, and then the rest of the circle will stand up and join in one at a time. When no more room is left to drum, the first drummer leaves to make room for another, and so on until everyone has drummed.

The community drum in the photo of this post is named "Rolling Thunder." She is a Taos cottonwood log drum with a bison hide head. She is the most powerful, healing drum I have ever had the good fortune to connect with. True to her name, she sounds and feels like rolling thunder! To learn more, look inside my Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide.

"The Gift of Shamanism"

Itzhak Beery is an internationally recognized shamanic healer, teacher, and founder of ShamanPortal.org. In his newly released book, The Gift of Shamanism: Visionary Power, Ayahuasca Dreams, and Journeys to Other Realms, Beery recounts his journey from a skeptical New York advertising executive to a gifted shamanic practitioner and teacher. Through engaging stories from his own shamanic experiences, Beery connects emotionally with the reader and guides them indirectly into the shamanic ways of "seeing" (our sixth sense or intuition), which he believes is an important part of our ability to survive.

As Beery explains it, "I'm now convinced that we human beings are truly living in multidimensional realities and that as humans we have the ability to perceive knowledge, images, and information otherwise hidden from our ordinary senses by shifting from the earthly plane into a shamanic state of higher vibrational consciousness. I believe that this is the key to humans' survival for hundreds of thousands of years."

Distilling years of experience as a shamanic practitioner, Beery details his shamanic way of seeing to diagnose spiritual, emotional, and physical ailments. According to Beery, seeing is not linear or logical. It communicates to us in symbols, through poetry and idioms, and in body language, colors, shapes, smells, and bodily sensations. Deep within each and every one of us lie dormant visionary powers waiting to be realized and freed from the confines of our fears, habits, and cultural taboos. Being in touch with our seeing can help us also chart new paths not only for our own life, but for society as a whole. Seeing helps us sustain and preserve the soul of humanity, shapeshifting us, from fear-based attitudes to a life-affirming sense of hope.

Through his riveting stories of visions that manifested in reality, Beery reveals that we all have dormant visionary powers waiting to be realized. This capacity to bring knowledge and healing from alternative realities and parallel dimensions is "the gift of shamanism." It is a gift that all we humans share and oddly enough it is what makes us good survivors on this planet. By embracing this gift, we can actualize our shamanic potential to change ourselves and the world around us. All you have to do is open a portal, trust your intuition, and trust the spirits to guide you. I highly recommend that you read this insightful book and apply its teachings to your life. Beery's forthcoming book, Shamanic Transformations, featuring stories (including my own story) by notable contemporary shamanic practitioners, will be released in September 2015.

Global Dismemberment

So very many are asking the same question these days: "What is happening around us?" We see severe climate change, massive oil spills, and species dying off. We see corruption in banking, politics, and religions around the world. We see fear, anger, and hopelessness in our communities. Many shamanic practitioners theorize that this is a shamanic dismemberment -- the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces on a global scale, allowing for a shift of awareness and transformation of collective consciousness.

In a shamanic dismemberment, the individual dies the little death, which is the surrender of the ego. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.

In his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck developed the hypothesis that we are undergoing a transition to a new realization of consciousness, which will be embodied by a new fundamental paradigm that takes into account what Carl Jung called "the reality of the psyche," which is to recognize that its contents have a living reality, along with new social, political, and economic systems that mesh with this realization. Pinchbeck sees the rapid evolution of technology as an expression of this unfolding of consciousness. The acceleration of planetary crises can either incite a planetary awakening and a shift into a regenerative planetary culture based on sustainable principles, or a destruction of human civilization in its current form, and perhaps extinction for our species.

The emerging viewpoint coming from the shamanic community suggests the times we live in have an underworld theme of planetary and cosmological initiation. Entrance into the Lower World is most often precipitated by physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual events that force the surrender of our ego. Who we believe ourselves to be is not who we really are. No matter how many years one has been expanding and developing their consciousness, no one is exempt from this shamanic death-and-rebirth. This is a shamanic initiation on the grandest cosmological scale.

The caveat is to not swing into polar extremes of grandiosity or deficiency. Many may view this as either an opportunity for transformation or detached withdrawal. Others may react from fear and view this as impending doom and gloom. Rather, view the melodramatic experience as a test of spiritual maturity. This provides the opportunity for letting go and surrendering our ego defensiveness. We are being given the opportunity to surrender to the great tide of change, so that new dreams and visions can emerge. We can participate in the world's rebirth by following our own deepest instincts, each contributing our sacred part by following that which holds for us the greatest sense of truth and meaning.

The positive side of global dismemberment is that it eventually leads to a rebirth; to new ways of being. The darkness which had seemed endless and impenetrable is at long last revealed to be simply a very difficult passage -- the proverbial tunnel, at the end of which is a brilliant, welcoming light. To learn more, look inside my guide to becoming a shamanic healer, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits.

What is a Peacemaking Circle?

A peacemaking circle is a structured dialogue process used to bring people together to better understand one another, foster and strengthen bonds, and solve community issues. Peacekeeping circles are based on restorative principles that are rooted in ancient tribal conflict resolution rituals. People have gathered in circles since the beginning of humankind for a very good reason. The circle is a container for building community and celebrating life.

As Kay Pranis notes in The Little Book of Circle Processes, "Circles assume a universal human wish to be connected to others in a good way. The values of a Circle derive from this basic human impulse. Therefore values that nurture and promote good connections to others are the foundation of the Circle." These values include: the inherent dignity and worth of each person, trust and respect, compassion, non-judgment, inclusiveness, understanding, open-heartedness, honesty and courage.

Peacemaking circles bring people together to connect for a common purpose, without judgment. Circles are being used in neighborhoods to provide support for those hurt by crime and to determine sentences for those who commit crime, in schools to establish positive classroom environments and deal with behavior problems, in the workplace to resolve conflict, and in social services to create more organic support systems for people struggling to get their lives back on track.

In "Healing the Wounds of Street Violence: Peacemaking Circles and Community Youth Development," sociology professor Carolyn Boyes-Watson addresses the importance of this kind of restorative process: "Circles are about practicing a new way to be in the world. They are about incrementally shifting habits and practicing to be in a different way with one another and ourselves. Circles develop skills at participation, consensus, shared leadership, and problem solving, all of which are…essential tools for genuine democracy and social justice….They…help us see ourselves as part of a connected whole." To learn more, look inside The Little Book of Circle Processes : A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking.