wildness

Animal work is the collection of practices and approaches that center around learning from the wisdom of animals.

Animal work allows us to listen with different ears, see with different eyes and work with our lives from a different perspective. Through working with the nature of an animal, we can engage with our own wilder nature; each animal aspect lives within us as well, and has a lot of teach us if we can only find it.

When we become disconnected from our animal natures, we become disconnected from what it means to be fully human and instead become dull, stressed and possibly damaging to the world around us.

Animal work is especially helpful when:

• We need a new perspective on a problem or situation.
• We’re feeling low, dull or uninspired.
• We’ve lost touch with our power and how to wield it well.
• We need to be reminded of our priorities in life.
• We need to gather up some more of our power for a new endeavor.

Animal work uses the foundation tools of animism – ceremony, altars, crafting, divination – to make contact with a specific animal and listen to what it has to teach us. We use all of our senses to engage with these teachings, eventually embodying them in our own bodies and in our crafts.

For more about ceremony, altar work and crafting – the foundations of animal work – join the free 12 week Foundation in Animism course here: