Wild Animals, Spirit Animals, and You

One evening when I was visiting my friend Diana in Wisconsin a few years back, we were chatting while driving through her neighborhood. I was being self-critical about something, beating myself up over a situation I could have handled better, when Diana gently stopped the car in the middle of the street and told me to look to my right.

There, a beautiful herd of deer stood in a front yard. They remained still and looked at us with soft eyes. I was overwhelmed at how majestic they appeared and how they seemed to exude compassion. Diana and I often talked about how when you see a deer, it’s a message to be gentle with yourself — it’s a theme that the deer spirit animal represents. This herd’s timing was impeccable. I lowered the window and softly thanked them for the reminder.

Often when I see a wild animal, I’ll stop, get quiet, clear my energy, and ask them if they have a message to share. One time a dragonfly landed on the window next to my desk. I’d never seen a dragonfly in Brooklyn before, so it instantly felt other worldly and special. I had been super stressed out working on a project, but I took some deep breaths and shifted my attention away from my work. When I felt clear, I asked the dragonfly for a message, to which he replied, “Lighten up! Life is fun.” I wasn’t expecting that message, but it certainly hit me to the core in that moment. I then looked up the dragonfly spirit animal meaning and learned that “joy, lightness of being” is one of its main messages.

Wild animals don’t always stick to spirit animal messages, though. One day a large pigeon landed on my windowsill and looked in at my two cats who had just started a scuffle. This was shortly after Calla’s adoption, and she and Faro were having their moments. In those early days, my reaction was to automatically get anxious and tense and try to break up the fight. But this time, this pigeon’s calm, confident presence at the window made me want to ask his advice.

When I cleared my energy and asked him for a message, he told me to detach from the situation, be neutral, and truly let it go — that this was their business, not mine. As soon as I shifted my energy like he recommended, Calla and Faro hopped away from each other and settled down. It was crazy how immediate the change was. I was so grateful for that real-time advice…and have since applied it in other areas of my life.

You don’t have to be a professional animal communicator to ask wild animals (or your own animals for that matter) for messages. Just do what works for you to get centered and still — take deep belly breaths, drop into your heart, do some soft chanting…whatever clears your mind and vibration. Then allow a picture, word, phrase or feeling to come through.

The animals don’t have to be right in front of you either. Let’s say you read about a certain elephant in a nature preserve in Africa, or you see one in a documentary. You can always clear yourself and set an intention to connect with that elephant and ask for a message. Often wild animals will have wisdom to share about the human journey, our path, and what we need to learn. They’re never judgmental, but they can offer insight around our treatment of the Earth and each other.

Way back before I studied Reiki or animal communication, before Diana and I started exploring spirit animal messages, I used to get acupuncture regularly to treat a chronic health issue. In one session, the practitioner placed a needle right in my third eye, in my forehead above my eyebrows. Exactly at the moment the needle went in, I saw a flash of a lion’s face in my mind’s eye. I’d never experienced that before, and when I told the practitioner, she asked if I’d ever looked into animal spirit guides. I had not, so the next stop after my appointment was Barnes & Noble to buy three books on the topic. In one of them I read about a shaman, and I stopped for a moment to wonder if a shaman could help me with my health issue. The next day, a friend reached out to ask if I wanted to take a shamanic healing class with her. (The lion spirit animal is about personal transformation and reaching your potential — that class was the true start of my woo-woo life and work.)

Wild animals and spirit animals can work with you and the people around you to get their messages through. All you need to do is be open and listen…and be gentle with yourself, lighten up, and let go. 💜