The Totemic Ecosystem
Getting to know an individual totem can be a really rewarding experience; however, that experience is even more enriched when you also understand the connections it has to other totems, connections paralleled in the physical world. The animal totems I worked with insisted that I meet their nonanimal counterparts, and in doing so I was able to have more context for the lessons they were teaching me.
As one personal example, Steller’s Jay made sure that the first time I went hiking in the Columbia River Gorge shortly after moving to Oregon, I was introduced to the totem Douglas Fir. Not that it was all that difficult to find it; it’s one of the most common trees there. But Steller’s Jay wanted me to know that Douglas Fir was incredibly important to them, because this tree is a common nesting site for jays and others. Douglas Fir, in turn, showed me how their physical counterparts were extraordinarily important for their ecosystems. Numerous animals, from Douglas squirrels to an assortment of tiny insects, as well as mosses, lichens, ferns, and other plants and fungi, all make their homes in living Douglas fir trees. When one of these mighty trees dies and falls to the forest floor, it becomes a nurse log—that is, a huge decaying hunk of wood that feeds countless living beings with its fibers and the nutrients therein. A tree sucks up a lot of resources in its lifetime, and when it dies, all those resources are released back into the ecosystem at large to be used by other beings.
As I got to know both Steller’s Jay and Douglas Fir, they introduced me to even more totems in their ecosystem, and I became much more familiar not just with the ins and outs of the place and its inhabitants, but how the things I learned from each of them individually were also dependent on the teachings of the others. Why is this important to know? Well, why is it important to know a totem as well as its physical counterpart? The totems add a new dimension to the things we can learn from observing a place and its denizens. They embody patterns and connections, and they help us recognize why and how we can apply them to our own lives. Moreover, they familiarize us with our own part in the ecosystem, something that many humans have lost sight of. They are the ambassadors of their species, and the totemic ecosystem is the place where our physical world meets their spiritual one.
By spiritual, I don’t necessarily mean “religious.” Spiritual in this case merely means “not physical.” What that means to you can vary; it could be an alternate reality that parallels ours, or a symbolic world created in our own creative minds. However, the totemic ecosystem is not entirely spiritual and therefore removed from this world. Just as totems are intermediaries between their species and ours, so the totemic ecosystem bridges their world and ours. Each ecosystem in the physical world has its totemic counterpart—I’ll talk more in a minute about this concept.
Totemic ecosystems are not strange worlds of dreams where nothing seems to make sense. Instead, they mirror physical ecosystems, even looking much like the places themselves. The main difference is the totems themselves: while they may appear as an ordinary-looking animal, plant, etc., they may also manifest as much larger versions thereof. I’ve also had totems show up in anthropomorphic (partly human) forms as a way of demonstrating their ability to understand their own species as well as ours, particularly if they welcome contact from humans. No matter what, though, there’s no doubt when they show up because they always put forth a sense of being much “bigger” and more powerful than an individual spirit.
They also may show up in their wild forms. A totemic ecosystem associated with a place that has been logged in the last century or two may reveal itself in a more ancient setting, what the land looked like before humans completely tore it to pieces. Some ecosystems may need to reach back much further, sometimes a millennium or more. Others may choose to take their modern form—a field of wheat or clearcut hillside, for example—even if it’s not as pleasant as it was before. This may mean that depending on how a totemic ecosystem wishes to present itself, you may be talking to a vastly different array of totems than you were expecting. If your intent is to get in touch with its current incarnation, you may politely ask for that face in particular.
Boundaries and Parameters
So how big is a totemic ecosystem? The short answer is: it depends.
Have you ever walked into a meadow or patch of forest or stretch of desert and felt that it had a particular personality compared to the surrounding area? You’ve just sensed the totemic ecosystem. It can be as small as a little field or as large as the bioregion itself, and often a single spot may be the domain of several overlapping totemic ecosystems. In my own bioregion is a crossroads along one of my favorite places in the Columbia River Gorge, where trails 419 and 420 meet with a large Douglas fir tree and a few large stones in the center. It’s partway up the mountain known as Devil’s Rest and overlooks the Columbia River, with both Wahkeena Creek and Multnomah Creek—and the falls they both feed—close by. It’s a richly diverse habitat typical of the Gorge with numerous species of animals, fungi, plants, and more. The trails carry energy from surrounding ecosystems, too.
With its tree and stones, this one crossroads happens to be at the center of where several totemic ecosystems meet. Now, how do I know that for sure? After all, the flora, fauna, and fungi around Wahkeena Creek are much the same as those along Multnomah Creek a mile or so away. Geographical features have longer lifespans than these, for the most part, and therefore they tend to contribute more influence to an ecosystem. Additionally, they are largely responsible for what can and can’t live in a place. The temperate forests on the west side of the Cascade Mountains couldn’t grow on the east side because the mountains create a rain shadow to the east, giving it a lot less rainfall and turning it into a desert.
Even west of the mountains the energy can be different on each side of the Columbia River. The land is primarily made of basalt from enormous volcanic flows that occurred about twenty million years ago in what is now Idaho. The Gorge itself was created when a gigantic glacial lake near modern-day Missoula, Montana, repeatedly broke open between fifteen thousand and thirteen thousand years ago, each time sending a massive wall of water traveling up to eighty miles an hour all the way from Missoula to the Pacific Ocean (and in fact the current flowed a little way into the ocean!).
These repeated enormous floods cut into the ground, creating the gorge. The basalt on the south side in Oregon is much more solid than that on the northern, Washington side, which tends to be more crumbly. This harder and more solid basalt doesn’t erode as quickly from its many streams and the effects of precipitation and wind, so it has more sheer drop-offs. The waterfalls, in fact, are from streams that predated the floods; prior to the creation of the Gorge they would simply flow down the mountain slopes into the Columbia, but with all that land removed, they drop over the edge and continue their paths at much lower elevations. Across the river the land has eroded into a softer decline, leaving few drop-offs for falls to form over.
