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The Healing Magic and Power of ANIMAL SYMBOLISM            

The woods became dark and forbidding as the girl tore wildly through the forest. Several bears kept a close pace behind her. They were huge ferocious angry animals. Absolute terror set in upon her as she plunged deeper into the darkness, searching frantically for shelter, a tree she could climb, anything. The panic began to slow her down, and all she could muster was a pathetic slow motion attempt to run. The next thing she knew, total paralysis took over, and within seconds the bears were within twenty feet from the helpless child . Their powerful black hairy bodies moved through the dark shadows closer and closer. All she could do was to give in to the terror unable to scream or move . Her body tensed with the fear as she felt the sensation of electric shock while waiting for the final blow of snarling teeth and claws.

Animal symbolism is everywhere. Nearly everyone at some time in their life has had dreams in which some kind of animal has played a dominant role. It is within these dreams that most of us have experienced this mysterious power of animal symbolism. Friend or foe the animal symbol today speaks to the very depths of our being. I think, that this animal symbol is used to carry powerful messages to our conscious awareness from our core essence, the higher self, as a tool to guide us through this life. Through the exploration of this connection that we have, with the animal, be it in our dreams, literature, art, music, and other such creative expressions, we will find insights into ourselves and our relationship to the one at the top, the divine oneness, God. This can be at a very personal level or at a shared level as in the arts . Where the viewer's mind can respond to the image stimulus in a healing way. Healing can be triggered when there is an understanding reached that one can relate to, consciously or unconsciously. It can cause a release of energy or an opening that allows the energy to flow, triggering the body's natural chemicals to function at a parasympathetic level. This is one of the myriad ways that the animal symbol is used. There is a real need for our symbols beside just entertainment. Healing begins in the mind and emotions ,than moves to the body where thoughts and emotions are held in the tissues . These thoughts and emotions are a vital energy . It is within the depth of our mind that animal symbolism most keenly takes its hold and first takes place to spread into other aspects of our lives.

In using an animal to represent our animal self or the different instinctive natures of the self we use various animals," lower life forms" as symbols. These symbols are what Jung has labelled "motifs". These "motifs" as well as others stimulate unconscious knowledge to arise and become conscious common knowledge and form a bridge between what is known and what is unknown, Jung describes an image as being symbolic "when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning" (4).

This animal "motif", as Carl Jung states, represents our "primitive and instinctual nature "and because we have not killed the animal within ourselves, its rich symbolism permeates our life today. Yet most of us have never been fully aware of it. Our animal instincts live on.

Our primitive and instinctual nature is somewhat of a vague concept to most, as most people are out of touch with their own true natures to begin with.

We don't even know how we are feeling most of the time, because we have been taught as children to suppress so much, especially our rage . These buried parts of us don't get to develop at the same paces as other parts of our selves. Much more so when our true feelings are suppressed over and over again. Those parts become severely set back in development and this in turn becomes our hurting damaged inner child and the wounded animal. In trying to deny and suppress our true instinctual feeling, our "primitive nature, we as a species have a need to acknowledge it as something because its still there no matter how we try to hide it. Its presence comes to us in disguise, in a symbol. Our instincts have been referred to by Jung as "built-in physiological urges" that manifest themselves in fantasies and often reveal their presence by symbolic images,(58). Many or out emotions as well as many of our impulses are instinctive. An exuberance may be translated into images of playing animals-those vital energies remain alive and active within the dreamers mind. How often do we suppress the good stuff?. When its taboo ? That is when it gets into the sex stuff and my first thought would be . I don't want to go there.

So back to some basic suppressed emotions. Fear, for example may "raise its ugly head" for us as an unfriendly animal or demon monster. The more menacingly, or whichever the displaying problem related to the animal, the more likely that the dreamer is at odds with his own instinctive energies the more is the need to heal the wounded animal , own it ,tame it and love it and most of all acknowledge it. The chances are ,it just wants to be set free. Like in the messages of the wolves dreams. Jung gives a good illustration of how, in the infancy of our development, our primitive and instinctual nature must have created havoc and regret in our life, causing us to try to destroy it.

"The bushman who in a moment of anger and disappoint at his failure to catch any fish, strangles his much beloved only son, and is then seized with immense regret as he holds the little dead body in his arms. Such a man might remember this moment of pain forever".(65).

 

 

It's no wonder, we came to use the animal to symbolize our natures. Our primitive impulsive acts must have caused us much pain and regret.

Each animal has its own behaviour patterns and characteristics that make it special and each attribute carries with it qualities that we parallel to our own instinctive natures. These qualities should be taken into consideration when looking for specific symbolic meaning. Chinese Astrology and the native medicine wheel are some examples.