Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Want to learn how to speak the language of critters, large and small? Easy-to-read and understand, Ted Andrews's bestselling Animal Speak shows readers how to identify his or her animal totem and learn how to invoke its energy and use it for personal growth and inner discovery. Nature lovers will love this insightful compendium, chock-full of touching stories about animals, natural history, and animal folklore. Readers will also learn magical animal rites and how to read omens. Animal Speak includes a dictionary of bird, animal, reptile, and insect totems, which describe each creature's meaning. For example, if a person's totem is dragonfly, he or she was most likely excessively emotional and passionate in early years, learning with age to balance it with mental clarity and control. If a dragonfly suddenly shows up in your life, it means you may need to gain a new perspective or make a change. --P. Randall Cohan

Product Description
Open your heart and mind to the wisdom of the animal world.

Animal Speak provides techniques for recognizing and interpreting the signs and omens of nature. Meet and work with animals as totems and spirits by learning the language of their behaviors within the physical world.

Animal Speak shows you how to: identify, meet, and attune to your spirit animals; discover the power and spiritual significance of more than 100 different animals, birds, insects, and reptiles; call upon the protective powers of your animal totem; and create and use five magical animal rites, including shapeshifting and sacred dance.

This bestselling guide has become a classic reference for anyone wishing to forge a spiritual connection with the majesty and mystery of the animal world.



From the Publisher
Every day I sit in front of my computer. I'm surrounded by technology in every room of the house. I started to read Ted Andrew's Animal-Speak, but then stopped. I went outside and listened to the birds and insects and animals as I continued reading. I realized that, indeed, when we isolate ourselves from nature we are actually separating ourselves from reality.
So this is truly a book that changed me. I try to get outside every pleasant day. And when I do, I think of what I learned in this book. I'm more attuned to the animals and they seem to share their secrets with me. Secrets of peaceful living and secrets of self-empowerment. Secrets of spirituality and secrets of magic!
And the great thing is that with the guidance in this book I'm never limited. As you'll discover, there is animal after animal in this book that you can learn about and to which you can attune. Perhaps a lizard one day and a cat the next. Or perhaps you might find the power of the loon (who helps with lucid dreaming) to be just what you need.
One exercise I've found very useful is the technique used to call your spirit animal. You mediate on the animal and do simple visualizations, imagining it standing before you or drawing close to you. Eventually, you visualize it merging into you, feeling its energies as strong and vital. After spending just five minutes like this you will be more awake, aware and alert. Amazing!
This is one of those great books where there is a tremendous amount of information that can quickly and easily be put to good use. You can pick this book up anywhere, read a page or two, and find that you have something new to contemplate and put into practice.
I know you'll find this book as practical and useful as I have.






About the Author
Ted Andrews is a full-time author, student, and teacher in the metaphysical and spiritual fields. He conducts seminars, symposiums, workshops, and lectures throughout the country on many facets of ancient mysticism, focusing on translating esoteric material to make it comprehensible and practical for everyone. This includes resynthesizing ancient scriptures, literature, and teachings for use by the modern spiritual student.

Ted is certified in basic hypnosis and acupressure, and is involved in the study and use of herbs as an alternative path in health care. He is active in the holistic healing field, focusing strongly on esoteric forms of healing with sound, music, and voice. Trained in piano, Ted also employs the use of the Celtic harp, bamboo flute, shaman rattles, Tibetan bells, Tibetan Singing Bowl, and quartz crystal bowls to create individual healing therapies and induce higher states of consciousness. Ted is a clairvoyant and also works with past-life analysis, aura interpretation, dreams, numerology, and Tarot.

Andrews is the author of The Healer's Manual; Animal-Speak, How to See & Read the Aura; Dream Alchemy; Crystal Balls & Crystal Bowls; How to Develop & Use Psychic Touch; How to Heal with Color; Sacred Sounds; Magickal Dance; and many other titles.



Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SPIRITUAL AND MAGICAL ROLES OF NATURE

There was a time when humanity recognized itself as part of nature, and nature as part of itself. Dreaming and waking were inseparable realities; the natural and the supernatural merged and blended. People used images of nature to express this unity and to instill a transpersonal kind of experience.

In the past shamans, priests, and priestesses were the keepers of the sacred
knowledge of life. These individuals were tied to the rhythms and forces of nature.
They were capable of walking the threads that link the invisible and visible worlds.
They helped people remember that all trees are divine and that all animals speak to those who listen.

The early priest/ess-magicians would adopt the guise of animals—wearing
skins and masks—to symbolize a reawakening and endowing of oneself with specific energies. They performed rituals in accordance with the natural rhythms of the seasons to awaken greater fertility and life. To them, every species and every aspect of its environment had the power to remind them of what they could manifest within their own life. It was an aid to bridge the natural world to the supernatural, awakening the realities of both within the environs of their own lives.

Though these rituals and behaviors may seem primitive and even silly to the
rational minds of modern society, they are no less powerful today. And the laws
which govern them—physical and spiritual—are no less viable. Different societies
expressed these laws in their own unique ways, but probably the most distinctly
expressed is the ancient Hermetic Law of Correspondence: "As above, so below; as below, so above."2

This principle teaches that all things are connected and have significance. We
cannot separate the physical from the spiritual, the visible from the invisible. "This
Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox and the hidden secret of Nature. . . . The ancient Hermeticists considered this principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown . . . (it) enables man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown."3

It is for this reason that a study of Nature Totems is essential for understanding
how the spiritual is manifesting within our natural life. A totem is any natural
object, being, or animal to whose phenomena and energy we feel closely associated with during our life.

