ANIMALIA was a deeply powerful theme fro Burning Man 2023 - with the potential to awaken everyone in Black Rock City to the original nature they hold deep inside... where their animal instinct lives... the original connection to spirit now known the world over as shamanism.
Have you ever wondered what a "Power Animal", "Spirit Animal" or "Spirit Guide" actually is? The different names reflect the variety of their expression in indigenous traditions. They all act as a link between the conscious self and spirit.
Yes, spirit. Source. Whatever you choose to call it, it's the metaphysical allness that simply is, and you're an expression of it.
The most typical way to meet a power animal is to go on a metaphysical journey to the place where the shared consciousness we call animal instinct lies -- in this case, the Lower World.
In some traditions, a spiritual healer must journeyon the client's behalf. A very deep shamanic journey may express itself clearly in this world (the Middle World), manifesting healing in a client while inducing a life-threatening condition in the practitioner. Perhaps the latter is in trade for the healing. At any rate, such work is only available to one whom spirit has called to do it. We shamanistas are, for the most part, student-practitioners - like children standing on the shore of a bottomless lake, dipping our toes into the sacred water.
In some traditions, each member of the community must at least once face their animal self - some even require that to happen in the Middle World.
In some cultures, traveling in other realms of consciousness is part of everyone's daily life.
Kind of like being at the burn?
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We believe that ANIMALIA was a manifestation of the great global shift toward higher-vibration energies that practitioners of many different traditions and cultures feel strongly is taking place in the world. If the folks at Burning Man Project meant this as a conscious intention, it's deeply brilliant. If they didn't intend it, it's still true. (And... that's kind of how spirit works.)
Here's where it gets weird...
Believe it or not, ANIMALIA was kind of presaged on Thursday night of Waking Dreams (2022), at a sweat lodge on A at 2:15-ish, behind AMAZONE Camp. It was led by a Quechua indigenous practitioner, Tukuillapa. (A number of Shamandome campers attended.) Toward the end of the ceremony, Tukuillapa said that the most valuable action people can take to heal the environment right now is to teach shamanism to everyone, to reconnect us to our true nature, to Pachamama (it's a core Quechua prophecy) ... and that Burning Man has the potential to be a global catalyst for this work.
But really, it's not our job to save humanity,* we just want to help you meet your power animal.
