Turtle Heart Animal Medicine

Look at these animal teachers>

Animals Tribal Sacred

Animals Within the American Indian tribal Sacred :
Raw Field Notes for ZOOM discussion Group :

Modern people have so little contact with animals, as in none.

So in context what value could there be in talking about spirit animals

And related issues.

If you look behind you, you can see your ancestors. The same is true in that if you look behind you tiny can see your animals.

Animals

 My name is TURTLE Heart. If we look for Turtle stories, all around teh world, we discover the historic power of animal stories…stories that have all but disappeared. The Turtle among the Ojibwe is very specially related to women, to the wetness of the earth, and to the idea of protection, protection by intervention ahead of time….(the Bear is concerned with protection in the military sense, fo example)

Aki-Miikana and Gichi-manidoo onaabani-giizis

The Wilding, a film and  it is a remarkable story of animals reverting to nature and a free life who were once farm animals.

Worlds largest Mammal Migration, Southern Sudan

Eagle Cam Link : Mojave Desert California

Friends Of Big Bear 

Opening….

We can imagine for a moment that in the ancient ages when these teachings came to human beings,,,,there agents and contacts were nature. No machines. No wheels, no metal tools, no highways or internet or any way other than face to face to communicate…except those agents of nature were their instruments. Tribes shared these instruments. There was ceremonial devices that could be worn that would tell another tribe far away that this person was of a certain clan, a partner to the animals clans, members of same clans could recognize each other, and each other’s ceremonies even if they did not share language, food or cultural habits. This ingenious and astonishing indigenous process has rarely been given the attention or understanding that it deserves. Western cultures traded all those agents of knowledge for writings, and wheels, and machines and a pragmatic materialism that ignores nature in almost every way.

Internet has brought lovers together, many kinds of relationships. There are so many animals on the internet and there is some redemption there for all of us that there are so many and that they are so poplar.

The Heart Line…..alignment with that spirit animal. You have to make a fetish or totem of your animals.

1: The making of a fetish. Needs equipment, needs a house, needs food, need something to do.

Sitting in the house all day, in the car, inside the buildings

There is no animal forces in those places

It is out in the smell of the grass, the winds moving the tree tops

The water spilling into a roadside ditch…

i sometimes feel I am running

on four legs

sometimes flying down from a great

and spreading old grandfather tree

or rolling on and on, around and around

on my slippery belly on a river bank

silent and still like a flower in the moonlight

or looking deep into the mother earth

with my long roots

that work in the darkness of the earth

stuffed and filled and sparkling lights

in the meat of their mysteries, their journey

all these feelings

yes, my friend, all these feelings

run around in my heart

when I am running on four legs

If you find a great animal helper / companion, the first sensations from them that you might gather are their screams. The captains and lords of the paymaster are murdering the creation. Every animal on this mother earth is in danger, every plant, tree and bug. If you find an animal helper in this age, at this time, you must prepare yourself for this bad news. You and your animal guide can do something about the sorrows of life on this earth. A connection, a sacred intimate connection with animals, with nature will deepen your soul and enlighten your spirit/ It is not an exercise you do to make a party, but to deepen your knowledge and connection. All, every one of  the ancient teachings, of the old Indians are designed to deepen your connection to this mother earth.

The great light about the animal teachings is that they remove the obsession modern people have had with the idea of a saviour, a leader, a boss, a visionary, a chosen one…the old Indians never had those things. No gods. No devils. No bosses or capos, no redeemers. The old Indians believed the salvation of a good life was in the mother earth, what we called the Creation….so finding animals was a natural part of that life that begin, cognitively, almost at birth. The question before us presently is, is it possible’s as adults out here in the modern world, with no tribal elders, and as you know, very very few, really almost no contact in real time with any kind of animal. So, yes, it is a challange. The old ceremonial teachings were really a group of teachings that wove together a comprehensive group of tools and abilities to gather to yourself the great gifts of this creation. The animal teachings are one branch of that sacred tree.

