Shamanic Pathways 08 - love and comfort

[moonvoice]

The other day, I was writing a comment in response to someone's post on Livejournal; I can't remember who off the top of my head. Essentially - to paraphrase - they constantly had totems in their life that pushed and challenged them, and didn't always have the energy to be challenged. Sometimes it was just comfort, or reassurance they needed. I have seen this sentiment expressed before, in many places, so I asked them if they had ever thought of just searching for totems or spirits who would simply offer comfort, and reassurance. They hadn't, and so I think they began their search.

Spirit helpers and totem animals can help with a lot of different things. They can be the energies that take you apart during an initiation, they can be the ones to tell you to 'get your act together!' and the ones to give you a metaphysical kick up the backside to get you back on track, they can be the ones to offer advice in a difficult situation, or offer silence to remind you that you really can figure it out on your own; honest. They can be the creatures we are terrified of, or the ones we adore and admire, and they can be animal energies we didn't know we could appreciate until they came into our lives.

But they can also be the energies that simply love us for who we are, and soothe us when things are hard. Who offer comfort without us 'working' for it. Who take us in when we are broken and overhwelmed and give succour in exchange.

Heron, actually, is the animal energy that offers this to me. It's quite strange, really, because although I have always loved herons, I have mostly seen them as bold, powerful, graceful animals. Not ones I would immediately associated with softness and love. But then - as some of you probably know - animal totems never just fit into a box of select keywords. I mean sometimes they do, but very often they don't.

The heron that comes to me is large and grey/white, essentially a super-sized white-faced heron (Egretta novaehollandiae), he very rarely says anything, only comes into my life and lays his wings upon me when I think I cannot go on; when I think I cannot keep loving and caring for myself; when I just need some help. He doesn't ask for anything in return, though he has my love and gratitude always, and he has never pushed me away.

That said, I do not work with him as much as I could, because accepting comfort, and reassurance, and unconditional love is - of itself - very challenging for me, and for many of us. It's why so many of us don't even think about searching out or asking if there are any energies in our lives that would offer this to us. And no wonder, when so many of us struggle to offer comfort and succour to ourselves when we most need it. We are so often pushing ourselves past the next frontier, throwing ourselves into the next challenge, worrying we won't be good enough, or simply forgetting that accepting love, peace and comfort (from ourselves, as well as from spirits) is a form of valid spiritual nourishment; just as giving others love and comfort is as well.

For those of you who work with spirits of any kind, are there any who simply offer you comfort, love and reassurance? Did they come to you at a tough time in your life? Or did you have to search them out? If you have no spirits of energies in your life that could offer this, why do you think this is the case? Do you think you would benefit from knowing there was someone other than human who you could approach for succour?

Comments

[white9-fox.livejournal.com]

Heron's behaved similarly with me in terms of being gentle and calm in her actions. It was a very pleasant sensation, and I'm quite happy she's still hanging around despite seemingly being done in her lessons.

Ironically, she also came after a bit of a frustrating time with several aspects of my life. The only thing I've really noticed about Heron's before were how graceful they were, but little else.

Grim's another gentle spirit I've had the fortune to interact with, and having him around really does make me feel more protected, and when he's not around I get a bit more anxious because of a lack of confidence.

Gabby's a servitor spirit that I don't have the heart to destroy, but it seems I don't really have the energy to make him anything "useful", so he's like a puppy-dog spirit. Wanting attention and affection it seems. I enjoy it ^_^

Io (not the deity) is a bit different in that she doesn't really give me any indication of feelings or the typical feelings of protection and reassurance. But after figuring her out a bit more, and realizing that every magic ritual I've involved her in worked, I can say that she offers reassurance in terms of boosting confidence in my magic.

Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't come across any malicious spirits at all O.o; Dunno if that's a bad thing, lol.

Though I have come across malicious individuals...there was a particular spider (not a particular species of spider, but a particular individual) that tries to attack me rather than run away even when I'm not actually doing anything to it.

That particular part of the house wasn't ever a nice place anyway. Dunno why. Maybe the ickyness rubbed off on the spider.

[feralkiss.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't think there is any spirit that has such role in my life at the moment. Raven made itself known at some point in my life and sometimes acted a bit like this, but in the end, I also learned he can be pretty fickle and his care isn't exactly of the ever-comforting, non-pushy sort.

And I have never thought of searching for any other. But we've discussed this before, I've always been very reluctant to ask for help (of any kind) and especially from my totem/guides, because I'm never sure I deserve it. But if you ask me why I haven't searched for a comforting guide, specifically, in all honesty I think it's just I don't seriously need any.

Life has been pretty tough with me, but I have an awesome circle of friends to support me, so while I'd be grateful for additional comfort, I don't think I truely need it, or at least most of time. I don't consider my situation is serious enough. If it were, I would face my own issue of "but do I truely deserve it?"; I would eventually ask for comfort it things were really bad.