What’s this brief geology lesson have to do with totemic ecosystems? Two sides of a river had very similar experiences in the past several thousand years—lava flows, giant floods, the same general weather patterns and climate, but the makeup of the geology makes them markedly different. Look at the rivers; the way a river flows gives it a sort of personality, and a waterfall has a different energy than a gently sloping stream meandering to its mouth. Moreover, the geology even affects what can live there; the south side of the Gorge is less protected from the weather systems that mostly come up from the southwest, drying the land out more. It also gets more sunlight, which bakes the very earth and contributes to its more crumbly nature. The animals, fungi, and plants living here must be able to deal with harsher conditions than their counterparts across the river.
As we’ve already established, the beings that inhabit the physical landscape and make up the landscape itself are the ones that determine which totems inhabit the local totemic ecosystem. That’s why the totemic ecosystem feels a little different around Wahkeena Creek compared to Multnomah Creek; for the most part the denizens are the same, but each creek gives its own unique addition to its place, changing the overall feel in each.
That being said, you may end up in places in your meditations that don’t seem to have physical counterparts. The realm of these meditations is less malleable than the purely spiritual world, but it’s not as solid as our world, either. I have had paths that I know well in the physical world take strange turns in my meditations. Places have butted up against each other in meditation that in real life are miles away. This is usually a way for the meditation to take me to where I need to be much more quickly; for the most part, the land of meditation looks a lot like the physical reality.
Bioregions, Biomes, and Biotopes
It’s perfectly acceptable if you happen to have trouble figuring out where the boundaries of a given totemic ecosystem are. What I’ve described so far is a fairly intuitive method of defining these boundaries. That’s fine for some folks, but others tend to have strengths in other areas.
For some, the more concrete concepts of bioregions, biomes, and biotopes may be helpful. I’ve already talked about a bioregion, a particular area of land that has more or less the same physical features throughout it with more local variations (I’ll talk more about those variations in a minute). A biome is a similarly large concept but is more defined by climate and the effects of things like average yearly rainfall and temperature fluctuations on the land and its inhabitants. Biomes are not limited to land; there are also aquatic biomes in both fresh and salt water.
The major difference is that a bioregion is a specific place, while a biome isn’t just found in one location on the planet; the temperate steppe describes a variety of places ranging from the middle portion of Asia to part of eastern Australia. One bioregion that exemplifies the temperate steppe is the Great Plains of the United States; where it hasn’t been plowed under for agriculture, it supports a rich grassland habitat with animals, plants, and other beings adapted to its semi-arid conditions and wide, flat or gently rolling layout, and sudden shifts in weather. While the individual life forms found in temperate steppes worldwide may vary, the general characteristics of climate and their effects are the same. There are several different competing systems for defining biomes; a good basic introduction can be found at http://eschooltoday.com/ecosystems
/what-is-a-biome.html.
A bioregion describes a large place, and a biome describes the climactic nature of that place. A biotope is the corresponding microcosm, being a smaller part of the bioregion and biome. Synonymous with habitat, it is defined less by the geography and climate and more by the specific community of living beings populating it. Other parts of the biotope such as available water, weather, geology, and the like are seen as the home in which the animals, plants, and others live, but it is the uniformity of the living beings found there that ultimately defines the biotope. Biotopes are generally thought of as wilderness settings though there are urban biotopes as well, so don’t think you have to go into the backcountry to do things right.
Biotopes may gently blend into one another, or they may be sharply defined. A good example is Forest Park in Portland; the park consists of more than five thousand acres of dense second-growth forest dominated by conifers. It is inhabited by a variety of animal species, from blue herons to coyotes to coastal cutthroat trout. As soon as you leave the park in any direction, you come across human development, especially at the southeast end which is firmly embedded in the city of Portland proper. Where the trails ends, the street begins, quite literally. Although there are efforts to restore some semblance of the original natural areas where the city now stands, the vast majority of species in Forest Park do not live in the urban parts of Portland; they are effectively distinct biotopes.
What makes the biotope different from the more intuitive totemic ecosystem? The totemic ecosystem—the “spirit” of a place—may not exactly overlap a biotope; you may sense a given totemic ecosystem’s borders are smaller than those of the biotope it is in. This means that one individual biotope may include more than one totemic ecosystem, as in Wakheena and Multnomah above, which share the same biotope but are spiritually separate.
Totemic ecosystems may be larger than a given biotope, and indeed may nest within one another. As large as it may be, even an entire bioregion can encompass a totemic ecosystem in and of itself and have smaller distinct ones within its boundaries as well.10 Sometimes we humans can be influential in the development of these systems as well. Oregon’s borders are marked by certain natural features rather than just arbitrary lines drawn for geopolitical purposes. I can sense a difference any time I cross over the Columbia River into Washington or arrive in California after heading through the Siskiyou Mountains. But some of this may be influenced by the strong identification many Oregonians have with their state; while we humans are far from the only species in this place, we do have a pretty significant impact on it, and a lot of people in Oregon in particular are invested in the land for its own sake.
Working with more clearly defined boundaries like biomes, biotopes, and even state and county lines can help you when trying to suss out the borders of a totemic ecosystem. Here’s an exercise that may help you if the more intuitive boundaries seem a little nebulous. It’ll take some investment of time and effort over a period of weeks or even months, but it’ll give you plenty of practice in being able to notice unique totemic ecosystems.
First, identify a particular biotope near you that has reasonably well-defined boundaries to which you have access (no trespassing!). It may be a large city park, a particular system of hiking trails, or a rural nature preserve. It could even be the last remnants of farmland or forest left over from suburban sprawl. I generally recommend not starting with the biotope you live in if possible, since you’re immersed in it all the time and are probably pretty acclimated to its feel already. You can always compare other biotopes to it later on, though.
Start at the edge of this biotope; if you can start on foot, so much the better, but other forms of transportation will work, too. Just be aware that the more complex a machine you’re operating, the more distracted you may be from exploring the place you’re in. If you can periodically find places to get off the bike or out of the car to walk or at least sit, so much the better. You may also wish to bring a journal, recorder, or other method of taking down your impressions after each part of the exercise.
