Alyson Charles - Animal Power: 100 Animals to Energize Your Life and Awaken Your Soul

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to all of the loving guides who
came in one day to provide my spiritual awakening.

To Great Spirit and Great Mother Earth for your ever-present
guidance, support, and love for my calling and journey.

To the power animal world for coming to me to cocreate
this book and trusting me to be a voice for you.

To First Nations for being the first peoples to answer
the call of shamanism and for so powerfully keeping
sacred wisdom traditions and truths alive.

To my family, friends, and colleagues who have
steadfastly supported me and my mission.

To myself for my courage, integrity, passion,
love, and willingness.

And to all you brave and bright souls who allow
yourselves to awaken your own truth and power
through the energy medicine in this book.

Text copyright 2021 by Alyson Charles.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Charles, Alyson, author. | Santiago, Willian, illustrator.
Title: Animal power : 100 animals to energize your life and awaken your soul / Alyson Charles ; illustrations by Willian Santiago.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, [2021] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021006236 | ISBN 9781797209531 (HC) | ISBN 9781797209548 (epub 2)
Subjects: LCSH: Animals--Miscellanea. | Shamanism. | Magic.
Classification: LCC BF1623.A55 C43 2021 | DDC 201/.44--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006236

Illustrations by Willian Santiago
Design by AJ Hansen and Kristen Hewitt

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

Before we begin, Id like to share a little about myself and the origins of this book so you can feel the great love, honor, and joy from which it was created.

This book is rooted in shamanism, an ancient spiritual healing art. The word shaman is said to derive from the word saman (from the Tungusian language of Siberia) and means one who sees in the dark or one who knows.

While the word shaman comes from ancient Siberia, the spiritual path and various forms of shamanism started with the very first peoples of our planet, the peoples of Africa. Various forms of shamanism have been practiced and shared on every continent and in countless cultures throughout human history.

A main function of shamanic energies and medicines is to work with us Earth-inhabiting humans as we each learn to operate from our most aligned, whole, and love-based place. Shamanism heals and connects us with our souls, and the call to shamanism is a soul-level calling. Shamanism is a planetary and inclusive practice; it is the spiritual and energetic truth of the Earth and Universe.

When entered into with reverence, honor, sacredness, and respect, working with shamanic wisdoms to learn and heal is open to anyone inhabiting planet Earth. Its foundational teachings are about oneness, unity, and acceptance.

Answering the very specific soul-level calling to be a shamanas I havecan be an incredibly challenging, initiatory, miracle-filled pathway. Having the divine call to become a shaman and take full responsibility for this specific way of living, embodying, and teaching is very different than feeling a tug to experience shamanic practices. Both pathway optionsthe path to exploring, learning, and experiencing shamanic ways and the path to answering a very specific, soul-activated, and true call to be a shamanmove beyond a persons ethnicity, age, or gender and have everything to do with ones soul, reverence, honor, truth, integrity, embodiment, and respect.

There are a lot of deeply ingrained misperceptions about what shamanism is, and popular culturemovies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainmenthas sometimes added to the misconception that shamans must look or be a certain way. The media has had a propensity to portray shamanism in ways that arent divinely true, often sensationalizing shamanism and using its mysteriousness and ancient intrigue to depict it in ways that perpetuate inaccurate understanding. Because of this, shamanism has been pushed into the smallest of boxes. Shamanism is about infinite expansion and evolving into your highest potential, and that tiny, limiting box goes completely against that. Its time for shamanism to be liberated into truth again.

By opening our minds and hearts to these expanded and truth-filled possibilities, we can experience compassion and nonjudgment and avail ourselves to the infinite miracles that shamanism offers.

Shamans walk with feet in both worlds, the seen and unseen. While the shamanism I practice works directly with Great Mother Earth and Great Spirit, there are also shamanic paths that work with specific lineages rooted in Earth-based traditions. If you are called to work with a specific culture or heritage, its vital to honor that culture and get permission before sharing any of their specific shamanic teachings. Even if ones shamanic call does not adhere to a specific Earth-based lineage, it is still vital to honor and give back to First Nations and the ancient cultures who were some of the first people to practice shamanic traditions and who carried those teachings and ways for many thousands of years. This book includes stories directly from the mouths of spiritual teachers and shamanic colleagues from around the globe. Some are operating from forms of shamanism similar to mine, and others have taken culturally based paths. All forms are held, unified, and celebrated in this book.

I want to acknowledge that working with power animals can be a sensitive issue. I acknowledge that many shamanic lineages have had to hide their teachings and practices for far too long, and that there have been people who exploited sacred traditions that honor the spiritual relationships between humans and animals. I also acknowledge that I am absolutely in a position of privilege to be among those who are able to share about shamanism publicly. Because of all of that, since my shamanic call awakened, I have tuned in daily with Great Spirit and Great Mother Earth, along with other main spiritual guides in the unseen realms, to ensure I am living in direct alignment with my Earth mission and the precise energies and teachings I am here to share. I have also had countless conversations with shamans all over the world about our practices and what shamanism is. In every one of those conversations, all of us shamans embraced, celebrated, and embodied the same sentiment that because shamanic practices are for the entire planet and infinite Universes, they are for everyone to have the opportunity to explore, learn, and hopefully evolve from.

It is my greatest honor to be entrusted by the animal world to be a voice for them, and it is my greatest honor to be a shaman, to have the courage to answer the specific call to shamanism, and to be entrusted in all of this by Great Spirit and Great Mother Earth.

Being a truly embodied shaman means you completely devote yourself to your wholeness and calling, and in turn, you live by the calls and instructions you are given by Source. I do this work with honor, reverence, and sacredness, and in full alignment with the way my teachings are divinely designed to be shared with the world. For me, working directly with the ancient wisdom within, my heart, God, Goddess, Great Spirit, and Great Mother Earth is vital, and I live in constant surrender, every day, to living in this space.