How to Discover Your Animal Totem

If you're confused about how to discover your animal totem or totems, don't despair. The process can actually be a lot simpler than you think. The first and most important step to discovering your animal totem is to do some research. Animal totems act as guides and sources of inspiration in our lives, and they can also help us manifest certain qualities or characteristics in our lives (such as patience, love, joy, or persistence).

There are two basic aspects to researching your animal totem: book research and field research. Reading about animals and their characteristics gives you a good idea of what kinds of energies those animal totems might bring into your life. For instance, hummingbirds bring joy, enthusiasm, and lots of energies, while ravens bring mystery and a deep sense of humor.

Read About Possible Animal Totems
You can read general books or magazines on animals (National Geographic often has great information) or you can read books that specifically describe animal totems, such as "Medicine Cards" by Carson and Sams. Reading about animals also helps you find out more about animals that either don't live in your local area or are extinct (just because an animal species is no longer in body doesn't mean that its spirit isn't still around to lend energies and help).

Field Research to Discover Your Animal Totem
The other part of researching your animal totem is going out and observing animals in your local area. Choosing an animal native to your local area as a totem is useful in a lot of ways. First, they are already adapted to your local environment, and can teach you a lot about survival and enjoyment of your outdoor area. Second, you'll be more likely to receive physical messages from these totems-in other words, you'll be more likely to see and interact with them on a daily basis. Finally, you'll be able to do more direct research through physical observation of local animals than with exotic ones from faraway places.

To do this kind of field research, just walk through any park or wildlife area and observe the animals. See how they move, how they interact with you and each other, how they rest. Do they move fast? Do they react strongly to your presence or barely notice it at all? How do they express themselves? What qualities are most dominant in their behavior?

For instance, if you were to observe a colony of ants, you would notice that they persist in what they are doing, no matter how much interference they encounter. If you scoop up an ant on a piece of paper, carry it 10 feet away and set it back down again, it will continue in the same direction it was headed, as if it had never been scooped up. It will persist in completing its task regardless. If this dogged persistence is what you need in your life, then the ant might be an excellent totem for you. If you want to be more outgoing and gregarious, consider the raven or the magpie. Or what about the spider for sheer creativity and art?

Animals are all around us and we have so much to learn from them! Choosing a specific animal to be your totem personalizes your relationship with that animal species, and brings their particular personalities and energies into your life. Doing this kind of research is the first step to developing that kind of personal relationship. It's fun, inspiring and educational. So start doing your research today ... you've got nothing to lose and lots to gain!

Want to Know More?
If you want to dive more deeply into the world of animals, you'll want to read Learn How to Talk to Animals – A Practical Guide for a Magical Journey written by Esoteric School Expert Leta Worthington.

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Ritual Magic: Magically Make Hard Decisions Easy

I’m sure we’ve all faced times when we need to make a big life decision and find ourselves unsure, wavering and just not able to make a choice. Typically we resort to asking friends or family or making a pro/con list, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if the right answer would just magically come to us? Guess what, it can! Try out this little ritual magic technique the next time you have a big decision to make. We call it the 3 Day Question.

Using the 3 Day Question brings you guidance from your spirit or your spirit guides. Here’s how to do it:

1. Describe your decision in very precise, concise terms. For example, “Do I take this trip or not?”, “Do I take this job or not?”. Don’t add in a lot of extra information, just state the question you are struggling with.

2. Take around 3-5 minutes to sit in a quiet place and hold the question in your mind.

3. Now ask your question out loud.

4. Forget about the question, the decision and anything to do with the whole issue for the next 3 days. I know that is easier said than done, but strive to switch your attention to something else any time you find yourself starting to think about it.

5. At the end of the 3rd day, ask your question again. Whatever the first answer you hear is the answer for you to accept.

You may hear the answer come from within you as a “voice in your head” or a picture. You may instead hear the answer from outside yourself. This could come in the form of a conversation you overhear, a song, a sign in a window or dozens of other ways. Look for the sign that gives your answer. For example, let’s say your question was, “Do I move to New York or not?”. At the end of the 3 days, you ask your question and maybe you hear the song New York, New York on the radio or maybe you hear someone in a conversation next to you saying they love New York cheesecake. Or you may just very clearly inside yourself hear, “Yes”.

