Relations to animals are frequently associated with the complex phenomenon of totemism. It expresses the belief that there is a connection between man and animals. The relationship to the totem occurs in a variety of forms. Animals are invested with powerful spiritual and magical significance; they have much to teach us as our spiritual companions.

summer night

with croaking frogs

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Animals are a source of knowledge for the individual. To these tradition, other motifs may be related, such as the birth of various individuals from intercourse between humans and animals; the animal wife; animal nurses; or the ability of shamans and dream doctors to understand or converse with animals or plants. Shamans invoke animal spirits to help them with ceremonies and rites of passage. Imaginary beasts and mythical creatures as fabulous dragons, griffins, guardian snakes and unicorns, appear world-wide in myths as pure symbols of supernatural power, symbolising the worlds of spirits and upper energy. Tribal shamans of ancient clans and tribes adopted animals as powerful totems and magical partners. There are even omens connected with birds. That divination has its own name: ornithomancy.

I share in the flow of desert life; I hear the sounds of earth time. I offer a bowl concert to a single, motionless and attentive cottontail rabbit between the crimson red rocks of Canyon lands in Utah...