Let’s say that your Totem is a ‘Still Pool of Water’ and all of your life you have been very quiet and still, there is a stillness about you.
Most people see just the surface of you, and they think that there is just this surface and they think that there is not much inside and that Still Pool of Water. It doesn’t move very much and there is not a lot of ambition, there’s not a lot of showing to the world what an incredible person that you are and yet, when people look at you, they see a lot of potential. They see a lot of possibilities.
If you think of this Still Pool of Water there is this surface layer and often, it doesn’t move, and that’s all that they see. They just see the surface, they don’t really understand that underneath that, there is a whole world living underneath that and just because the surface isn’t moving, it doesn’t mean that underneath isn’t an entire civilisation, if you like, and entire eco-system working away. And underneath that, there is all this potential. So, when people are looking at you and seeing all this potential, but perceiving that you are not doing anything with that, all of this potential, they are actually seeing the energy of the potential within that Still Pool of Water.
Also, with the Still Pool of Water, often it takes a lot to move. It’s just sort of sitting there. There’s not a lot of movement and if you throw a stone into that – there is the ripples and then there is this movement. And if you are a Still Pool of Water you will have to learn to understand that you have to sometimes throw a stone into your Still Pool of Water to make ripples, to make things happen, so you are learning from that that you are actually an element in your creation of what happens in your life. It’s not just being this Still Pool of Water and letting nature take its course with all this energy underneath, there is, you can actually create, you can, you have to make the ripples because when others make the ripples are causes for you a dissonance in the being. It causes the water in you to move in a vibration that’s not comfortable for you.
And so often you find yourself in situations where you are doing things for other people or you are living a life that you don’t even understand because someone else has thrown that stone in. When you realise that you are the one that can throw the stone and should be throwing the stone so that you can have that control, that you can have those ideas, that you can have the life that you want to live.
Then, you are really just beginning to understand your Totem.
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This Totem that we have just spoken about, well we have just touched the surface, there is so much more to this Totem, as there is with all Totems.
So when you find out, when you divine what your Totem is and you really start to understand it in relation to the way that you speak, the way that you think, the way that you live, the food that you eat, your relationships, your work. The way that you carry yourself in society, then you keep going and you keep going and you keep going and you keep going and you find out so much more, so much more.
So, for us this is why for us the Totem is a gift, because so many people want to know the meaning of their life, they want to know the purpose of their life and they are, they try to look in and then they look outside to have teachers or to do courses that can give them some insight into themselves. But if you can find out, divine your Totem yourself, not just somebody giving it to you, not just the general ones that belong to groups of Shamanic Traditions around the world, but actually your own, your own Totem and then you really start to investigate it and see how it applies to your life.
And see how you have enacted this Totem and see how you rely on this Totem and see how the Totem relies on you and so on and so on, you really start to get this picture of yourself and this really helps you find the meaning of your life, because to find the ‘meaning’ of your life is not the same as finding the ‘purpose’ of your life.
The purpose is a doing thing. What am I going to do?
But the meaning is the essence of your being! The meaning is that real, the impulse, the motivation, the real point of creation of your being – that is the ‘meaning’.
And that is what the Totem can give you.
Eaxmple – Quartz as a Totem – <External Youtube>