As you venture into the biotope, clear your mind as best you can and notice how the place makes you feel. Do you feel comfortable here or intimidated? Welcome or unwelcome? Does the place feel happy, sad, or some other emotion? How physically accessible is it? Are there obvious trails (made by either humans or other animals) or is the landscape tangled and hard to navigate? What else immediately catches your attention about the place? Take at least a few minutes to explore the place in more detail as much as you’re able. What stands out more as you spend more time there? How do you feel now that you’ve been there longer?
Now relocate to another part of the biotope. Ideally you’ll be able to walk through it, though if you have to bike or drive in more deeply, do so. If you aren’t able to go much further in, relocate to another place along the biotope’s edge. As you move along, keep paying attention to how the place makes you feel and what you notice about it immediately, and then after you’ve been there a while. Keep taking notes as you go.
Once you’ve spent a fair amount of time in this biotope, you may start noticing its “personality.” If not, that’s okay. It can take a while, especially if you are new to this sort of intuitive work. Also, don’t worry so much about listing off the animals, plants, waterways, and other features of the place. For now, you’re just trying to get a general sense of it; we’ll do more work with the details later.
In order to get a better basis for comparison, you’ll want to repeat this exercise in at least one other biotope, preferably more. Try seeing what the difference is between your first biotope and another one of the same type of biome—maybe two different patches of temperate broadleaf forest. Then try comparing your experiences with those in a biotope of a different biome, like an arid desert or a large lake (especially if you can safely take a boat out on the water).
Ideally what will happen is that over time you’ll start to notice that each place feels different from the rest. You might find yourself especially attracted to one biotope in particular; if so, spend more time getting to know its personality in more depth.
Keep in mind that other factors such as the weather, your mood, time restrictions, and the like may affect your perception of these places as well. Those factors are part of why it’s important to return multiple times and see what you notice each time. It’s also good to be aware of how things like cold, wet weather, or large crowds in public parks generally make you feel; if you go to a park that’s really busy and you feel crowded and annoyed, that will probably affect your perceptions of the place. Also don’t let other people’s biases affect you. If one person says that a particular place creeps them out, don’t feel deterred. The totemic ecosystem is a pretty subjective concept anyway, so it’s most important to listen to your own intuition.
And if you just can’t seem to get the hang of this intuitive approach, that’s completely okay—it’s not for everyone. Use the boundaries of the physical biomes and biotopes as your maps in working with the totems and their ecosystem and you’ll be fine. You might even figure out your own methods of totemic work outside of what’s described here; use whatever works.
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James has always approached the world from a fairly analytical viewpoint. An engineer, his way of thinking has always kept him in good stead, and he enjoys learning the facts and measurements and other nuts and bolts of a given topic. Totemism is no different; while he enjoys being outside, he likes to prepare himself for hikes in new places by reading about them so he has more information to carry as he goes. When he starts working with the idea of a totemic ecosystem, he gravitates toward the concept of the biotope and decides to apply it to a new trail he’s recently discovered but not yet hiked. He spends a couple of weeks researching the land where the trail is, how it was formed, what the climate is like, and what lives there. When he’s able to hike the trail, he takes notes on what he finds there and how it matches his research. As he does so his comfort with the place increases, and he begins to feel that the little valley the quietest part of the trail goes through is especially significant—not just because it’s the home for some very rare amphibian species, but also because it seems to have a life of its own. As he looks up at the ridge surrounding him, marking the clear lines of the valley, James quietly greets this place, and decides to dedicate himself to getting to know it better.
Studying the Totemic Ecosystem
Now that you’ve got some idea of where at least one totemic ecosystem is, it’s time to get to know it in more detail. There are two primary ways to do this: research and experience. By now you’ve already dealt with both of these to at least a small degree. If you did the last exercise, you had to research places to go, how to get there, and where to go once you arrived. But you also experienced this place, at least a little bit.
These two methods of exploration should be considered complementary rather than contradictory. There’s an unfortunate tendency among some spiritual people to claim that “book knowledge” is universally inferior to revealed theology, that belief is better than knowledge, and to apply pseudoscience as truth in places where science doesn’t yet have an answer (or at least where no significant evidence has been found even through multiple experiments). These claims are no better than the ones of those who are so completely materialistic that they see no benefit whatsoever to creative human endeavors like storytelling and other attempts to make meaning of the world. At its best, spirituality brings us to wonder at the world around us, even if you don’t take world myths and religions literally.
Bioregional totemism is a system that draws on research and experience alike. Totemic systems throughout history and around the world have been informed by the knowledge of the people that developed relationships with totems and ways of interacting with them. Direct observation has always been a central part of totemism; we as a species have learned from other animals, plants, and other beings, just by watching them.
We have access to an unprecedented amount of knowledge and information here in the twenty-first century. There are many more ways to observe the world from the tiniest particles to the universe our planet floats through. Microscopes and telescopes, chemistry sets and radio trackers, the Large Hadron Collider and all of NOAA’s satellites—these and many more technological advances have helped us understand the natural world in all its parts to an extent never before seen. We can see bacteria and unicellular animals, plants, and fungi. We understand where in the universe the Earth is situated and why it revolves around the sun.
It’s okay to have some subjective impressions as well; that’s the basis of spirituality in general. Ancestral human observations were used equally for knowing when the deer were most active, when they were easiest to find, and for creating stories embodying feelings about watching the deer’s strength and grace. Research helps us to keep our feet on the ground even as we have our heads in the clouds. Experience allows us the subjective wonder and joy at actually being in contact with things we may previously have only encountered in books.
With that in mind, revisit the questions I asked you about your bioregion in the “Hitting the Books” section of chapter 1, this time looking at one of the biotopes you explored (perhaps the one you liked best or connected with most strongly). You may have seen some animals there as well as native plants and fungi while you were visiting, and you probably noticed some other features of the area like landforms or water, natural or human-made. Take some time to do more research on the flora, fauna, and fungi of your biotope, in addition to its geology and geography, climate and rainfall, and other layers of the place. Explore the history of human habitation and other usage as far back as you’re able. You can also look into any stories about the place whether that’s indigenous myths and history or more recent occurrences and tales, all the way up to and including urban legends.
