Every year for my birthday I pick an animal card from my Medicine card deck to be my guiding animal totem for the year. I use Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak book to give me insight into the qualities of my totem.
This year my guide is Wolf, a teacher and pathfinder, helping me to trust my insights and value my inner voice. Wolf can also teach us how to balance the responsibility of family needs and not to lose one’s personal identity. In a recent animal totem workshop with Rev. Iena SpiritWalker Robinson during the meditation to meet my totem, Spider approached first and then backed away to make room for Wolf. Nice confirmation that Wolf is guiding me this year.
So I was gardening a few weeks ago and suddenly there was this monster brown spider over an inch wide and long and made bigger by the fact it was carrying its egg sack from its spinnerets. I was gripped by instant instinctual fear. Not knowing much about spiders, I was terrified that it was a brown recluse so must be destroyed for our safety.
I wanted some confirmation so I got my husband so he could see this huge spider. Shaking, I readied a shovel and started whacking away, really going postal with guttural grunts with each whack. After a few whacks my husband calmly said, “It’s behind you.” Not proud to say I, thinking that it was on my back, went running across the yard screaming, “Get it off of me!” Meanwhile, my husband had watched the spider jump onto the shovel with my first strike and as I swung back to take another strike I had launched it into the lawn behind me. What my husband would have given to have a video of this escapade! Well, he stepped up and finished off the spider.
After reason returned, I regretted going postal especially after looking it up and finding it was a wolf spider and harmless. Interesting that it symbolized the joining of the two totems I saw in my animal totem meditation: Spider and Wolf.
I am still not sure of the spiritual implication of killing my animal totem. I like to think of myself as calm and centered but obviously I need some more work on this. That instinctual fear of spiders is strong! Moving forward, I am taking lessons from both Spider and Wolf this year, letting Spider help me weave my dreams into goals while maintaining balance – between past and future, physical and spiritual, male and female.
Your ideas on Angel Readings are part of the Catholic belief. We believe each person has a guardian angel, and that angels are all around us and are our messengers to God and our protectors given by God. They help us on our journey to our final destination which is Heaven- back to God. There are many different levels of angles….. 🙂 Aren’t they wonderful to have around?