[weishaupt.livejournal.com]

Does Scotch count?

[earthguardian.livejournal.com]

Since my work with Tarantula has just started, it's difficult to say. When we first met, I was expecting a happy-go-lucky type of teacher, then during our first "official" meeting, He came off more no-nonsense. And after a rather recent meditation I did with Him today, he was my friend and honest with me.

So I'm not sure yet. Plus with my newness to totem work in general, I wouldn't even know how to go about finding other animal spirits to comfort me.

Comfort? Love? Wha?

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

<--- is confused. Spirit guides and totems and such can offer comfort, love, succor and reassurance? No wai!

I've honestly never heard of anything resembling that. I think I need to get out more.

I guess I've alwas gotten the impression that deities, ancestors, totems and spirit guides are supposed to slam you into a brick wall, or flay your skin from your bones, or eat you, or force you to the end of your psychological, spiritual & emotional limits, otherwise they aren't real totems or spirit guides and you're no better than some namby-pamby New Age fluffster who has misappropriated every indigenous practice and twisted them to your own advantage to sell mandalas at some quasi-Native Healing Center.

Most of the people I know who do work with totems - it's like we have a constant game of 'one-upmanship' - "Oh, you think you've got it bad, I had to crawl through the desert on my hands and knees for seven days and seven nights, up a mountain covered in cacti and fire ants, with no food or water, to get a single hair from Grandmother Black Widow, thrust it into my ribcage, then bring it back to my spirit guide the same way, all the while the hair is pumping venom into my heart and my fingers and toes are falling off one by one before my spirit guide would even glance at me! And that was just the first trial!"

I think I would be highly mistrustful of any spiritual entity I met who offered me loving-kindness or compassion. I don't know what that says about me, but it's true.

Thank you for holding that thought up to the light, though - I'm going to examine it over the next few years :)

[lupabitch.livejournal.com]

Gray Wolf, of course, has always been here. Always been my best support, been with me through just about everything to one degree or another. Brown Bear is one of my better allies; s/he has a tendency to stand up for me when others are angry, reminding them that I'm only human, and prone to mistakes as well as busy-ness. Domestic Horse guided me through my teen years; unfortunately, I mistook this as hir encouraging my awkwardness, and I took out a lot of the pain i had on hir--yet s/he's still here, wanting to guide me despite it all.

[bewylderbeast.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to spend some time thinking about this.

One of Maned Wolf's lessons for me was to accept and love myself, and to accept the love of others. It's always very challenging. Being loved would be nice, but is it really a need?

Even by asking that, I think I devalue the worth of love and kindness.

The thought of seeking a totem who would be willing to offer love and comfort is a really nice one, but there are people who need it more than I do.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

The thought of seeking a totem who would be willing to offer love and comfort is a really nice one, but there are people who need it more than I do.

I really don't believe there's a finite number of loving entities in the universe, and I certainly think those that are out there are being under-employed as it is.

We live in a toxic society that privileges repression over expression, stoicism over open admittances of love or gentleness; as it is, there is definitely not an abundance of love or kindness in our society.

Until we man up and ask it for ourselves, we will never be able to fully express it to others. We will just be parodies of the sick society that bred us.

Loving Kindness

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

We live in a toxic society that privileges repression over expression, stoicism over open admittances of love or gentleness; as it is, there is definitely not an abundance of love or kindness in our society.

I don't think most people have all that much difficulty being kind to others, especially not women - but most people I know have a hard time being kind to themselves (myself included). As far as admitting being kind or loving... well, people seem to go to two extremes - either they want everyone to know they've done someone a favor so they can be recognized accordingly, or they do things anonymously as possible.

[skitty-kitty.livejournal.com]

I want to say thanks for this post, it's something I've never really considered. I have one wolf guide who seems to be mostly a source of comfort, especially since another came in who is much more tetchy and demanding on me, but I've never actively searched out a source of comfort as opposed to searching out teachers and the like who are more prone to push the boundaries of comfort.

Thanks for the brain food!

[sa-hall.livejournal.com]

Wow, someone with a similar relationship to heron as mine. Only heron is a she, and a Great Blue. But, yes, she comes to me when I am in need of comfort.

[fire_my_spirit]

I've had this entry open in my browser a long time, thinking about it, and I keep thinking of the dream with the kitsune who gave me the magic dumpling box. I don't have enough experience with this sort of thing to call it a spirit I can go to for comfort -- it was just the one dream, after all. But when you posted this it made me think again about how he gave me that box so I would always have something I love to have and even sort of need right there with me at all times, in limitless qualities, even in the middle of the snow-covered terrain he lived in. I think that's something I need to think about more.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Magic dumpling boxes? Truly awesome. :)