Animal Workings

I marked the full moon last night with my coven. It was a formal circle as one of our goals this year as a group is to helps some of us polish our tech and really drill the liturgy into our heads. The work of the ritual was shamanic in nature, which I love, love, love. Another of our coven goals is to work with and introduce each other to our spirit animal companions. Last night's journey was about getting in touch with our power animals.

My HPS led a journey to our coven's astral temple. Then using Michael Harner's techniques, she led us to a great tree. Together, we entered at the great oak at the base, traveled down a tunnel, and then emerged into a forest. It was here that we separated so we could meet our spirit animals. I know three of mine are the turtle, snake, and hart. I was expecting to encounter these, and I did, but I also met a new one.

By the way, I use the phrase "astral temple" out of convenience, but I don't want you to imagine some abstract, celestial place of light. What I'm actually talking about here is the Otherworld. Once we arrived, I was immediately greeted by a fawn. In the past, my encounters have been with a mature, white hart, so this was in an interesting change. The deer is not a personal power animal that belongs to me. In all my encounters with it, it has served to lead me somewhere, and sure enough, it led me (or accompanied me) to the oak, through the tunnel, and the forest.

When I emerged from the tunnel, there was an animal waiting there for me. At first, my response was, really? seriously? A badger? We often want out power animals to be something really cool like a fox, coyote, or eagle. A badger? Yah, a badger. The persistent little bugger wanted me to follow it. As I followed it down the path, I passed my other animals, the snake to one side of me and a large, old tortoise on the other side. The badger led me to a river, where I simply sat quietly for a while, listening until it was time to return.

I don't know anything about badgers so I'm going to have to do some research. I had planned to introduce my coven the snake energy that I work with, but now I'm looking forward to exploring this badger energy. We'll see where it goes.