(^220) A Wiccan Bible
mean that all humans believe the Earth is round. When we acknowledge the existence
of stereotypes, we can discuss a matter in that order.
This is one of the many reasons that when we are speaking about kith familiars,
power animals, totems, or whatever we choose to call them, we are talking of the order
of their entire line and not any one individually. This normal process of language is why
I can make observations about the human race, such as males have greater upper body
strength than females, without the expectation that I will widely be seen as sexist. Note
that I did not say males generally has greater upper body strength than females because
I was speaking of the entire line of humanity, a group in which the collective that is
male does, indeed, have more upper body strength than the collective that is female.
Even if one develops a personal relationship with kith familiars, that relationship is
with the whole of the line if it is in the order of kith familiars or it is termed kin familiar.
This is important because the guide that follows speaks more the whole than to any one
critter. Forexample, Bear being listed as having feminine attributes means simply that
the attributes of most bears seem to be feminine. It does not mean that all bears every-
where are females or even that all bears in every situation will be fiercely protective of
their children. Instead, considering bears to be feminine in nature means that if you
were to take the sum total of all bears everywhere it would be a safe bet that if Mama
and Papa Bear are in the area, you don’t want to mess with Baby Bear.
This principle can provide great comfort when considering the fact that for Life
there must be Death. When we see a fox kill a rabbit, considering both fox and rabbit to
be parts of their greater line, we see death as a necessary part of life. This allows us to
recognize that although Fox does indeed kill Rabbit, it does not make Fox evil. It also
allows us to recognize that although Fox must eat Rabbit to live, Rabbit is not evil for
trying to escape. Instead we see Rabbit continuing to feed on greens, Fox continuing to
feed on Rabbit, and the death of neither even though individual creatures do die. We
see the Cycle of Birth, Life, and Death repeated again and again in the constant and yet
sometimes seemingly mysterious ways of nature. But the moment we identify these
critters as individuals, we move to protect rabbit from fox, thus causing the suffering of
fox by starvation and the suffering of rabbit from over population.
Although it has been popular to link spiritual relationships with animal archetypes
to Native Americans, virtually all religions have shared a deep connection with ani-
mals. Cave paintings and primitive carvings that celebrated animal spirit have been
found to be of an origin thousands of years before humanity ever thought to migrate to
North America. Remember, there isn’t really any such thing as a Native American. We
are all Africans, so we all brought not only the genes but also the customs that those
genes tend to promote when placed in similar environments.
Prehistoric Shaman from across the world dressed, acted, and danced as animals
do to call on their spirits, hoping to bring that which they observed in nature into them-
selves and perhaps to call on those attributes for their tribe. When they observed the
sudden and silent swiftness of hawks as they snatched mice from the brush, they called
on Hawk to lend his swiftness and keen eyesight to matters of hunting. When they saw
bears bringing trees to the ground, they called on Bear for strength against all order of
t WB Chap 12.p65 220 7/11/2003, 5:55 PM
barré
(Barré)
#1