The grace of the teachings of indigenous peoples is how their teachings and ceremonies always lead you back to nature, lead back to yourself. Not so some chosen one, some celebrity, expert of great leader…to you and the earth you walk upon, dream upon and return to in the great circle of creation…

You do not need an influencer. The best I can offer you are stories and some directions where to look, in particular to look to yourself. I do not want to be an enlightened teacher, an internet influencer or anyone’s chosen one. I cannot absolution or salvation.

In many ways, all of us today are just the edges of an unknown future, in every direction. Maybe tube or twitter or or your mobile phone is the tool you will need to find and feel and understand this relationship with animals. I say animals because really I would

Be hard pressed to choose “one animal helper”. I have all my life been in contact with as many animals as I can. Just in the space of a normal life. I do not have the money to go on animal expeditions around the world. But I have seen on all sorts of video formats many animals that move me in powerful ways.  I would say absolutely some of my animals helpers are on videos.

The little, little, little. The virus. Bacteria in belly. Mosquitos and yeast for bread…(Yes your animal will teach you about plants or roots or fruits or grasses and seeds…ha ha ha And some of these elements, these animals and their associates in nature, like the night, Some like the day, or water or warm or cold….each animal would teach you about these Things. If the bear is your animal spirit guide…what does he like to eat? When does he sleep…how far can he walk…what makes him sick, how does he stay safe, these are questions to have about a spirit animal, and mostly easy and enjoyable to discover. You may find your animal.

Really likes the things you like, or vice versa, or has appeared in your life in all sorts of interesting ways when you were younger. I had many curious encounters with turtle all my life, for example.

Milliuons, in fact probably at this point, billions, Speakers often assume I think that the listeners already know what the Guy is talking about. I realise that talking with you all, I figure you know something of the american indian. I also realise profesionally and personally that the indians are drowning in an ocean of bad information. So this seriess is what the old Indians might call a correction. I also realise that there may be an interest, yet No opportunities ever arise to find out more. There Are not so many books really, or films…not easy to find

Good information in the first place. So I always feel the best practice is to inform about the structure of the sacred, of the societies and the old clans, the roots of practices and a way of thinking that empowers self knowledge. Abd elevated self knowledge can rebuild what was lost, discover what seems hidden. I started out knowing nothing. I was raised by a military father, we moved around all over the world. I never met but very few times any of my ojibwe father’s people, just a few hours really. I went to high school in a private school, a military school. My father left his culture behind, as did most of his generation. The army was his life. I had to go find the indians myself in my later teen age years. I had to show myself to the old Indians knowing nothing. Probably less than you. It was these practices that I am talking about here that informed me and gave me the power to inform myself. And that is what is at stake. That is the crown jewel of the value of indigenous peoples ideas and way of life.

Go back to childhood and start looking for the animals around you as a child.

Find a bird, a 4-legged, an insect….

The old Indians had the clan system. You were born into your

Mothers clan in most tribes. So this kind of Resource is a serious head start.

The next resource is elders. Aunties, grandmothers, great grandparents.

An animal you have a sudden encounter with is very important.

Dreams.

Astrology. In western astrology you could look for the Positions and associations with saturn. Like the clan system, It is a way for a person to know the natural starting Point. Also the animals associated with your Rising Sign.

The snake lives all its life with full body

Pressed against the mother earth.

The birds have knowledge  of the winds.

Four-leggeds know how to find things, trackers and investigators.

All the different animals are like all the

Different “medicine men” and so-called “Shamans”…a bear does what a bear knows

An eagle does what an eagle knows….

Just as  a wabeeno like myself does what I do

These explanations are part of what I do

But most other non-wabeeno or

Eqivelants have this responsibility, this right, even this desire.

(Why so many indians say nothing)

This is but one direct and clear Way we learn from the animals, how they

Teach us and guide us, partner with us..

That part of human life which followed us

For millennia, tens of thousands of generations, all those animals and plants.

Now this knowledge and those experiences are almost absent from the modern

World

How can we put it back?

How can you as a student of the mystery life?

How can you do it? Is it even possible for a modern

Person to do it?