Spend more time at the place, too, experiencing and getting to know it, preferably on foot or sitting down. Make note of any impressions you have while there or anything that especially jumps out at you during your research to include living beings, weather patterns, and more. These may be absolutely nothing beyond your personal preferences and interests, but they might also become important as you’re getting connected to the totemic ecosystem of this biotope.
That brings us to another layer of experience: spiritual practice. Spirituality isn’t strictly about religion. Actually it is what helps us feel connected to and/or a part of something bigger than ourselves—and that “something bigger” can vary. Maybe it’s a particular divine being, the planetary community, or even the universe itself. Why don’t I present what’s offered here as divine writ that must be strictly followed? In part, I know my readers come from a diverse set of spiritual backgrounds, and I’d rather you integrate the material here into your path as you see fit rather than try to shoehorn your way into my path.
The definition of “spiritual practice” as it relates to the totemic ecosystem may vary, though in this case the general goal is to feel connected in a spiritual sense to the biotope you’re exploring. This may happen through something as simple as taking a walk through it, or sitting quietly and observing. Or you may wish to use meditation to get a “deeper” connection to the place and even start a conversation. Here’s one you can use to start tapping into the spirit of a place and sensing its totemic ecosystem.
Find a relatively quiet place in your chosen biotope; bring a journal or other method of recording your results as well as a bit of protein-heavy food and some water. I recognize that some of you may prefer music or drumming to help you focus; however, I recommend avoiding those things here, as you want to listen to the sounds endemic to the place as much as possible, even if they come from people and cars. After all, we are a part of the landscape too, and if you’re going to get a thorough understanding of the place, that includes the human element.
Sit, lie down, or otherwise make yourself comfortable there. Close your eyes if you like. Spend a few moments clearing your mind and focusing on the way your breath feels as it flows in through your nose and/or mouth, down into your lungs, and back out again. If someone walks by on a trail or is otherwise distracting, let them pass and keep focusing on your breathing and relaxation. In fact, if at any time you are distracted in your meditation, go back to the breathing and relaxation to calm yourself before returning to your meditation.
Next, open yourself up to what you feel and sense as you did when you were more actively walking around the place. Whereas before you were also paying attention to things you saw and heard and felt physically, now focus on your intuition, emotions, and instincts; your feel of the place. You might even imagine your energy intertwining with that of the place, being one animal among many here in this biotope. Spend at least a few moments connecting with this experience, longer if you like. In fact, you can make an entire meditation out of this part of the exercise alone.
If you want to try something different while still staying in touch with the spirit of the place, visualize how it looks without opening your eyes. Imagine the area directly around you, the little patch of ground you’re resting on, the plants and rocks and other things within a few feet of you. Then expand that awareness a little further, maybe twenty feet away from you. Hold that awareness for a few minutes. It may look more or less like it does in the physical world, or you may find that parts of it are very different—some living beings may glow with a green or other colored light, or you may see animals there that weren’t apparent in the physical world, or the weather may be different. You can make an entire meditation out of this exploration, too.
If you want to go a bit further, imagine you’re walking or otherwise moving around this twenty-foot circle of land you’re holding in your mind. See if the sensations you feel about the place shift as you explore. Do you feel a particularly strong pull toward a specific plant or animal? Do you find yourself wanting to look for water or wishing it might rain? Is there a path or place in the distance you want to explore more? Again, are there any significant differences between what you see in your visualization compared to how the place looks in the physical realm? Does your energy change at all as you explore?
If you feel comfortable, visualize yourself moving further out from that circle, wherever you feel drawn. Keep note of what you notice, what seems more apparent or interesting to you, and what makes this place different from the physical world, or whether they’re basically the same. Keep attention also on your sense of the place, the energy it has, and what effect that energy may have on you. If you notice a place where the energy suddenly shifts in character like you’ve crossed over a boundary, note where that is. You might even try following the boundary to see where it goes.
When you’re ready, return to the place you started; if you’re having a little trouble finding your way back, just remember what the place looks like and you should be brought back there. If you’re still a little lost, start wiggling your fingers and toes a bit—your body is still grounded in that starting place and that bit of movement should return you. Imagine your energy returning to your body, untangling from the place’s energy. Start to move a little more keeping your eyes closed; maybe stretch a little bit, rotate your shoulders, and other small movements. Then open your eyes, eat a little food and drink some water, and take a few moments to ground yourself in your body and the physical world again before recording what you experienced in your meditation.
You can certainly do this exercise again either in the same place or at another spot; if you noticed a boundary, you might go over to where you noticed it and start exploring that place both physically and spiritually.
The various stages of this meditation are good for simply connecting with a place as well. Just as we like to spend time with our friends with no real goal other than the enjoyment of each other’s company, it’s nice to be able to do this with the places we like as well.
Whatever combination of study, physical exploration, and meditation you choose, try to be as thorough as you can in learning about this biotope with the resources at hand. You don’t have to become the ultimate expert on a given biotope, but do give it your best. You might also find that your studies and explorations take you in other directions; maybe another biotope adjacent to the one you’re studying catches your attention or you find out about another place that draws you in even more. Leave yourself open to whatever options come up, and don’t try and overthink things. Learn, absorb, and see what happens from there.
Totemic Relationships
Now that you have a sense of the totems’ ecosystem, the next step in this whole process is what most people first ask: how do you find your totems? Before we get to the act of searching, a brief word about what “your totems” really means.
In my years of talking with others about totemism, I’ve sometimes encountered the idea that everyone has a set number of totems. Some people say every person only has one for their entire lives, others say two for balance, four for the cardinal directions, or even nine! In my experience, there’s no hard and fast limit in play here.
