Tales of the Animal Tribes

How the Wolves Became the Brothers of Humans

Shamanic Healing Story

Given to Lyn Benedict

On  3-26-2009

My Power Animal took me to the Upper World to meet my teacher, a bald eagle, named J.J.  When I stated my intention of meeting an animal tribe that would like to tell me a story that I could tell to the whole world, J.J. took me to the valley of the wolves on a different planet than mine.  The wolves in the valley were too many to count.  One wolf stepped forward to tell me this story of how the wolves became the brothers of humans…….

Once upon a time a little wolf cub became lost from his siblings.  He traveled alone for many days.  One day he came upon some Indian boys playing by a stream.  The little wolf cub stayed hidden and watched the boys.  He had never seen anything like them before.  Suddenly, a Grizzly bear burst through the bushes into the opening where the boys were playing.  He stood on his hind feet and growled.  The Indian boys froze with fright.  They could not move.  Little wolf ran from his hiding place and stood between the boys and the Grizzly bear.  His courage caused him to shape shift into a huge wolf, larger than the Grizzly bear.  The bear had never seen a wolf so large and quickly dropped to all fours and ran away.  Then the little wolf shifted back to his very small size so as not to scare the children.

The children gathered around the cub and thanked him and asked him to come back to their camp with them.  The little wolf followed them back to their tribe.  The Indian boys told the elders of the courage of little wolf cub and how he had saved them from the huge Grizzly bear by becoming larger than the bear.  The elders were very grateful to the wolf cub for saving their children so they made the wolf cub a member of their tribe.  By doing this, they included all the wolves, everywhere, as their brothers.

To this day, the Wolf still sees himself as the guardian of humans, even though this is not how all humans perceive the wolf.  The wolves say that someday all men will see the wolf as their guardian!

Susanna – Why am I compelled to live with cats all my life, never able to go more than a few weeks without them?

I asked my beautiful power animal teacher to take me to the tribe most appropriate to answer this question, and after walking through tall grass together  we arrived at a huge meadow full of wildflowers.  I asked for the chief storyteller of the wildflower tribe to please tell me the story of my connection with cats.

She was taller than most of the flowers, and I first became aware of her by her lovely fragrance.  I saw that she was creamy white, but somehow not a camellia, or really any flower I know in the middle world.

Here is her story:

Once upon a time there were a bunch of stars in the sky, spread out like the flowers in this meadow.  You and the cats you’ve loved and will love were a starry tribe together.  This starry tribe decided to have an adventure and come down to the earth and take an entirely different form from your usual fiery, bright existence, so you all became soft, silky, furry creatures with bright eyes to reflect the starlight you came from.  But you, Susanna, decided to be extra-different and explore an existence even further away from the starry tribe, and dared to try the human form and life.  As your reminder of star-life, you had to have red hair!

At first the rest of your tribe was very dismayed and was terribly afraid that you and they would be separated and wouldn’t be able to have fun and adventures together, but the choice was already made. And you were scared, now that it had been done, scared that you would be separated from all your friends and kin.

Soon everyone cheered up, because the whole tribe agreed to stay linked by the heart, no matter what the adventures.  The cats would have Cat adventures and the human would have Human adventures, and as a tribe would not forget to take care of one another.  You would all be part of a thread.  But to make these adventures true learning experiences you each would forget most of your previous existence, and only remember dimly when looking into each other’s eyes.

When the adventures were over for all the tribe members, they would return to their starry home and share their knowledge and experiences with each other.  Still, while the starry cat tribe was living on this earth, they and their human counterpart would be able to share gathered knowledge and love among themselves, enriching each other as they lived.

I thanked this beautiful flower for her story (and her heavenly fragrance!).

I asked my power animal teacher what the moral of this story might be, and he said, “You have kinship with those who do not look like you.”

This was a very personal story!

There is an added meaning for me to this story:  that my last kitty was named, or named herself, “Violet”.  She died almost a year ago (of FIP) and of course I still miss her.  Interesting, then, that it was the Flower Tribe, the wildflowers, that told me this story.

A Master Teleclass with Carla Meeske. See www.spiritlearing.com for the schedule and to register.

This website is a place for us to post the Animal Tribal stories we gather. You can see links to them on the right. To post a story, look to the right and find the page “Tell us your story”. You can put the story into the comment section. I will take care of the rest. Thanks!

Our Power Animals have Tribes with cultures and mythology, just as our human tribes have. We can ask our power animals to heal us using the power of their tribes. Often they will do this through stories, myths that describe the nature of the world. Our concerns mirror the worlds concerns. Our healing is universal healing, and when we bring healing into the world through our Shamanic Work, we bring heal to all of the world not just ourselves and our clients. The Tribal Stories evoke this underlying truth and bring it forward in magic and beauty.

We can gather stories for ourselves, for our families and for all our relations. The stories can be personal or broadly mythic. We can express the myths in different ways. We will tell stories in the class, but we will encourage you to express them through other arts too, such as paintings, crafts, theater and dance.

Harmony Harrison has been gathering Tribal Stories of her Power Animals and has agreed to share this story with you as an example of what is possible to retrieve.

Harmony writes, “Bringing back these myths can be a service to the animal tribes. It is not just we who are benefiting, but an exchange. That’s why it’s so important for us to express the stories after we witness them. Expressing the stories is a gift we give back to the spirits, as well as to our own people & animals. Because the spirits experience such joy in the sharing, and because their incarnate tribal members benefit from the humans’ changing views of them.”

In this master teleclass you will access your core creative soul and let it sing the songs the spirits give you. Your heart will spread as wide as the eagle’s wings. You will create beauty and shine in the spirits light. You will be healed and you will gain amazing insight.