When I was younger and had been given eagle feather I asked

One of the old Indians about Eagle feather meaning. He told me this,

That when you are given an object like an eagle feather

You will have that story. Steop by step you will hear other

Stories and add your own stories and in this way you will learn

And the meaning will become more and more evident….

That when you receive something sacred from the old indians,

Its purpose, in part, is to set you in motion, to get you up

Off your ass and search for knowledge and experience….

If he gives it to you, it is something you can use.

Avoid shortcuts

It is like a little bird that sings in your neighbourhood every morning. He has always been there, you hardly notice. What is the bird saying? Birds rarely say complicated things. They express agitation, they warn of danger, highlight nearby activity.

The Calling the Owl Song

Yes, many years ago, almost 50 years ago, I spent time with some old Indians. During the nights with then we would make songs with drums and rattles, sometimes flutes, before we all went to bed. This created some great energy. At first it was hard to sleep with so much excitement and activity. But soon enough I started having amazing, very lucid dreams. In the mornings there was a moment when everyone said something about what they had dreamed. After listening a few days to my dreams, this one old timer struck up some conversation with me, in my head I call him Thunderbird. He4 taught me the form of a sweet song. He called it an owl calling Song. Said if I sat in the forest and made this song, owls would hear it and come over to see me. He never told me what to do once they got there. But I learned that the hard way. I was in georgia at the time, living alone. There was a great old forest all around the area where I lived and few houses, at that time. That forest is long gone now….but back then it was a sweet, very diverse forest. There were modest gulleys and little cliffs…I loved walking through those forests. I had done so for a good part of my life from when I was very young.

I sat down of a high little ridge, you could see slightly down and into the forest pretty well. It was such a beautiful place. No sounds from the outside world. All sorts of birds and turtles, frogs and little 4 legged everywhere. I started singing that song. A little rough at first but step by step relaxed into it and just kept it going. Just my voice. Soon enough I started heart the hooting of owls. First from one part of the forest and then another. Yes, at one point they seemed all around me. I can’t say I was afraid, though perhaps I was. For whatever reason I stopped the singing. I did not run but I did walk directly back to where my ride was parked and drove home. I have spent years thinking about that incident. The moment I stood up I forgot the song. I have never been able to sing it again. The consequence of not staying calm. That old Indian knew about the animals at a much deeper level than any scientist I have ever talked to. He knew about their sense of humour, their passion for gossip, their indifference but utter caution towards the human beings.

The animals around you know you are there. They hear you. They track you. They tell the other animals about you. Where you travel there may be an animal from a family close to you and they will recognise you.  They remember us when we come and go. They like to get food from us. The birds like it. Lizards like it. Bears really like it but they are dangerous. An Eagle took one of my cats. We had a bear that came on the property and took the spirit bowl we keep outside and walked off with it. 6 months later I found it on a sharp incline along the big mountain that went up just next to our house on the north side, a rising of one of the Olympic mountains. At the same house I have tickled the heads of old salmon as they begin tier run up the river I lived right next to, the hammer-gamma river.

I once had a pig, a big sheep, a goat and a donkey come to my front door. Seemed they wanted help. I was speechless. They turned and went walking down the road that was there but I did not follow. I probably should have. It was a true and certifiable what the fuck moment.

In summer camp as a kid I slept on a bumpy rock all night in my sleeping bag. The morning came and I moved up my sleeping bag and there was a lovely box turtle with his yellow spots happy to see the light again.

In that same old forest in georgia I was walking down some old dirt road  deep in the forest and say a round dark hole in front on me on the road. I stopped and looked at it and saw it was a perfectly round hole and seemed to have some depth to it. It was so round but clearly not machine made. I was so curious I put my hand into the hole and followed it down and there almost at my shoulder I felt a shell and pulled bu a dirty brown stained box turtle. Clearly head had fallen into a hole that was there and tried to dig himself out. I was really surprised. Other than being dirty he seemed in pretty good shape. I gently took him off the road into a nice spot and put him down.

All those animal stories add up.