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Whose Your Spirit Guide?
Interview Published in THE SPEAKING TREE in Bangalore, INDIA March 18, 2012
STEVEN FARMER, author and Shamanic healer, answers questions from POONAM JAIN on the subject of animals as spirit-guides. He tells her that earth, animals and gods are all extensions of the same reality.
How did you become a Shaman?
I wanted to be healer, teacher, and communicator. Though not raised with any particular religion, I felt a spiritual hunger and pursued different spiritual paths. Decades ago, I met a shaman named Jade, and attended a beautiful ceremony he was facilitating. It really opened my heart to this path. Soon after I took a course through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies (FSS) taught by the founder, Michael Harner, introducing what he called core shamanism. Harner is an anthropologist, who spent considerable time in the Amazon basin learning ways of the shamans. After the two-day course, I was hungry for more. I knew this was to be my path. I trained and took courses in Tiwwwn, Hawaiian, Celtic, Mongolian, and Australian Aboriginal shamanism and indigenous practices.
Do animals come to people in physical or symbolic form as guides and teachers?
God or Spirit is constantly in touch with us, whether through more etheric beings such as angels and ancestors or through various earth elements. Animals are specific and concrete symbols, which sometimes make it easier for people to relate to. When an animal shows up repetitively, whether it’s the physical animal or a symbol, Spirit is trying to communicate something to you through that animal. For instance, you’re sitting outside, one evening, and an owl flies over your head; it’s not a random event, it has significance.
This may mean that you need to examine hidden aspects of yourself that may be problematic, or indicate that it’s important to pay attention to deceitful behaviour by someone in your life. Since some animals are less commonly seen, they show up to us symbolically, as in dreams, pictures, or when others talk about them. Understand that when this occurs, it is not the animal that is communicating or just the spirit of that animal. The collective consciousness of that species is communicating through this representative, offering spiritual guidance to you.
Do you think we fail to see the wisdom of animal spirit guides?
There is a reverence for these animals; however, the concept of them being spirit guides is apparently missing. The idea that an animal can serve as a spirit guide has its roots in indigenous shamanic cultures. These ancient cultures and indigenous people today are more closely attuned to the earth and view it as alive and capable of providing omens and signs to assist the people in how to live their lives. Animals are considered to be related through a common spiritual force, and therefore able to communicate and offer guidance to human beings. So it is more than reverence. Animals are perceived as both physical beings and spiritual beings, and can offer messages and signs that help people navigate through life more easily.
How do children benefit from animal spirit guides?
Children love animals. When encouraged by parents and others, a child can begin to understand that there is more to the animal. Over time, the child can appreciate the life force that animates the animal. They can also learn to call on their animal spirit guides for help with problems or challenges.
We all have power animals. A power animal is a spirit animal that has been with you since you were conceived. However, it is most likely to leave you after a few years because of lack of attention. It’s a special relationship, one that’s long-term and needs to be honoured. The adult can guide the child by asking him to pay attention to the animal that comes to the child repeatedly in consciousness and in reality.
Native Americans often communicated with their ancestors to access knowledge. How does one do this?
I’m familiar with how ancestors are not only honored but also called on to help living descendants. They can offer guidance and healing. There’s a remarkable process, where in a deep meditative state, you can focus on an unwanted emotional, mental, or physical condition and with the help of your spirit guides, discover the ancestor of the previous three generations who most strongly carried this same condition. By sending love and light to this ancestor, you can purify that condition in them and then have them send the purified love and light to heal that same condition in you. From there, you send it on to your descendants. To receive guidance, one way is to simply chant, “Ancestors, ancestors, I am calling, ancestors, ancestors, I am calling! Come, come, come!” Repeating this like a mantra will bring the ancestors forward. From there you can appeal to them for guidance. You can also call on them while meditating, both to express your gratitude for their help in your life and to appeal to them for any assistance from the spirit world.
Many don’t believe that animal spirits, fairies and angels exist. How does one connect, then?
Imagination! Most people think of imagination as fantasy or make-belief, yet everything in the visible and the non-visible world starts with imagination. It leads the way and connects us to the spirit world, which must be done with an open mind and open heart. It’s not necessary to believe, but to put disbelief aside in order to allow for the sensory perception of any of these individualized expressions of God or Spirit. The spirit beings we perceive will typically take on the form based on one’s cultural and personal belief system. People in a particular culture may not ‘see’ or experience spirit helpers that are commonly held as spirit beings in other cultures, for instance, ancestors. To connect, you need to be open to the possibility. If your belief system is so rigidly structured as to exclude anything of spiritual nature or you adhere dogmatically to a belief system that allows only a very limited view of spirituality and prohibits any other possible manifestations of beings from the spiritual realm, then it makes it difficult, if not impossible to recognize that these beings from another dimension can actively participate in your life. There are many ways to reach God, with no one way being the only way or even the right way for everyone.