We can use animal imagery and other nature totem images as a way to learn
about ourselves and the invisible world. We do not have to believe that these
images and totems are beings of great intelligence, but there are archetypal powers that reside behind and oversee all manifestations in Nature. These archetypes have their own qualities and characteristics which are reflected through the behaviors and activities of animals and other expressions of Nature.
When we pay attention to and acknowledge a nature totem, we are honoring
the essence that lies behind it. We are opening up and attuning to that essence. We can then use it to understand our own life circumstances more clearly. We can share in its power or "medicine." Nature totems—especially animals—are symbols of specific kinds of energy we are manifesting and aligning with in our life. The animal becomes a symbol of a specific force of the invisible, spiritual realm manifesting within our own life. The characteristics and activities of these totems will reveal much about our own innate powers and abilities. By studying the totem and then learning to merge with it, we are able to call upon its archetypal energy whenever needed.

Terrestrial animals have always had a strong symbology associated with them.

They have represented the emotional side of life, often reflecting qualities that must be overcome, controlled, and/or re-expressed. They are also symbols of
power—powers associated with the invisible realm that we can learn to manifest
within the visible.

Birds have often been considered the symbols of the soul. Their ability to fly
reflects the ability within us to rise to new awareness, bridging the earth and the
heavens. As totems, birds each have their own peculiar characteristics, but they can all be used to stimulate greater flights of hope, inspiration and ideas.
Aquatic life can also be a totem. Water is an ancient symbol of the astral plane
and the creative element of life. Various fish and other forms of aquatic life sym-
bolize guidance to specific expressions of intuition and creative imagination. They
can reflect the feminine side of our essence.

2 Three Initiates, The Kybalion (Chicago: The Yogi Publication Society, 1940), p. 28.

3 The Kybalion, Ibid., pp. 29-30.

The Masked Sorceror

A prevalent symbol associated with Shamanism, its image is taken from a prehistoric cave painting. Early man, surrounded by mysterious forces, responded to them through imitation.

Man attempted to bring the divine in accord with humanity. Priests used totems and images to assist in coming face to face with the mystery. Through dance, costume, and so forth, the priest or priestess would take complete identity with the deity and its powers. This is the symbol of the prophet, medicine person, and the manifestation of the powers of nature.

Images such as this invoke a presence which helps one to transcend the physical. Wearing the skins of the animals was a means of appeasing its spirit and honoring its power.

Insects are also a part of Nature, and they can be totems for us as well. From the
bee of fertility in Egyptian myths, to the Mantis of the African Bushmen, to the many tales of the Spider Woman who created the universe, they hold a dynamic place within the spiritual scheme of Nature.

By studying and reading about the animals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, etc., you
encounter in your life, you can understand more about the circumstances you also
encounter. You can learn much about the kind of energies you are most likely to
confront and those you are most able to manifest within your own day-to-day life
circumstances. You will learn how to draw upon those energies most effectively in
dealing with life situations.

Nature has bestowed upon its inhabitants a natural ability for adaptation. This
enables the animal to live in a particular place in a particular way. There are both
physical and behavioral adaptations. A common example is the manner in which
some animals may adapt to the cold, either through growing thicker fur or even
migrating.

An animal such as a mountain goat has a dynamic adaptive ability for sur-
viving in its mountain environment. Its feet are developed in such a manner that
they can grip more strongly and securely. It also has more red blood cells, which
assists it in surviving the colder temperatures in the mountains. By learning how
our totems adapt to survive can assist us with our own lives by applying those same principles to our life circumstances.

This book’s purpose is five-fold:

1. It will help you to determine your Nature totems.

2. It will help you in learning how to honor, attune, and invoke their
energies more effectively into your life.

3. It will assist you in discovering the hidden powers and significance of your-
self, as is reflected by your totem.

4. It will help you in applying the skills and adaptive powers of your totem to
your own life environment.

5. It will help you to learn the language of Nature (physical, spiritual, and
magical) as it speaks to you every day, to read and apply what it says (through signs and omens), and in doing so help you to develop a greater reverence and respect for all life, and greater power and control in your own.

The true shaman, the true naturalist, works to reconnect conscious human life
with Nature and Spirit through totems and ritual. The images of the animals and
the expressions of Nature help us to transcend our normal, waking consciousness so that we can more easily attune to ethereal realms and beings. The first step begins with realizing that all vision and imagery, originating in Nature or the inner mind, has validity on some level.

The Symbolism of Animal Totems

Characteristics and activities of these specific animal forms and images will reveal much about our own innate powers and abilities.

What gets most of us into trouble is interpreting what is seen in the mind or in Nature itself. Reading, studying, and learning about what you see and experience is what will facilitate relating them to yourselves. Don’t accept Nature totems without question. Put them through the verification process that you will learn later in this book.

Don’t discard a totem simply because it may not seem glamorous or as powerful
as your ego wanted. The totem may be quite appropriate for empowering your life.

Sometimes it is only through study and exploration of the specific totem that its significance will become clear. Remember that searching out the significance of Nature’s expression to you is a way of honoring it.

Humanity has lost that instinctive tie to the rhythms and patterns of Nature,
and with that loss has come a loss of the reality of magic. Nature tries to show us
everyday that all forms of life can teach us. As we learn to listen to Nature, we break down our outworn perceptions. We find that magical creation is the force of life inherent in all things. And it is this, above all else, that Nature teaches to those who will learn from Her.