interesting experience today. someone agreed to help me find my totem.
most reading/study in this area has been native american in orientation, so it never occurred to me to consider a totem outside the rather organic realm of this… even as i know the concept of totem spans many cultures.
so i really should not have been surprised by the result.
the person providing this service is established and came to me highly recommended by a number of acquaintances, and two good friends. so i was comfortable sharing the information necessary for them to perform this service.
the result? well. read on…
the first piece of the reading was a short, descriptive poem, as i understand it, speaking to the nature and purpose:
Phoenix, hear my heart’s desire.
Fill me with renewing fire.
Renew my body, mind and soul.
Loving Phoenix, make me whole.
the next bit is something along the lines of a cultural and memetic definition:
Keeper of the Fire of Creation.
Represents death and rebirth.
Transformation and Regeneration.
Protector of all fire.
then came the over-arching description of the path that those who receive this totem’s guidance walk, their orientation and the outline of their perspective in relation to others and the world, and how the presence/influence of the totem serves one as they walk:
This totem gives hope in the midst of despair.
Helps you transform your life into something purer and brings you closer
to spiritual awareness.
Call upon the Phoenix for strength and renewed energy when facing trials
of life.
next, a bit of cross-referential identification with other cultures:
Symbolizes the Sun, dying every night to be reborn with the dawn.
The Chinese believe that the Phoenix has been sent to Earth
to help the development of mankind. Known as the Feng-Huang.
and the last, a mythical or more legendary presentation:
The Phoenix is a traveler going through the inky vastness of space; it
can take mortal form when it wants to — sometimes seen as a large, red
bird.
there is considerably more, but as it tends toward the deeply personal and resonates close to the bone, i decide not to place it here.
suffice to say, nothing in the above was a surprise to me, and much of the above has been clearly demonstrated throughout my life. there are certain, recent parallels that border on the uncomfortable — but even in that discomfort, a degree of confirmation and contentment. i am often showing up ‘just in time’ for someone flailing about at wit’s end, and usually only remain until the crisis has passed, at which time, inevitably, circumstances or relations decay or are destroyed (not always by others) and i am once more trundling along a solitary path.
there are a number of parallels in these short pieces as well as in the longer reading that align in odd ways with both my experiences in Buddhism and the over-arching life experience and the lessons found along the way.
the synchronicities are somewhat profound.
i’m glad i did this, but also pensive for the doing. i often say ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’ and it would seem this is still true. which is interesting, albeit disturbing at times.
i lightly toy with the phoenix around my neck and contemplate the nature of totems and talismans. i think, briefly, of a certain talisman given to one i wish well… feeling a sense of almost certainty that it is buried in some corner. as i said… the more things change, the more they stay the same.