[LadyHawk]

This is a Guidance Ceremony intended to help you find your power animal through a simple ceremony.

What is a power animal: A power animal is a spirit guide in the form of an animal, who will lead and guide you , giving you strength in situations where you need help. Most people, when they discover their power animal, are pleased to find that the animal is one they have long dreamed about, or has always appealed to them.

Power Animals usually has some unique characteristic that marks its strength. One way to discover one of your power animals (in our lives we may several at a time, they will come in and out of our lives), is through a guidance ceremony. This can be done alone.

To prepare for the guidance ceremony you have to have time where you can be still. You may prefer to have music (I personally like drumming or nothing at all).

To Begin:

1. Get comfortable and have read the instructions prior to beginning your ceremony. I also recommend you have paper and pencil by the area so you can write at a later time what came to you. Details are also important.

Most ceremonies are done in the middle of a medicine wheel that you built. Because most individuals don't have these I suggest you pick an area that is important to you.

2. Try to limit any distractions and have what you prefer (music or silence), have a cover because your going into the underworld and you may get cold. Please note in most ceremonies drumming is the preferred music as it helps you relax and changes your state of being to enter the world of journeying.

Ceremony:

Imagine yourself coming to a cave or passageway that leads downward into the earth. Remind yourself that you are safe and protected. You may enter by waling, sliding or flying down the opening into the earth. This may take you a long way and for others it may be a short tunnel. When you reach the end of the tunnel there will be grassy plain with many animals moving about. Nearby you will hear and see the ocean with may fish and mammals such as whales swimming in it. Above you will be the sky. In the sky you will hear and see birds of all kinds.

You then ask your power animal to reveal itself to you. Begin walking and watching. Your power animal will come to you and show you all four of its sides. Ask it if you may take it with you. When it gives its consent, picture the animal becomeing a part of your being. Return to the tunnel opening, and walk, climb, or fly back up the tunnel.

Be sure to Thank your power animalf for being with you.
It will be important that you bond together so you may need to frequently in the next week call upon your power animal. See yourself playing with him/or her, caring for them. You also want to ask for their name so when your calling upon the animal later you can call by name.

When you need strength, your power animal will be there. I encourage you to get a book or ask a friend (like me) to get you information on that particular animal.

At the end of the ceremony it is important to Thank the forces that have helped you. (keep in most of the time this is done in the middle of a medicine wheel) but you can do this from home. If you have incense, then fan the smoke in six directions then vision yourself leaving the area to the south position. If doing this in a medicine wheel you would thank the spirit keeper and walk clockwise around the wheel to exit from the south position.

This information came from the book Medicine Wheel, Ceremonies. Written by Vicki May and C.V. Rodberg.