In order for this ritual magic to work, you must not obsess or think about your question during the 3 days period. This interferes with the process and will not give you the desired results. Magic is a precision science and therefore the more precise your question is worded, the more precise your answer will be. Make sure you ask a question that will yield you the exact answer and only that answer which you seek. With this simple, little bit of ritual magic, you can access your own spirit wisdom and that of your spirit guides to turn making big difficult decisions into a much easier and less stressful process.

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Life Going Too Fast? 3 Ways to Slow it Down

Is life going too fast and you need to slow it down? In this year of Magic 2012, many people are experiencing this. On top of regular quick paced routines and daily life responsibilities, many are finding time speeding by this year. If you are finding life going too fast, there are ways to magically slow it down.

3 Ways to Slow it Down
1. Cortothalamic Pause
The Cortothalamic Pause is a way to stretch time by creating a bridge between the thalamus (part of the forebrain) and the cortex allowing us to move from reaction to reason. At the thalamic level you can check your reaction to see how you feel about a situation or interaction, then take that information to the cortex level to reason out the best response.

It takes some practice to become proficient at using the Cortothalamic Pause. You will know you have it down when you feel an actual separation from physical time. Here are the steps to practice:

• To start, pick a small thing that is not something you have a passion for. Don't start with something you know is a pet peeve or "touchy" subject for you.
   
• When someone asks you a question or asks you to do something – STOP. Do not respond right away. Shut your mouth and calm everything inside you as much as you can. This part obviously takes practice too.
   
• Wait 2-3 seconds and don't let your mind race ahead thinking of all the things you could say in response. Just absorb the question and stay quiet.
   
• Take a deep breath and now respond to the question.

Practice these steps several times a day. The more you practice, the better you will get at using this technique to slow it down when life is going too fast.

2. Do An Act of Power
Any intentional act is a magical act as well as an act of power. Any act of power restores personal power and grounds you in your life. Being grounded in life puts you in control and feels less chaotic. When we are in control of our lives, grounded and putting aside chaos, our lives are less hectic. Doing an act of power allows us to slow it down. Here are the steps to performing an act of power.

• Choose a simple act and decide when you will do this act.
  It does need to be a simple act and you do need to specify the time you will do it because a complicated act could be interrupted and a non-specific time nullifies the act of power. An example is to decide you will get up from your desk at noon, go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water. An even simpler one would be that at noon you are going to draw an X on a piece of paper. It doesn't matter what the act is as long as it would be easily accomplished without interruption. 
• When the time you specified comes to do your act of power, do it.
  Let nothing interrupt you before you complete your act. That is why it is important to pick something in the first step that you know you will be able to accomplish in your individual circumstance.
• When your act of power is complete, take a moment to review the act and the fact that you have completed the act. This moment of "appreciation" will help you gain all the power you can from your magic ritual.

You can do this several times a day to increase the anchoring in your life and thus slow it down.

3. Start Your Day Over With the Day Greetings
You can re-start your day at any time and as many times as you need by doing the Day Greeting ritual to the 4 directions, Sky Father and Earth Mother. If you are not familiar with how to do Day Greetings, you can find the directions HERE.

If your life is really going too fast you can use all three of these techniques to help slow it down. After a little practice you will find they are easy to do and will really pay off for you.


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Yoga and Meditation for the Rest of Us

Yoga, meditation, chanting ... mmmm, all great things for your body, mind and spirit. But sometimes, in the hectic rush of everyday life, thinking of bending your body into a pretzel, or even breathing slowly, can be a huge challenge. How can you possibly relax when you have bills to pay, work to do, and life to attend to?

Don't worry. Relaxing is easy. Healing yourself and your life is not as hard as you think. You don't need to read 20 books on self-help or sit at the feet of the guru. Remember, magic, healing, and enjoyment of life are all your natural birthrights as a human being. You just have to remember how!

In fact, did you know that you've already done all 84 poses of yoga before? Fetuses go through all 84 yoga poses before they are born, so we've all done yoga! The real yoga starts, though, when we take our first breath. Breathing is the very first step in yoga.

