Why rocks and not animals?

[Look-to-the-Ravens]

I've read Makers don't really work with animal spirits. From reading and from my experience, I understand why one might choose not to. But I wonder, then, why there are several exercises that involve working with rocks. Why work with rock energy and not animal energy?

 

I could extrapolate my own answers, but I'd like to know the reasoning of Maker folks, if people don't mind sharing.

[kai]

We do work with animal energy, mostly for knowledge, or sometimes even in some healing situations, or with bones etc. for tools. Most animals are very different from humans, moving your awareness to meet theirs can teach you a lot, the way they perceive the world, use their awareness and senses, touching upon that you bring that knowledge to yourself and can use it in the way you move your energy. That movement can be taken all the way to shapeshifting but it demands you let go of your humanity and moving completely that way doesn't come without some fundamental changes in how you're put together.

 

We don't really work with animal spirits the way it's commonly interpreted. When people talk about animal spirits, they often make them into something they're really not, projecting human qualities and their own energy upon them. That way the 'animal spirit' can become a trap for their power, where they essentially end up working with an aspect of their own energy. Not that it can't work, but I'm not sure what's the point. I also think it's not very respectful, in working with animal energy the least one can do is to make the effort to meet the animal energy on it's own terms and not impose their own humanity on it.

 

Kai

[Look-to-the-Ravens]

Oh, that's great to hear! And I'm glad you guys make the distinction. I have always been attracted to animals, myself. It seems to me the insights to be gained from them (and other sources, like rocks) exists on multiple levels.

 

Stories featuring animal characters with species-specific symbolism are useful in their own way, though heavily filtered through human culture and usually much less dimensional. And very similarly, the popularized appproach to animal spirits.

 

As an artist and storyteller, I have an interest in seeing how different cultures perceive animal symbolism. But as part of a spiritual path, the popularized approach to animal spirits seems to be based in the superficial (the best way I can explain the feeling). Like, if all human civilization fell away, the animals would not be what we make of them. They'd just continue to be as they are.

 

Even so, animal energy is something that has always featured strongly for me in my persuits. But trying to find spiritually-oriented information that doesn't easily devolve into a superficial exercise has been...difficult.

 

So many approaches never quite fit my interests or experiences. The Maker tradition has by far come the closest, both at first glance and as I continue to feel things out. So thanks for helping me with that.

 

 

Now, a follow-up question! You mentioned shapeshifting. What are some of the practical applications Makers use shapeshifting for?