Consider the totemic ecosystem: while you may make a number of acquaintances in your study of a given place, you probably won’t connect with every single totem represented there. That’s okay—trust the ones you do connect with to help you find who and what you need at any given time (and when in doubt, ask).
Maybe you’re wondering why you can’t just collect a complete set. Think of relationships with totems as very similar to relationships with other spiritual beings—and indeed with beings in general, human included. Each relationship is its own entity, and just like you don’t stamp your friends into a BINGO card to make sure you win at life, you don’t need to try and acquire a certain totem for each direction, day of the week, and so forth. That being said, I’ve found three general categories into which relationships with totems may be sorted: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
• Primary totems are with you for your entire life, whether you know they’re there or not. They can have a very strong influence on you, and people who have one or more primary totems often identify very deeply with them. Primary totems are what a lot of people think about when talking about one’s totems. Gray Wolf is one of my primary totems; as I’ve talked about, this totem showed up when I was still very young and has been a strong influence on me ever since.
• Secondary totems enter our lives to help us through a particular period of time or teach us something new. They may bond very deeply with us during their work with us, but eventually the work is completed and they retreat from our lives, though they may drop in now and again to check in, and we can do the same. I was badly bullied throughout my childhood by my peers, and by junior high and high school it had gotten really awful. During those years, Gray Wolf stepped aside and let Domestic Horse take over. Horse showed me more about independence and creating an identity for myself, as well as giving me something to focus on besides my daily torment. Near the end of high school Horse said farewell, and Gray Wolf stepped in again. Horse and I still occasionally meet in passing in my meditations and such but we haven’t had the same closeness we did in my teen years.
• Tertiary totems are ones we contact for help with specific problems or to invite into a particular ritual or sacred space. Our relationships with them are strictly situational, and we go our separate ways once the task is complete. I asked Wolverine for help writing a totemic myth a few years ago featuring that totem as the central character, and while it worked out beautifully, it’s the only time we’ve ever worked together.
Don’t think you have to use these categories religiously. I won’t be referring to them much throughout the book, and I offer them more as a convenient organizational system to help you understand the relationships we have with totems can vary widely.
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Asha has been working with her totems for almost a decade. Her primary totem, Yellow Houseplant Mushroom, appeared to her in her very first meditation; she’d seen the physical fungi in her container garden for years but the totem wanted to introduce itself more properly. It’s taught her quite a lot over the years about taking opportunities as they arise and being content with what one has, both of which have helped her survive the sometimes lean economic conditions she has faced at times.
For a period of time, Swiss Cheese Vine, the totem of a tropical plant she was fond of, and whose pots seemed to be especially prone to mushroom outbreaks, acted as a secondary totem to Asha. It demonstrated the importance of interdependence with those around you, even if it isn’t always easy, and helped her get through a period where she lived with some difficult roommates she couldn’t afford to leave. While the totem itself moved on, Asha still keeps a few Swiss cheese vines in her houseplant collection.
At one point, her roommates’ late work schedules were so disruptive to her sleep that prior to having a discussion with them about the problem, she called on the totem Amethyst in a ritual one night to help her sleep better as well as Moonstone for peace and confidence. These tertiary totems were able to offer their energy in the ritual and conversation that ensued, but that was the extent of her work with them.
Finding Your Bioregional Totems
Now we get to the part that almost everyone wants to jump to first—figuring out who your totems are. There’s a good reason I spent the past three-and-a-half chapters talking about other things: finding your totem is not some miraculous event that suddenly answers all the questions you’ve had about “life, the universe, and everything.”11 Actually, finding them opens up a lot more questions, and having some context to work with can help once the floodgates open.
So far, I’ve also been preparing you for the actual search itself. I wrote earlier about a number of methods commonly offered for discovering the identity of your totems like dreams, animal sightings, and card decks with different creatures and other beings on each card—but that’s not what we’re going to be working with here. Instead, what I’ve been helping you do is familiarize yourself with the home of the totems of a given place, the totemic ecosystem. Why?
Familiarity with the land will always help you narrow down the possible totems you can work with. Every single species of living being, mineral, type of waterway, etc. has a corresponding totem—and that’s a lot of totems, by the way. By connecting yourself to a given biotope and its totemic ecosystem, you’ve significantly shrunk your options, which isn’t a bad thing. The process of finding a totem is less like picking out the perfect greeting card and more like turning a radio dial until you find a live signal: you’re not so much making a conscious choice as allowing the right connection to happen.
This method of finding a totem also serves as a good opportunity to get a feel for what exactly you have on the other end of the signal. Totems, as I mentioned, are great archetypal beings, not individual spirits. To me, the totem feels bigger. It’s like the difference between walking in a field of dandelions and through a stand of tall redwood trees—the presence is simply more.
You’ll have already done a lot of the groundwork necessary for working with your totems in a bioregional sense. As I mentioned earlier, many people have this idea that totems are disembodied beings floating around until someone calls on them. We know now this isn’t so, and a lot of the deeper work of totemism involves being familiar with the natural history and other traits of the totem’s physical counterparts and their habitat.
Bioregional totemism is ultimately about totemism for the purpose of connecting with the land and its denizens. It’s not only about what you can get from the totems or what great wisdom they can impart upon you. It’s about connections and relationships, and by showing the totems you’ve already learned something about their homes, you’ve demonstrated a certain amount of respect for what they hold dear.
You may be fortunate in that one or more totems native to your bioregion already made themselves known to you either during another exercise in this book, or even before you picked it up. In that case, you’re welcome to start doing some of the continuing work here with them if they’re open to it. If you don’t yet know any totems, it’s okay to be a little more proactive in making that first connection.
If we aren’t using cards or dreams to find totems, what are we going to use? More guided meditation. In this case we won’t be working with a completely prescripted exercise where the path is already laid out for you. Instead, it’s a framework in which you can get into the right mindset for meeting totems and communicating with them to determine whether they’d like to work with you. What happens during the meditation will be determined by you and any totems you may meet.
The meditation provided here is based on a structure I’ve been using for more than a decade, itself inspired by structures used by other practitioners for even longer. The words may be unique, but the concept is more or less the same.12 You’re going to enter into the totems’ realm, using the physical place you’re at as your “home base,” as it were.