Just Breathe, Really!
So if you really want to give yourself a huge gift of healing and relaxation during the day, breathe. Set aside three minutes to give yourself this gift. Turn off the phone, close the door, dim the lights, and just breathe. You can either breathe deeply and deliberately, holding inhales and exhales for several counts, or you can relax by just following your breath but exerting no effort.

Breathing not only increases circulation and oxygen in your body, but it nourishes your lungs, which according to Chinese medicine guards your chi or life force. Talk about the "breath of life"-breathing really can bring new energy, vitality, and zest into your life. You'll feel better, think more clearly, and act from greater inspiration.

Adding More to Your Meditation
If you've got more than three minutes to spare, you can add even more layers to this quick "meditation" with some colored candles. Burn a sun yellow candle for more joy, bright red for more energy, light blue for more understanding, grass green for grounding and physical healing or water blue for calming and connection with your Spirit. Candles actually "push" the colors at you, so you absorb those energies without effort.

If you take a few minutes each day to breathe, be present in your body, and be connected to Life, you can say that you do yoga and meditation every day. Quantity isn't all that counts, quality counts too. When you're deeply present, even for a few moments every day, you can take great strides in both your physical and spiritual life!

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Magical Element Water: Working On the Emotional Level

When first beginning to study magic, you learn that almost everything in this Universe is made up of some combination of the four magical elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth. If you can understand the four elements directly, then you can understand anything in the Universe. In this article, we explore the magical element Water.

About the Magical Element Water
The magical element Water basically deals with emotions and "gut feelings". In many traditions, "gut feelings" are considered to be tools of spirit or communications of spirit. The magical element Water also involves feelings, intuition, compassion, empathy, sympathy, knowing, devotion, quest, aspiration, intention, appreciation, integrity, harmony, beauty, balance, serenity, fluidity, grief, apathy, joy, and love. So anytime you are looking at any of these type aspects you will be working with the magical element Water. An example of this might be if you are feeling depressed. Depression can be a sign that you are out of balance in your energetic Water. It may be dark and/or it may be stuck. If you recognize this as a symptom of your energetic Water being out of balance, then you will know that getting your Water moving can help raise your emotional tone and help you snap out of a funk or depression.

Correspondences for the Magical Element Water
Direction: West

Tool: Chalice or Cup

Elemental Spirit: Ondine or Undine

Colors:

• Physical – Water Blue
• Emotional – Deep Blue
• Spiritual – Blue Black

More about Undines
Undines can be seen in ponds of clear water with seaweed and moss on the bottom. They sometimes move through the seaweed swimming in a zigzag pattern, smoothly or forming a "V" of ripples across a pond. You can also see them in a wide river with mud or sand at the bottom. If you see a whirlpool develop, look for a place in it with no rock or sticks, and you can find an undine in the water above that spot. You may sometimes feel them brush up against you in water.

Shortages and Excesses of the Magical Element Water
Here are a few symptoms that will give you a clue as to whether you have an imbalance in your Water energy. It may be that you have too much of a particular type of Water energy or it could be that you do not have enough of a certain type of Water energy.

Water Shortages:
Water Blue –
-Body feels dry or hot
-Dry wit or humor
-Shy
-Dry skin
-Dry cough
-Nervous or restless

Deep Blue –
-Self-centered
-Narrow minded
-Anti-social
-Experience lack of feelings

Blue Black –
-Lacking empathy
-Not trusting intuition
-Poor self-worth
-Suspicious of others

Water Excesses –
Water Blue –
-Puffiness or swelling
-Watery eyes
-Slow to respond
-Chronic fatigue

Deep Blue –
-Over emotional
-Depression
-Guilt
-Lacking boundaries

Blue Black –
-Obsessive behaviors
-Not being in present time
-Abuse of others
-Self abuse

There are of course many more symptoms for each of these categories, more than can be addressed in this article, but these can give you an idea of what types of things to look for when considering whether your energetic Water needs balancing. We also have included the Blue Black color of spiritual correspondences to see the types of symptoms it can induce, but do not recommend working with this color (for safety reasons) unless you are a very experienced magical practitioner or shaman. If you are interested in learning more about using the magical element Water for healing, divination, psychic communications, balancing emotions and more, then our Magical Element Water Homestudy Short Course may be just what you are looking for.

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