“If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”

-African Proverb

We are all individuals within a multitude of individuals.  The Ant Spirit Animal Totem asks how do you set yourself apart to express the uniqueness of your soul while also harmonizing with a group, team, or family?  Does your uniqueness bring you a greater sense of community or has it caused painful isolation from those who want to care and support you?

An ant alone covers about five-eighths of an inch of Earth.  She is tiny.  Ant in her colony can cover miles of land and can strip a crop in a matter of minutes.  Her visible teaching is the age-old wisdom of power in numbers.  If Ant medicine has marched into your life, this is no time to go it alone.  The task at hand is much, much bigger than you so let go of any need to claim personal credit for what the collective enables you to do.  As humans, we have the capacity to learn anything.  But we can not master everything.  Mastery comes from a focus on a clearly defined specialty. Choose which hat you want to wear and share the rest of the wardrobe.   Healthy group dynamic occurs when each person involved understands their specific field of experts and graciously yields to another when their specialized knowledge reaches its limits.  In this way, all are equal leaders serving the function of the larger event unfolding. Watch the end credits of a movie and you will see Ant Medicine at work.

It is not possible to distinguish one ant from another.  The insect nations are an expression of the hive mind and a lack of personal identity.  Ants do not have a need to clarify their unique qualities.  The are empowered by deriving their sense of identity from the collective and have no trouble being all exactly the same.  Uniformity is a difficult concept for urban Western culture to embrace.  We call it conformity and find wearing school uniforms to be abusive.  It is true that uniformity does need to be kept in balance.  But so does individuality.  We often waste a lot of valuable time and money on making sure our hair and clothes stand out from the crowd.  What might we do with that energy if we did not have to spend it on declaring how we are unique?  What would we focus on?  The visual teaching of the Ant Spirit Animal Totem asks us to develop the ability to not just blend in, but to merge our identity with the larger living body to explore what we could accomplish all together.  Because of historical trauma, uniformity sparks fear.  But only because of how powerful it is.  When a group of individuals all dress in the same clothing and wear the same hair cut, they become an army.  When you join a collective you are joining a Field of power and are wise to regard the power to be the highest priority, above any personal needs.  If you’ve been a free spirit wandering soul, it may be time to join a group to see what you learn about yourself.  Alternatively, if you’ve been part of a group for a long time, it may be time to shift out of Ant Medicine to discover other aspects of your unique soul.  We are always aiming to keep Spirit Animal Teachings in balance.  When you feel it is time to shift out of a certain Spirit Animal energy, call on a different Spirit Animal to help guide you out.

Ant lives in underground mansions of astounding architectural skill and detail.  Her medicine teaches us that what you see ‘top-side’ in your life is directly caused by conditions below the surface.  Our conscious minds are filled with content from the multi-chambered resource of our subconscious mind.  Ant invites you to improve subconscious conditions by journeying down into the powers of the insect nation.  She is an invitation into the depths of the riches within, but unlike Bear, who enters her cave alone, Ant suggests you travel together into the Great Mystery so that conversations can be your learning tools.  The conversations will be strange and unpredictable.  But such is the effect that insect energies have on mammal energies.

Ants are chefs and farmers.  When you see them milling about on your picnic blanket, hauling away crumbs, they are not interested in the food as you’ve dropped it.  They want to ‘cook’ it in their underground kitchens.  After lodging a bit of bread or corn into their kitchen walls, the ants wait patiently for the darkness to bring a tasty mold for them to dine on.  In this way, they are alchemists, able to take something into their life that may not be inherently useful, embed it into their house energies and wait for the thing to become useful.  The plant spirit medicine of mold is in partnership with Ant medicine and it teaches of the psychedelic dimensions of Earth.  The insect nation is in direct communication with such dimensions which is why it is often very disconcerting to encounter Dragonfly, Ant, Spider, and all the other tiny crawlers of Earth.

The relentless and ruthless gaze from an insect medicine person can send an unassuming mammal into cosmic confusion if they are not aware of the subterranean energies at play.  Ants, like many insects, live deep in the body of Earth.  Earth is a living being… a very very large living being.  As you are made of skin, blood, and bones, she is made of water, rock, fire, and air.  This planet being holds a strangeness that can only be experienced when we descend into her materials.  Ant is the travel guide into that journey. The tiny ant is the servant to the enormous spinning sphere we live on.  And as a servant of Earth, each ant carries a wisdom of Earths reality up from the tunnels into the light of day for us to glimpse.   The requirements of such a task can often lead people to view Ant Medicine people as ‘heartless’ automated creatures with no emotion.  While it is true there will not be long cozy talks by the fire when dealing with insect energy, it is not because Ant Medicine people are heartless.  It is because such things are irrelevant to the situation at hand.  Insects are a perfect expression of form equalling function.  Their appearance equals the task at hand.  When insect medicine turns up in a situation it is time to set aside the need for affection and reassurances and shift into the machine that will get the job done.  It is not a heartless machine.  Ant medicine has mastered compassion to the point of making further discussion or exhibitions of it unnecessary.  When the machine of the collective is ticking in perfect time, there is no greater expression of love and compassion than the product of that creative harmony.  Ant is comfortable with the silent knowing of connected hearts.