Let’s talk safety. People have asked me whether it’s dangerous to go into the spirit realm at all, if animal totems could bite them or an angry mineral totem could curse them for accidentally kicking it. It’s reasonable to be concerned, and you should be fine with common sense, respect, and care. The totemic ecosystem isn’t very deep into the spirit realm; it’s more of a halfway point between the spiritual and physical, so you’re unlikely to get horribly lost or come back from your meditation feeling off-kilter. In nearly twenty years of totemic work, both my own and observing others’, I’ve yet to see a totem be outright hostile and aggressive toward a person for no good reason. This isn’t to say totems don’t ever get upset or angry, but in my experience the worst they’re likely to do (especially in this sort of meditation), is kick you back into our world and ignore you for a while (a long while, if need be). I haven’t seen any cases of angry totems cursing people or following them around and wreaking havoc on their lives poltergeist-style. Generally they have much bigger problems to deal with and would rather spend their time focusing on who they know can help them and will appreciate help in return than wasting time on getting revenge and punishing the disrespectful.
With that in mind, we continue to the meditation itself.
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Go to the place in which you’ve been most comfortable as you’ve been exploring your bioregion. (If you don’t think you know quite enough about it, spend a little more time researching and exploring it before attempting this meditation.) If for whatever reason you’re unable to go to that place, but you have a little piece of it like a rock, stick, or even a picture of it, do your meditation elsewhere with this symbolic item.13 Find a quiet place where you’re not likely to be disturbed or at least are out of the way of others.
If you would prefer to have someone with you, make sure it’s someone who understands what you’re doing and that you just want them to sit quietly with you to make sure nothing happens to you while you’re focusing on the meditation, and to make sure you eat and drink and ground once you’re done. While you’re meditating, the person is free to engage in some other quiet activity like drawing or reading nearby.
As before, make yourself comfortable and spend a few moments relaxing and focusing on your breathing, preferably with your eyes closed. Visualize the place you’re in, and feel yourself connect to it as you did before. Imagine your energy again weaving into the energy of the place, being one animal among many here. Through that energy, send out a call to the totems, announcing that you’re ready to learn more about them and their home and that you’re asking for a guide. You might even think something specific, like the following:
Beings of this place, guardians over those who grow and breathe, who flow and form, the solid earth beneath me and the air around me, who formed this place and inhabit this place: I am here with you.
Beings of this place, I have learned what I can of your home, from the knowledge of my people to what I have brought with my own senses physical and spiritual alike.
Beings of this place, I want to be more a part of it instead of merely walking on it; to remember who I am as a human animal and to be an ally to you and your kin.
Beings of this place, I need your help to do this, to learn and connect more, to be more aware and responsible, to be a better part of this community and give back to it for what I have been given.
Beings of this place, I ask for your help and for a guide.
Pause for a moment, and let this intention move outward from you. Then imagine walking or otherwise moving deeper into wherever you are. If you feel drawn in a specific direction, head that way. Be aware of anything that stands out to you—a particular landform or waterway; a fungus, plant, or animal and so on.
Ideally, a totem will make itself known to you. An animal totem may walk up to you, or a plant or stream may call out to you or shine with a bright light. You may feel especially drawn to a stone or rocky outcropping and start the conversation when you arrive. However it happens, it will be apparent that the totem is making an overture to you. Greet it and thank it for its time, then ask it why it has called to you. Let the conversation flow naturally; this is only your introduction. Take as much time as you like, too; there’s no deadline.
If you aren’t sure what to ask, here are a few potential questions:
• Why did you come to join me here?
• What makes this place special to you?
• What do you think are some of the most important things to know about this place?
• What can I do to help you and your children (physical counterparts) in this place?
• Are there other totems it might be good for me to talk to?
With regards to that last question, the totem you’re talking to may indeed introduce you to others in this meditation or recommend some to contact at another time. Even if not, you’ve made a good first introduction. When you and the totem are done talking, thank it for its time and then start heading back to where you began the meditation, again taking note of anything that catches your attention or seems out of the ordinary.
Resume movement slowly, starting with your fingers and toes. Do some stretching and open your eyes when you’re ready. As soon as possible afterward, record everything you can about the meditation; describing it to your companion may help as well.
Not everyone gets “perfect” results the first time, and that’s okay. Maybe a totem didn’t make contact with you or you might have been unsure if you were getting a signal. Sometimes a flash of wing from an unknown bird or a particularly shiny stone can be invitations from totems, but they can also be simply going about their business. If you aren’t sure, give yourself a few days to recover and then try the meditation again, this time specifically asking for that totem to please come speak with you. If they make themselves known, ask whether your first sighting was incidental or they were trying to get in touch with you.
If you didn’t get anything special the first time around or you had trouble staying focused on the meditation, don’t worry. It happens to lots of people, especially those who are new to guided meditation and visualization. Usually what helps is more practice. Or it may be that no totem from that place feels ready to work with you just yet, in which case you have a couple of options: keep spending time there to see if one eventually makes itself known, or try in another location. (Or you can do both, if you want to hedge your bets!)
Also, it’s possible you may be overlooking a totem. It’s easy for us to get really focused on the more obvious ones like animal and plant totems and particularly the big impressive ones like wolves and eagles and big, tall trees. The one you may really need to talk to, though, may be the totem of the soil itself, or a fungus living inside a dead log, or a tiny little spring hidden in the woods. And once we get further away from our own animal kin, the ways in which the totems communicate and see the world may seem quite alien to us, so we might not recognize it at first. Remember the multi-layered nature of land totems too. If you’re speaking to the totem of Soil, you may also find yourself talking with several fungus and mineral totems, which is why it’s important to leave yourself open to whatever may happen.
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Zach has spent the past couple of months getting to know a particular desert plateau near his home, doing research and hiking a couple of times a month to its top and exploring up there as well. He enjoys meditating next to a particularly large piece of sandstone shaped a little like a heart on its side. Mixed in with the sand are bits and pieces of other types of stone, something that’s always fascinated him. When he does his meditation to find a totem here, the totem Sandstone almost immediately grabs his attention. Sandstone tells Zach about the history of this place, how the stone itself was made of sediment laid down almost 250 million years ago, and the little pieces of other rocks were eroded remnants of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains that were created over 300 million years ago. Then Sandstone introduces Zach to other land totems, including Mountain and Wind Erosion, both of which have had a significant impact on this one piece of sandstone and the plateau as a whole. While Zach already knew the facts about this place, having these totems play out the story in his meditation makes it even more vivid, and it helps him further appreciate the dry beauty of the land here. Over time, Sandstone introduces him to other totems in the area, but Zach always maintains an especially fondness for those of the physical land itself.
Where To Next?
Once you’ve met your first bioregional totem, you have a couple of options on where you can go, assuming a clear path hasn’t already been indicated to you. You can ask the totem to introduce you to others if they haven’t already, or you can make a deeper study just of that one totem. Both of these will ultimately familiarize you more deeply with the biotope and corresponding totemic ecosystem you’re exploring, just from different angles. Do be aware that your first bioregional totem may have suggestions on which method is better for you; you may wish to go out and meet all the totems you can, but your first may recommend you work more deeply with it for a while before branching out to others. It’s best to listen to them unless you have a really compelling reason to do otherwise; they may have particular ways in which they want to teach you things or at least help you get more prepared for totemic work in general.
Yearlong Study, Party of One
Some people work best by having a single focus as an anchor and selectively moving out from there. If this describes you, one thing you may wish to consider is doing a year-long study of your initial bioregional totem (the one you have the strongest, best relationship with) and its physical counterparts.14 This will allow you to observe their place in the ecosystem throughout the seasons.
This exercise is similar to one I outlined in my earlier book, Plant and Fungus Totems, but broader and more focused on totemic relationships. Choose a location you can get to on a regular basis, at least once a month (more if possible) and in which you can find physical counterparts of your first bioregional totem. If your initial bioregional totem is Brown Trout, pick a lake where the trout live, or a stream or river where they travel to spawn even if they don’t inhabit that stream or river much of the year. Your goal is to understand the importance of that place to the totem and its species/type, as well as its interconnection with other beings and phenomena there. Make sure you take notes so you can compare them from month to month.
Try to go in a variety of weather conditions, not just when it’s sunny; if you can safely be there at night, try to do a couple of visits in the dark, too. Dress for the weather and be prepared to retreat to safety if the weather turns foul or you feel unsafe otherwise. You want to try to get a realistic perspective on what your totem’s children experience throughout the year, but not at the expense of your own health.
When you first arrive for a visit, see if you can find a physical representative of your totem. If your totem is a land totem, like a mineral or natural force, this may be pretty easy. An animal totem may make things more challenging; you may only find signs it’s been there, like prints or scat or shed skin. Still, do your best to make initial contact, if possible. Even if it doesn’t happen when you first get there, you may run into them later on in your visit.
Think some about the research you’ve already done about this place and perhaps some other questions you may have about it. What’s the history of your totem’s species or phenomenon in this place? How long has the species been living here? In the case of a land totem, when was its physical counterpart formed, and how has it changed since then? How have humans affected it both in the past and present?
Next, start exploring the area and notice how it may have changed since your last visit. How are the plants and fungi? How wet is the soil, and how high is the level of any nearby waterway? Is there any noticeable erosion of stones or other landforms? Is the temperature different? What’s the weather been like? Has there been an increase or decrease in human activity or development? What else do you notice about the place?
Now look at these same features from the perspective of your totem’s children. What are the most important things about this place to them? If you’re working with a biological totem, such as of a fungus or a plant, what do the plants or fungi need to survive and thrive here, and what threatens them? If you have a land totem instead, perhaps personified here as a rock formation or spring, are they at any risk of destruction through human or other means? What other beings rely on them, be they food, shelter, or other resources? What might be affected if your totem’s physical counterparts were no longer here? Try to map out all these interconnections just within the immediate place you are, perhaps within a hundred-yard radius.
Take some time to meditate with your totem here in this place. It’s a good opportunity to check in with it not only about what you’ve been learning, but also to ask what you can do to help, particularly if the place or its inhabitants are threatened in any way. And if you’ve been wanting to do any rituals with the totem (more about that in the next chapter) you can take advantage of their physical proximity here.
It’s also fine to spend some time simply relaxing, whether hiking, having a picnic, or sitting and enjoying the day. You’re welcome to share this activity with other people so long as you’re allowed some time for your individual spiritual work. While you’re out, pick up any garbage you may find. If you see any new graffiti or a source of pollution, contact whoever manages the place, whether that’s a park service, private owners, etc.
Once you’re back home, take some time to review this month’s results with previous visits. What differences have you noticed, and what’s remained more or less the same? If your totem is a land totem, these factors may still be important to the beings that rely on its physical counterpart. After the first year is done, you’ll have a pretty good picture of what your totem’s “calendar” is like; it’s something you may wish to incorporate into the sort of ritual work I’ll be talking about in the next chapter.
Even after the initial year is up, you can still keep visiting the place and taking notes; it’s just a good idea to get at least one full cycle of seasons in so you can see how the relationships shift and change as the year rolls on. Moreover, if you keep this up over several years you may notice some larger trends—for example, what happens if your area is hit by a drought, or especially cold weather? How do your totem’s children and other parts of that place respond compared with other years? What adaptations have they made to get through these changes? You could potentially make a lifelong study of this one place and learn quite a bit from it.
You’re going to get a much better idea of your totem’s relationship to this place over time as well as how its physical counterparts are integral to it. It’ll also help you better understand why your totem may be trying to teach you particular things and why those lessons are important to both of you.
