Animal Totem Wisdom

It's always amazing to me what we learn from one another, not only from human to human, but also from animal to human. For as long as I can remember, animals were significant in my life and as I grew older and studied more about them, I became more fully aware of how relevant this study was.

I personally believe that there is much wisdom to be learned from the animal kingdom, because of their purity. They are not clouded by so many of the hurdles that we place on ourselves through life, such as low self esteem, or building walls around ourselves to protect our feelings. They are of pure heart and represent this wonderful Circle of Life that we are all a part of.

Knowing your life-long totem is like having an added perspective. When you are in the midst of confusion, trying to make sense of an issue, often you can look to your animals totem's attributes and gain another perspective to view the situation in. That other perspective can be very helpful to us in our personal growth.

Totem meanings may vary slightly from culture to culture, but they can all have somewhat universal meanings if you are deriving them from learning about the animals social and living skills.

As an added bonus, we can have transitional totems. Transitional totems appear when we going through life changes, such as a marriage, a career change, a birth, etc. Transitional totems are prevalent for a short time while we go through our changes.

I recently revised a small guidebook on the meaning of some of the more popular animal totems, called "Animal Totems in our Daily Lives". It is a good introduction to Animal Totems, what they mean to us, life long totems, transitional totems, and symbolism. The guidebook is helpful to carry with you when you are out and about for a quick glance at meanings. And of course, the more you become familiar with totems I encourage you to study further.

 http://www.consciousartstudios.com/AnimalTOTEMStones.html