In 1996 I was a student at the University of Arizona. As a part of my Musical Theatre Major one of the art requirements I needed for my degree was fulfilled by a brilliant class titled Human Movement in the Arts which was taught by Dr. John Wilson. During one section we were introduced to the practice of “totemism” in a religious societal context. Totemism is defined as a human belief construct where a human group identifies as having kinship with non-human animals or in some cases plants. After the fascinating lecture, Dr. Wilson mentioned that he had been introduced to a New Age form of totemism that he described as the Personal Totem Pole. As he explained it, the Personal Totem Pole blended the indigenous practice of totemism with the eastern construct of the chakras system. In a guided meditation, you met an animal (what I later defined as a Spirit Animal) which was associated with each of the seven main chakras. The animals would sometimes speak and often would give insightful messages. Dr. Wilson offered to arrange for an extracurricular workshop for students who were interested. Dr. Wilson was one of my favorite professors, and this had been one of my favorite lectures, so of course I was going to attend.
The meditation was simple: my fellow students and I were to lie down and be comfortable, close our eyes, and breathe deep. Once that was achieved, in our minds’ eyes we were to go to what the guest lecturer called a Temenos – a safe and sacred space. We were then invited to wait for an animal in this space. If one appeared we were to ask three questions. The first, “What is your name?” The second, “What is your message for me?” And the final question, “Will you come again if I call?”
I had a very powerful experience. I had never been exposed to meditation before this day in 1996. I was so completely in awe of this experience that the animals and meditating with them became the beginning of my spiritual path. My seven chakra animals became my primary spiritual connection. While I do worship The Goddess Diana and the Goddess Persephone now, my Spirit Animals remain as a cornerstone of my spiritual life and devotion. I now have an alter dedicated just to them.
My Animal Alter which I share with my son
Decades later I was determined to find the source of the Personal Totem Pole that continues to be such a source of strength for me. I learned that the Personal Totem Pole was envisioned by
Dr. Eligio Stephen Gallegos during the course of his innovative and imaginative work in psychotherapy. It would seem that Dr. Gallegos pulled elements from Eastern, Western and Ancient religious practices and combined them with his training of Psychotherapy. The chakras were first discussed in India, although similar energetic vortexes of power have been discussed throughout the ages in the Chinese culture and also some Native American cultures. There was also the discovery of
Otzi, the 5,300 year old Iceman found near the border of Austria that had extensive tattoos of what appeared uncannily similar to the Chinese meridian system; which suggests an ancient Western culture might have been making use of an energetic body belief structure as well. The word Tamenos is Greek and is generally said to mean a piece of land - a sacred grove or precinct of the king. And the iconic Totem Pole is indigenous to the Tlingit Native American Tribe. The blending of cultures is the very definition of modern New Age Spirituality. It would seem though, that Dr. Gallegos utilizes the Personal Totem Pole more in a therapeutic context rather than spiritual. While my personal journey with the animals of the chakras was a catalyst for personal growth and inner discovery, for me it touched something deeper than my psyche – for me, it reached the depths of my soul.
I was born and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona which is the home to the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain range that is sacred to the Native American Hopi tribe. Despite a commercial ski resort taking residence there, it is a most holy place. Though I am not Native American, I grew up surrounded by this ancient culture. After I earned my driver’s license, when I was feeling restless or lost I would drive up the mountain to a place called Hart Prairie, where I would sit on a boulder and watch the Arizona sun set. This was the first Tamenos I chose for the Personal Totem Pole journey.
In my Tamenos, the first animal that came to me in Muldahara, the root chakra, was an owl – a gigantic great horned owl, with a wing span of at least six feet. When I asked his name he puffed out his chest and shook his head and all of his feathers making a strange guttural sound I have difficulty replicating. As best as I can offer, he addressed himself as Urru. He perched on a branch of a tree and leaned in so close to my face that his beak nearly touched my nose.
“
Who are you?” he asked me in cliché owl-like fashion. He did not mean simply my name.
I am a very stubborn person, and I like things to fall into neat ordered packages. So as I continued on my Personal Totem Pole journey, I was very determined to meet animals that belonged on the San Francisco Peaks where I had chosen to be. An animal came out of a bunch of aspens and I decided that it was a deer because that would make sense (and that would be a nice and tidy package). But as the poor thing wobbled out it started stretching like silly putty. Its eyes bulged and shrank, with its snout doing the same - then like a chewing gum bubble bursting, it “popped” into a kangaroo of all things. Her name was Outla.
“
Have fun and don’t be so grumpy all the time,” she said. Sage advice of which I still need reminding.
Outla was also pretty firm about something else. When I asked her if she would come again if I called she answered
no. She would only come if I called her to share my joy with her. I did not know it at the time but the Sanskrit meaning of lower abdomen chakra, Svadhisthana, is sweetness. Outla wanted that for me and she wanted to savor that delight with me.