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Val’s first bioregional totem is Pond; the biotope she has connected most strongly with has a kettle pond at its center, created by glacial activity thousands of years ago. Each month on the day (or sometimes evening) of the full moon, she visits this pond, sitting by its shoreline and watching the activity around it. She makes note of the various living beings that make this pond and its surrounding woods a home, and she notices how the waterline recedes as summer carries on, then refills with autumn rains. On clear days she can see the bottom of the shallow pond, and she wonders how many of the stones that lay beneath the water were left there by glaciers. On a particularly cold day in November, she imagines what this place must have looked like with hundreds, if not thousands, of feet of ice over it right where she sits. Each time she meditates with Pond, telling the totem her observations and listening as Pond gives her ideas for further exploration. To mark the completion of a successful year, Val invites a small group of friends to this special place and tells them about all she’s learned. She also talks about how the pond is threatened by development nearby as well as garbage from other visitors. They decide to contact a local environmental nonprofit about how they can better protect the pond and its inhabitants, and as they leave to start on this task, Val silently sends a quiet prayer to Pond asking for help in this new endeavor.
Social Butterfly Totem
Others may wish to branch out immediately, making several totemic acquaintances, as it were. For those of you who prefer this strategy, you’re going to be not only looking at the other totems connected to that first one you met in your meditation/etc., but you’re going to more actively work with them rather than having your initial totem as your main point of contact.
You’ll probably find that these connections happen pretty organically. If your initial totem is of an herbivorous animal, it’s easy to see their relationships with the totems of the plants and fungi the animals eat, and of the landforms that give them water and shelter. That doesn’t mean you’ll be best buddies with every single one of these totems; some may be very interested in meeting you, while others may be indifferent. If the latter ends up being your case, don’t try to force the issue; let them be unless they decide to approach you later, or unless another totem more formally introduces you to them.
Assuming other totems haven’t already approached you, the best way to get started with this is to ask your initial totem for suggestions. You might ask which ones are the most important to them or which they think are the best ones for you to meet. Ask if they’re willing to make introductions for you; you can also use the guided meditation to go talk to these other totems yourself.
If you want to be a little more methodical about it, you might try starting with totems that have specific types of interdependencies with your initial totem, such as totems whose counterparts rely on each other for food or shelter. If your initial totem is Cave, you could start with the totems of all the living beings that use caves in your bioregion as shelter and places to find food. You might then move deeper into the caves and meet with Stalactite and Stalagmite, as well as Condensation, and the totems of Limestone and other minerals found there. Don’t be concerned if other totems outside of this structure approach you in the meantime; work with them along with the rest.
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Cherie is new to totemism but has already taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. For her, it’s opened up an entirely new way to look at the world around her, a world she admittedly had taken somewhat for granted. So when she meets Sandhill Crane, her first bioregional totem in guided meditation, she’s eager to “meet the whole family” as it were. She asks Sandhill Crane to introduce her to other totems in the bioregion that may be worth meeting. Over the next several months, Sandhill Crane introduces her to the totems of some species of animals and plants cranes feed on in addition to the water and other land totems that protect the places in Florida where Cherie’s nearest population of sandhill cranes live. She also spends time near waterways where the cranes themselves may be found, studying their habitats and watching their behavior when they’re nearby. In this way she gains a greater understanding of this special place and her own connection to it.
Somewhere in the Middle
You don’t have to stick to one or the other of these methods religiously. It’s common for people who do a yearlong study with one totem to also make connections with others over that time. However, they may not pursue these relationships as vigorously as the totemic social butterfly. Conversely, if you’ve been making the effort to try and make acquaintances with all the totems in a given ecosystem, you may find that there’s one you especially feel drawn to, perhaps even more than the first one you met. That may be the one that helps you into a deeper understanding of the totemic ecosystem, the corresponding biotope, and the lessons to be learned from it.
What’s most important is that you go at your own pace. There’s not much point to a spiritual practice if it makes you utterly miserable and you aren’t getting anything out of it. There’s something to be said for challenges but not if they’re counterproductive. So if you find something’s just not working for you, step back and figure out what’s causing the problem. Examine your options and change as needed.
What Do You Mean By “Work With?”
Throughout this book, I talk about “working with” totems. What does that mean exactly? Here are a few ways I’ve worked with mine over the years:
• Spending time learning as much as I can about them and their children as well as adopting some of their behaviors and traits to better understand them and to improve my own life.
• Regular conversations with them through meditation and other means, so I may learn more from them, answer any needs they may have of me, and in many cases simply enjoy each other’s company.
• Spending time in the places where the totems may be found, not necessarily for any deep spiritual work but simply visiting for its own sake. Some of my most formative spiritual experiences have occurred when hiking or camping.
• Creating small shrines and other sacred spaces in my home for the totems to “live” in, sort of like spiritual guest rooms. This is a way to demonstrate their importance in my life and show them that they’re always welcome here.
• Performing rituals for a variety of purposes: honoring the totems and thanking them for their help, celebrating nature in general or of a specific place, working magic on behalf of the totems and their physical counterparts, asking the totems for healing or other energy when I need it, and mourning the loss of sacred spaces or species destroyed.15
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In the next chapter, I’ll go into more detail into some of these practices.
10. During the writing of this book, I was trying to explain to other people what I was writing about. When it came to the overlapping nature of land and place totems, I described it as “the unholy love child of Russian nesting dolls and Venn diagrams.”
11. From the incomparable Douglas Adams, of course.
12. If you’d like to read a little more about how and why guided meditations of this sort work, I wrote up a blog post about it a few years ago at http://therioshamanism.com/2011/10/11/deconstructing-the-totemic-guided-meditation/.
13. The next chapter addresses ways to create a special object linked to this land without taking anything from it.
14. Note that I didn’t say “primary” here, but “initial” or “first” instead. Just because a totem is the first one to approach you doesn’t mean it’ll be a primary, as described earlier.
15. While I do include a small number of rituals in this book, for the most part I am leaving it up to you to create your own. If you don’t have a lot of experience with ritual work, I highly recommend Elizabeth Barrette’s book Composing Magic: How To Create Magical Spells, Rituals, Blessings, Chants, and Prayers.