J. Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus - White Spirit Animals: Prophets of Change

For my mother, Lenore Pancoe Meyerhoff (19271988), who nurtured my love and respect for nature.

For my daughter, Anna, who continues this matrilineal caring tradition.

For all the animals who have shared or currently share their lives with us, domestic and wild, captive and free, may your voices be heard and your love of the Earth become shared by all humans.

May Peace be our name
and plenty our gift,
coming home
Together!

WHITE SPIRIT
ANIMALS

Great Book! White Spirit Animals combines shamanism, trans-species telepathy, historic research, and native stories to show the reader why we must save the bear, lion, elephant, buffalo, wolf, and other species from extinction and how they have guided humanity in the past. A unique testimony to the close relationship between humans and animals and our ability to communicate and collaborate with each other.

JOHN PERKINS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

White Spirit Animals is a beautiful and deep work of art and heart. It provides a wealth of cross-cultural, historical, shamanic, and mythical information. It is likely to connect the reader with the symbolically deep realm where dreams come from. The images and stories resonate with that place of inner knowing in us. I am enthusiastic about this bookthank you, Zohara Hieronimus!

JEAN SHINODA BOLEN, M.D., JUNGIAN ANALYST AND AUTHOR OF ARTEMIS: THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT IN EVERYWOMAN

The traditional Haudenosaunee/Iroquois view is that those in the animal world are related to us. As humans we are within the same circle of life as animals as well as trees, plants, and the earth itself. Animals and birds serve as symbols for the family clans, and the bear and the wolf are part of that. These teachings are clearly covered in this book.

JOHN KAHIONHES FADDEN, COFOUNDER OF THE SIX NATIONS INDIAN MUSEUM

In these times of turmoil, it is critically important that we listen to the phantom shaman-animals who have stepped forward to guide us. Zohara Hieronimus knows where to find them, and she knows their language. With White Spirit Animals, she has given us an invaluable portal into their world. I implore you to go there.

TAMARACK SONG, AUTHOR OF BECOMING NATURE: LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF WILD ANIMALS AND PLANTS

Zoharas magnificent White Spirit Animals reminds her readers of the human/animal bond and its continued importance. Her book hearkens back to shamanic practices that employed spirit animals as copractitioners.... White Spirit Animals can teach, protect, and heal their human siblings, and in so doing expand the boundaries of what is possible.

STANLEY KRIPPNER, PH.D., ALAN WATTS PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT SAYBROOK UNIVERSITY AND COAUTHOR OF THE SHAMANIC POWERS OF ROLLING THUNDER

Zohara Hieronimus provides an important bridge linking modern objective science and ancient and traditional shamanic beliefsa very useful contribution.

STEPHAN A. SCHWARTZ, AUTHOR OF THE 8 LAWS OF CHANGE: HOW TO BE AN AGENT OF PERSONAL AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Acknowledgments

TO ALL MY TEACHERS , those present and those not here now, human and animal, who have schooled me in the subtle reality of The All. To my husband, Bob, for his love and for his support of my multidimensional endeavors over the decades we have shared together and for his encouragement of this undertaking. To Hieronimus & Co.s Laura Cortner for producing our talk show, 21st Century Radio, and for facilitating the interviews of animal champions I selected to profile in this work. All of the animal protectors the reader meetsGay Bradshaw, Charlie Russell, Carol Buckley, Tamarack Song, and Cynthia Hart, among othersare an inspiration to the world. They demonstrate how kindred relations with all species is possible. Writing this book would not have been possible without telling their stories, as well as those of the species they have devoted relations with: Bear, Lion, Elephant, Wolf, and Buffalo. Gratitude also to Meg Bowen for the details she assists with in our Hieronimus & Co. office and to Amy Ford for her wonderful, persistent diligence and patience in helping to source and format the illustrations in this book. A special bow and a wow to Gay Bradshaw for introducing me to trans-species psychology, a field she founded, and for her superb, collaborative editing of this book prior to the publishers skilled and thorough additions.

To the Inner Traditions Bear & Company communityEhud Sperling, Jon Graham, Jamaica Burns, Anne Dillon, and othersthank you for co-creating this living prayer of mine: to write about animals using dream and waking telepathy as a primary process of gathering information. Few publishing companies in the world appreciate and support our natural psi aptitudes, such as telepathy, premonitory knowing, distant healing, or far seeing, which may be atrophied due to negligence in humans today but which are essential skills for us each to develop.

My deepest gratitude goes to Matata the bonobo matriarch for graciously showing me what is possible between humans and our animal kindomestic and wild, captive and freewhich is to come into loving rapport with them from anywhere and anywhen. To our dogs Bella, Oxford, Omaha, Abbey, and our recently departed free-flying, sky-high Bailey, for being true friends and companions of joy in the daily routines of a loving life.

And humbly I wish to thank most of all the White Spirit Animal prophets and their species for taking me into their confidence and trusting me to tell their story in a way that they wanted it told. All of you have changed my life in ways no human could. To Bear, Lion, Elephant, Wolf, and Buffalo, may you thrive in the decades to come as humanity awakens to its purpose as stewards and companion kin of yours.

May we all together become peace on Earth.

PREFACE

The Convocation

I BEGAN THIS BOOK in the summer of 1960. I was six years old, communing with the trees and animals in the woodlands above the valley where our house was perched. We had a remarkable vista with a horizon line that stretched the imagination. My familys ten-acre site bordered hundreds of acres of pasture and corn fields that I would play and run in. It was a wonderful sunny July afternoon in Owings Mills, Maryland, where we lived. Birds were chirping and squirrels dashed about in post rain-shower excitement, a light mist rising from the heat of everything cooling off.

I was lying on the ground with my head tilted next to a rotting log, watching the industrious ants carrying eggsand their own deadto protective shelter. Our black mutt dogs of various sizes, Junior, Shag, and Blackie, were trying to decide whether to follow deer trails or chase squirrels nearby. It was a beautiful day and I was in my sanctuary.

Looking back on that moment, I remember with vivid clarity praying for the ability to talk with the animals, wanting to know what they were thinking, what they needed, and what they felt and knew. I imagined that I would learn how to interpret a birds song, a raccoons haunting cry, or a dogs series of howls, not knowing that there was another traditional way to communicate, a way that went beyond words, barks, and caws. Today, this is called trans-species telepathy or interspecies communication, which is not only how humans can communicate with all forms of life, but also how all forms of life communicate with each other. The heartfelt request that constituted my prayerthat I would learn how to communicate with animalsbecame an activated longing in my souls constellation (as are all things that we pray about). This wish became my Pole Star, the directional signatory in my childhood sky.