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Power Animals

Location: Indoors or Outdoors

Time: 45 minutes

Materials: Animal pictures from magazines, a sets of stickers or clip art

Construction paper

Glue

Colored markers

Optional: Activity can be completed without pictures or art supplies, using verbal skills and imagination.

Objectives

• To cultivate inner power.

• To identify personal features that represent strength and positive attributes. To explore the diversity of individual spirit.

Directions

1. Introduce the concept that each person holds within resources and connections with other people and other animals. Some cultures recognize a special connection between animal and human, and in some settings that relationship is considered to be lifelong. You may wish to discuss traditional Native American beliefs about animal totems as a creative starting point. Emphasize that this activity offers an opportunity to reach beyond a pleasant memory or favorite pet into deeper held perspectives on what represents strength.

2. Display the animal images and art supplies. Invite participants to select from the photographs available, or to describe their animals. The animal can be real or imaginary, one that the participants have had contact with or only dreamed about. Emphasize there are no correct answers, and no animal is more positive than another.

3. Direct participants to add words around their selected animal image that describe how the animal represents strength.

4. Encourage participation in a discussion about the participants’ animals and their rationale behind the selections.

Observations

A group of twelve women selected from photographs from magazines. Two of the women selected dogs, animals that had been significant in their childhood, one of whom wrote a three-page, heartfelt narrative telling of the bond she shared with her dog. One woman chose a scorpion and justified it with appropriate observations and insight regarding the strengths of this creature. All participants readily shared their selections and spoke with reverence while describing the felt connection. Others in the group identified a horse, a giraffe, a lion, an arctic tern, and a hummingbird. Each description showed contemplative resourcefulness and was received with respect by other group members. In the professional group where one author was first introduced to this activity, one man selected the cockroach as his power animal and explained in a convincing way that the insects had inhabited the earth longer than any other species and had shown unparalleled resiliency in survival. Unusual individual connections, such as the cockroach or the scorpion, must be received with as much respect as the obvious or more appealing symbols.

Inspired by: Larry Dossey, MD, discussed this at a professional meeting decades ago; we subsequently encountered variations in a number of settings and created our own adaptation.

The leopard is seen as brave, strong, fearless, independent, and willing to fight for his life.