Finding animals that you resonate with on a practical level can be fun and can potentially enhance your spiritual practice by expanding your pool of animal collaborators. Another usage could come when you are struggling or working on areas of your life or trying to make changes; find an animal that has attributes you admire and try to incorporate those attributes.
For example, if you have trouble communicating and words tend to get stuck in your throat, it could be because of fear, your thoughts getting ahead of you, or you feel pressured by an outside influence. If fear is what is causing you to climb in your shell like a turtle, try working with an animal that is the embodiment of courage, such as the mountain lion. If words tend to get stuck in your throat, consider working with the heron. Herons are very confident, patient birds. They will wait patiently at the water’s edge, undistracted, until the timing is perfect, and only then do they straighten out their long S-curved necks to nab their prey. A takeaway lesson could be that you need to slow down, take a breath, refuse to be rushed, and speak only when you are ready. Doing so may help you build your confidence, and at the very least it will give you time to get your thoughts clear so that when you do speak, it is with forethought and dignity.
Another example is healing a broken heart. When we have been hurt, it is natural to want to wrap ourselves in protection for a while. The armadillo has a protective outer shell that can guard you when you need it. When you feel like you are ready to cast off that shell, transition to something like the butterfly so you can break through your chrysalis and fly.
There are endless parallels that I could make, but my hope is that you find many on your own. If you are having trouble, reference the “Connections” section at the back of the book to see if any specific animals and their correlations resonate with you.
How to Do a Reading
While they aren’t essential for working with this information, the animal illustrations shown throughout the book are also presented in the back of the book in the “Animal Images” section. If you would like to have some visual representation, as you would with tarot or other oracle systems, you can use the illustrations as they are, cut them out, or glue them to cardstock or wooden disks so they are durable. If you would like to order a deck of cards, a version is available with my artwork through either my Facebook page or my Etsy site. You can find this information in “How to Order a Deck” at the back of the book.
Here is a suggested method for a reading:
Place all the slips of paper in a bag or in a box and randomly pick one at a time, or spread all the slips of paper out facedown and pick that way. Center yourself in whatever method works best for you. With your eyes either open or closed, slowly move your hand over the pieces of paper until one feels right and place it face down on the chakra space that also feels right. Repeat this for each chakra, keeping all the images face down and in a row of seven to represent the seven chakras, until you have filled all the chakra spaces.
Starting with the root chakra (the first), turn over the image to see what animal has come through. Move on to the second, third, fourth, and so on. There is no “tradition” connected with the Chakra Animal method, so please explore it in ways that work for you. Most of all—have fun!