What is your totem?

[KinkyVixen]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Not always, no.

So...how do you get one? Or know you have one? Or...uh...yeah...one of those two.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by KinkyVixen

A better definition for what?
I haven't been in college for 20 years...but considering I'm 26 I have been in school for almost all of my life.

I think the people Buddug looks down upon who "have been in university for twenty years" are known as "professors".

Originally Posted by KinkyVixen[/QUOTE

So...how do you get one? Or know you have one? Or...uh...yeah...one of those two.

Totems and animism exist in the world in many different forms to fulfill many different niches and a variety of spiritual/religious purposes. Are you asking about a specific culture or totem?

[KinkyVixen]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Totems and animism exist in the world in many different forms to fulfill many different niches and a variety of spiritual/religious purposes. Are you asking about a specific culture or totem?

Just in general I guess. Maybe I should do some research. I'm not very diversified or cultured (obviously) and I just didn't wanna be out of the loop !
I mean, I figure I could say I'm like this animal, or whatever...but what fun is if there's no signifigance behind it?
What purposes do totems fulfill?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by KinkyVixen

I mean, I figure I could say I'm like this animal, or whatever...but what fun is if there's no signifigance behind it?
What purposes do totems fulfill?

Totems were often just identifying features of a group or clan of people that distinguished them from another, but often at a personal level, they provide direction and insight in times of uncertainty. The significance (spiritual or not) comes from whatever you or your culture assigns to it. The last anthropology book I read even went as far as to draw the parallel between totems and sports teams mascots by showing that even in modern, western culture it is still accepted to rally identify a group of people with an animal and rally around it.

[bluecuracao]

In some cultures, your surname may give a clue as to what your clan totem may be or may have been.

[KinkyVixen]

Oh...wow I feel stupid. I watched this show once, not too long ago, they took these troubled teens out into the wilderness so that they could deal with their "issues" head-on and hands on with help (psychiatrists and stuff). When they were done with their program, ready to graduate and enter back into the real world they had a ceremony. At the ceremony they were given a "totem" and an explanation of why their mentors thought that the animal that they were given fit them. It symbolized their fight and strength to overcome whatever it was that they were there to overcome. I think that type of totem, at least for me, would hold very high and special signifigance.

[bluecuracao]

Hey, don't feel stupid--I like your story. It tells how totems can be used in modern, wonderful ways.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by KinkyVixen

Do you have to believe you've been reincarnated to have a totem?

No, you don't.

But, if you do believe in reincarnation ... you could have had a different totem in a prior life, or the same one. Ditto for Guardians.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by bluecuracao

Hey, don't feel stupid--I like your story. It tells how totems can be used in modern, wonderful ways.

Which, interestingly, is also how totems can be used in traditional, wonderful ways.

My other favorite quote: Spiritualists and Shamans do the same job psychiatrists and psychologists do, using the same tools, and obtaining about the same results.

--E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. (he's at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in D.C., and is a leading researcher in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorders. He also has done a lot of work regarding deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and resulting problems with homelessness, crime, etc.)

[KinkyVixen]

Originally Posted by wolf

No, you don't.

But, if you do believe in reincarnation ... you could have had a different totem in a prior life, or the same one. Ditto for Guardians.

Well, I don't believe in reincarnation. I find it quite creepy, and there's nothing about my life that would lead me to believe that I had another one at any point. Good to know tho. I don't have a totem regardless. What percentage of the world's population does that put me in?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by wolf

Ditto for Guardians.

Care to describe guardians? I'm not familiar with that concept.

[KinkyVixen]

This is what I found...http://books.google.com/books?vid=IS...fKVumDHcf3kbB0

I'm sure it doesn't answer your question. But the book is interesting.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by KinkyVixen

Well, I don't believe in reincarnation. I find it quite creepy, and there's nothing about my life that would lead me to believe that I had another one at any point.

According to some Robert Thurman, we've had millions of past lives. If so, I can see the utility in not remembering them.

If, as Alan Watts the Zen philosopher maintains, we're all waves (ie individuals) on the same ocean (ie God), then reincarnation is redundant. As God said, first of all I'm going to create a playground and then I'm going out to play, but, to have any fun I'm going to have to forget who I am. So, the next person you meet just say hi to yourself but don't expect them to remember you!

To my pagan way of understanding, a totem is an aspect/facet of you/universe/God manifesting as an animal within your consciousness that allows you to tap into various knowledge/abilities to aid your understanding life, the universe and everything. I've found with my totem that it quite often appears through the physical form of the animal it symbolises at the most opportune or needful points in my life. More often though it appears in my dreams, and they are a bugger to understand at the best of times. Ha, the games God plays (or as the American Indians prefer to call it, the Great Mysterious. A superb term which I find is free of all the human connotations/characteristics we fanatically attribute to the Gods of religions).

A true totem meets you half way. You have to put the effort in to find it in the first place. No free lunches with Nature/Great Mysterious!

[somesundaymorning]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

It's the same as past lives. No one ever wants to own up to the fact that in a past life they were probably a wife beater or child molester. No, No, they were queens or kings or even specific queens. I've personally met no less than three women who told me that they were reincarnations of Cleopatra. Why don't these people swap genders? Why were they always some lofty, spiritual, noble person who, now in this life, is down on their luck, riding the subway with commoners?

You don't ever hear people say "Whew, boy I am glad I'm not a sex slave any more. It sure is great to be free and white and living in the U.S.A. and having a college education to boot. You'll never hear me piss and moan AGAIN."

Well you know, this has annoyed me numerous times. I do however know of a few of my past lives - which makes it even more painful. Because nobody believes you as it is so similar to dreams and idolization. It's most of the time a part of themselves that the past life represents or who they want to be, in some aspect. And, in addition, if someone was interested in past lives they would take it seriously if they somehow felt a connection with the world around them, like for instance characters in books, movies, and then... soon they are lost in idolatry, and prjecting images. Though it should be noted that this is not a bad thing at all - if only that person wants to see what the idol is really saying about them, about their values and such... and then they are a step closer to who they are - whether it was a past life or not. (This sounds like - 'not all lies are bad'. heh!)

Well back on track... Well, my past lives weren't so nice, at all. I don't really care if they are real as they helped me to heal. (The difficulty with past lives is that often the medium simply say what life they had and don't assist if it would bring forth strong and sometimes destructive emotions from that person- knowing about ones past lives could therefore be quite the fatal blow) Perhaps it is sometimes easier to see some things from a distance and not as yourself...

I was a jew in two lives and died at a young age both times - in one I let myself be burnt up with a baby in my arms because of depression, poverty and isolation. In the other I was beaten and raped by germans. In another life I was stabbed in the back. In another I was a
roman strategist who was forced to go to was nd fell in love wiht one from the forbidden people. In one I was a stern nun who had been beaten in gods name when growing up and treated everyone as slaves and guilted her surroundings. All lives here have some connection to this life and my trauma now - otherwise I wouldn't have been told about them by my therapist.



ah, well, I don't have a clue about my totem animal - the same idolatry and projections apply in this area as well, obviously. There ae part of different animals that I like. I like humans for their diversity and innocent thickness and that they have a choice. Snakes are similar to that Snape character, and who doesn't like to be secretly doing good and helping others, being martyrlike, and in a way very noble. The cat can see through people. Hyenas are intelligent and have great know-how when it comes to surviving, and they are hermaphrodisiacs. I can put in whatever symbols I want, it will still work fine. But you know, real life is the best mirror - I mean, animal totems are so abstract - life is swift, painful and full of impressions.

ok, now I feel too good, blue eyed and naïve - perhaps I should visit a satanist wep page or something...