Since kangaroos have no business in Arizona mountains, my stubborn brain simply started changing the location of the Tamenos to accommodate more animals. So instead of the peaks, my spiritual journey continued by suddenly changing to my tiny studio apartment where I lived in Tucson at the time of this journey. Only in my mind’s eye, a sleek black tomcat was meowing at the door. When I opened it he just strolled right on in like he was the king of the castle.
“
Got milk?” he said.
I retrieved some milk from the refrigerator and dutifully followed the instructions of the guest lecturer to ask my questions. “What is your name?” I asked this cat.
“
I have one, but I’m not going to tell you what it is,” he said, lapping up the milk. “
You can call me Trickster for now.”
When I proceeded with the next question he transformed into a vicious panther who leapt on top of me and pinned me to the ground with one massive paw. “
You are afraid of the dark,” he said. “
You must find out why. Search your soul.”
The solar plexus chakra is called Manipura and is known to be a power house of energy. I have always thought it interesting that my particular battery seems to be fear.
He laughed when I asked him if he would return to me if I called to him. “
If you dare,” he said.
The next animal of the heart chakra, Anahata, took me back to my childhood home in Flagstaff, Arizona. We had a maple tree in the front yard there. In my journey a little chipmunk was sitting in the branches. “
My name is Ree, like Yes-sir-ee!” He said. This little guy was pretty excited. The only thing that I got out of him after his cute introduction was “
Gift! Gift! Gift!”
After that, my location changed again (I’m more than a little stubborn and perhaps more than a little fickle). While exploring the throat chakra, Vishuddha, I didn’t recognize the place as somewhere I had been nor have been to anything even remotely like it since this journey - except to go there in my mind. I was in a pool of water, in the water itself, under the surface. I felt calm and safe and perhaps able to breathe, or just sure of myself that I had enough air to relax. An animal came up underneath me and took me for a ride on its back. It felt like we were dancing together under the water. The being was as large as myself, so I had difficulty figuring out what it was. It was not a crocodile, it had lovely soft fur. Then a feeling of delight and joy flooded through me. This was an otter. A giant otter! I thought this was a being of my imagination, but it just so happens Giant River Otters in South American can reach up to six feet.
His name was Sampson and he told me, “
Something must be done.”
I didn’t think I had any affinity with otters, but I just adore them after meeting Sampson. He kissed me before we said goodbye. I could even feel his whiskers tickle my cheeks.
When I continued my journey I climbed out of Sampson’s pool. It was surrounded by a rock wall and I began to climb. I climbed some more. It resembled a place I had once gone rock climbing with the roommate I had had my sophomore year, but it was different. I was climbing a very long way into the sky. Finally when I reached a plateau, I was greeted by a large gray wolf. There were pups roaming about and when I sat down to rest from my climb the pups scampered up to me and wanted to sit in my lap. But the Alpha male who had greeted me silently when I had arrived, took each pup out of my lap.
He was The Watcher and his message was “
Focus.”
The Watcher let me know that he was not at my beck and call. He would appear when I least expected him. Anja, the third eye chakra is the gateway to wisdom. The Watcher insists that
focus is my pathway there.
My journey circled back around to where I had begun. I found myself in my first chosen Tamenos again, sitting on my rock in Harts Prairie on the San Francisco Peaks. I was watching the sunset waiting for my final animal, the animal of the crown chakra, Sahasrara. Then I realized that there was something in the sky. It was flying…no…it was moving in a looping pattern, with a long serpentine tail. It was deep red in color…and…were those scales?
“Absolutely not!” my mind snapped. I would not under any circumstances accept an animal that did not exist! “There are no such things as dragons!”
The thing then fell from the sky and dropped it front of me. A misty circle formed around it as the thing shimmered inside. Finally a green and gold cobra emerged as if from a cocoon. It was three times the size of myself, and when it lifted its head, it moved gracefully from side to side at least a foot above my own. This form might have been a little more realistic, but my profound dislike of snakes made it extremely difficult for me to stay within the journey.
“
I am Sirke,” she said. “
We are the most connected of all.”
For the final part of the journey we were giving one more task. I took the guest lecturer’s instruction quite literally and in my mind I began gathering wood and built a bonfire as the sun went down in my Tamenos. But the task was actually to call to the animals, to gather them all together for a formal parting and to give them thanks for their messages. Sirke, Trickster and The Watcher sat together. Urru was sitting in his tree. Ree had scampered up my arm to sit on my shoulder while Sampson sat next to me on my right. Outla had decided to attend but she sat by herself apart from all the others.
I have never forgotten this journey, as I said, it became a cornerstone of my spiritual practice. I continue to ponder the messages of my Spirit Animals and I meditate and dream with them often. Part of the reason the experience was so powerful for me was the realization that these animals were clearly a part of me. I believed without a shadow of a doubt that they were my guardians from the day of my birth and that they would have been with me anyway, regardless of whether I happened upon the work of Dr. Wilson or Dr. Gallegos. I knew it because I had dreamed of The Watcher years before my Personal Totem Pole journey.
As I was processing my journey, I suddenly had a flashback to high school. I was in my dreaded English class; dreaded because it was so dreadfully boring. It was the day after Halloween and I was exhausted from the night before. I had been out late with my dear friend John, we had dressed in costume and had been accosting trick-or-treaters with toothbrushes. I thought it was hilariously funny and well worth losing sleep for school. The dry English teacher had put on some film about linguistics and I had drifted off in sleep. I had dreamed that I was walking in an alley. A gate swung open and there was a large gray wolf. It bared his teeth and snarled. In the dream I was paralyzed with terror as the beast leapt from the gate and tackled me. Before it could devour me, I woke up and slammed my hands on my desk, startling the whole of the English class. The Watcher was already reminding me to focus when I was sixteen year old. He was with me. He was real.
One of my animals made a point to show me just how “real” they all were. Two years later after Dr. Wilson’s extracurricular lecture, Urru manifested in feather and flesh for me. I was visiting my parents after my graduation from the University of Arizona, and I had driven to Hart Prairie and was sitting on my rock watching the sun set. I was contemplating leaving Arizona to move to Chicago. It was a big risk, I knew absolutely no one there, and I would be leaving my family for the unknown. There was more, I had met someone; someone I believed was my soul mate. This person would not come with me to Chicago, so I had to choose.
I took a breath of the crisp mountain air and I asked of this sacred place, “Should I go to Chicago?”
And then, Urru (who I originally believed to be too big to be real) swooped down from the aspens but mere feet in front of me. This owl was so huge, he could have chosen me for his dinner! I had my sign. It was Urru, asking his question again, “
Who are you?”
My destiny and my future self was waiting in Chicago. I have a tattoo in a very typical place on the small of my back, not too far from the root chakra, Muldahara. It is of a great horned owl in hunting flight. It reminds me to remember Urru’s question and urges me to seek my destiny.
There were other manifestations of the realness and the truth of my experience. Both Dr. Wilson and the guest lecturer were delighted when I related to them my meeting with Trickster. A totem pole created by the Tlingit tribe nearly always has a Trickster spirit in residence. Mine had just clearly articulated who he was. We had not discussed the individual animal totems on the Tlingit totem poles in Dr. Wilson’s lecture nor had we discussed their roles or the significance of their positions. I had no prior knowledge of the significance of the totem pole trickster – and yet I had a Trickster Spirit.
My Spirit Animal’s messages are still so significant in the present life I am living right now. I had no idea what to make of my chimpmunk Ree’s message at the time of my journey but I think I know now. Anahata, the heart chakra, is the source of not only compassion and love, but joy as well. Especially in these recent winter months, I have been receiving the message over and over again to follow my own heart. I put aside the skills and gifts I was given in an attempt to secure my future. I think Ree was trying very hard to tell me that were I to share my gifts, my future would be not only sure but joyful as well.
And speaking of putting aside those gifts, I had a dream several years ago, after I had moved to Chicago. A terrible man was beating a Giant Otter and the beautiful creature was in terrible pain. I wonder now if Samson was trying to remind me of his message. The Throat Chakra, Vishuddha, is the seat of communication – of voice – and at the time of the dream, I had stopped singing.
1996 was a very long time ago. I have had a large portion of time to consider Sirke and her message. Not long after my Personal Totem pole journey I was working on a college paper inside the studio apartment I had then in 1996. My mind was wandering from my work so I took a break and I looked around the whole of the room. Two crystal dragons, gifts from two different people dangled in the window. A card I got in the mail was posted on the refrigerator because I loved the picture of the flaming red dragon. A journal was lying on my desk. It was embossed with a dragon - a gift from a friend.
“
I saw this and thought of you,” was what they had all said when they had given me those dragons.
I knew then Sirke’s true form. What does it mean to be connected to a dragon? Because whether I like it or not, Dragon she is. I wonder if our connection means that I am an imaginative person, or perhaps my head is too far in the clouds. Or perhaps I am more ferocious and capable than I think…or perhaps all of the above. I have continued my journey with her and the others since 1996. Messages are simply the starting point, there is always more knowledge to follow after a message and I am still learning and journeying.
For More information on The Personal Totem Pole Journey:
Visit the
Website of Dr. Eligio Stephen Gallegos
You can also read about his work in psychotherapy with this technique:
The Personal Totem Pole,
Animals of the Four Windows, and
Into Wholeness: The Path of Deep Imagery
For more resources on Animal Spirit Guides:
I highly recommend
Animal Speak by Ted Andrews