If the Ant Spirit Animal Totem is out of balance, you may have lost a connection to why you belong where you are.  What is your role and task in the situation and do you want to be a part of it?  Is it time to leave the group and reevaluate the direction your soul wants to travel in?  Or is it time for that lone soul to find the courage to join the group that will bring your goals into reality? Or, practically speaking, you may need to drink Kumbuchu or make yourself a mushroom omelet. Conversely, you may need to pull the curtains back and let some sunlight dry up any excessive moisture causing mold or fungus to grow.

If it is time to journey out of the safety of the collective to reevaluate what your unique being needs to do to stay on a truthful path, the Ant Spirit Animal Totem says, beat a drum, or listen to shamanic drumming to call on the protection you need while on your own.  Play the drum softly in your room or loudly in your car as your adventures unfold.  The resonant heartbeat of the drum will create a buffer of resonance around your body, mind, and soul which will protect you as you explore new dimensions on your own.

A tiny mammal is living her life unseen alongside your own life.  In the shadows, she knows you are there.  She has tracked your habits with precision and when you leave cake crumbs on the counter she is certain you left them for her.

The Mouse Spirit Animal Totem teaches us that behind the big and obvious, there is always something small and underestimated.  How close do you need to get to something or someone in order to know them?  How far away can you get before you lose sight of the situation? Is it time to let go of the larger picture and delve deep into a detailed investigation? Is it time to ‘get in there!’

If you are lacking information about some area of your life, The Mouse Spirit Animal Totem suggests that you may need to approach closer to gather data.  This marks a time of study, scrutiny, and up-close investigations.  Maybe even undercover reconnaissance work.  Staying small and hidden is the energy needed when Mouse Medicine shows up.  But if it is out of balance, it may be time to step away quietly and come around to the front in a more direct manner.

The Mouse Spirit Animal Totem asks us to commit to the situation at hand by getting closer. Wiggle through the tight spaces and investigate.  The whole mansion is yours to explore so let your whiskers dust every surface.  Ironically, the more specific we can get about something, the more universal our discoveries become.  Much like trying to catch a mouse, if you head straight for something it zips away and leaves you wondering where to start.  Mouse Medicine strategies advise against direct routes at this time. Backroads, zig-zags, and just plain hiding might be more productive.  Watch quietly from a place no one would ever think to look for you.

On the other hand, it is easy to scrutinize something (or someone) to the vanishing point.  Quantum physics is the best example of the power of Mouse Medicine.  The more we investigate, the more reality vanishes before our very eyes.  All issues are relative and can not be separated from their context or environment without losing their meaning or even their existence.  Don’t get caught in an existential trap of trying to prove the realness of things in front of you.  Take them at face value and enjoy them from a distance that enables them to stay in place.  Any closer and things might get a bit trippy.  

Mouse is always asking how do we keep things in proportion. Has something in your life taken on monumental importance and become impossible to approach? Creative endeavors often do.  Mouse can help you break down that big goal into smaller, more managable actions.  Do a writing prompt that lists all the things involved with achieving a goal, then take that list and break down each one of those areas into a single action.  That would be good Mouse Medicine.  Writers of books do not sit down and write entire books.  They sit for an hour or three and write sentences that lead to paragraphs, adding up to chapters that result in a book.  One crumb at a time is the tactic to take when the Mouse Spirit Animal Totem is about. Keep a productive perspective on reality by breaking down goals into bite-sized bits.

Relationships are also a practice in proportions.  If you are dealing with a true friend, know that there is time enough for miscommunication to untangle itself.  No need to hurry or obsess or scrutinize to within an inch of everyone’s life. Communication is good, but that doesn’t always mean ‘talking.’  Use body language, notes, and gestures of gifts.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, put yourself into a smaller situation for a few hours or a weekend.  This can help restore a sense of feeling big and good at something while you also manage the frustrations of learning how to expand your world.  If you are tired of being the leader always in the middle of things, find a way to step out for a bit and retreat into being small.  If you are tired of being the student, sneak away quietly from your current school of life and find someone who needs to hear what you’ve learned. We are always shifting between visible/invisible, big/small, and beginner/expert.

Mouse Medicine Affirmations:

-It is useful to be small and unnoticed sometimes. I don’t always have to be visible.
-I am at peace with this one task at hand.
-This situation is doable.  It breaks down easily and with grace into manageable tasks.
-I need only look right in front of me and accept reality to know what to do next.

Mouse is disconcertingly fast and almost impossible to catch barehanded.  She must be lured out.  What do you find enticing?  What does the object of your inquiry find enticing? Mouse Spirit Animal teachings also remind us to be aware of that which is hidden.  If we do not take time to consider the other mice in hiding around us, they may eat away at our storehouse of grain. Like her neighbor, the Ant, Mouse Medicine is a ‘power-in-numbers’ sort of energy that also has a certain relentlessness.  With year-round fertility and a large litter of babies born at once, the mouse is a formidable survivor who, when left unchecked, completely demolished the human population of Medieval Europe.  Never underestimate the power of the small to grow big.

Has someone started to encroach on your personal space with exhausting persistence? It may be time to simply vanish like a mouse into an unseen passageway and let the big creatures carry on without you for a while.  When we are not fully prepared for the next step in our evolution, it is useful to let ourselves become small to gather the strength we will need to make the next shift.  If we have given all our energy to a particular puzzle and can find no further progress, it is wise to say, “I don’t know and I don’t know how to know at this time. I am putting this puzzle down and moving on to something more manageable for me.” The message here is to take good measurements.  All things, no matter how complex or well-funded are actually very simple.  Everything breaks down to manageable morsels.  What is in your power to do at this time? What needs to stay and what needs to go? When we clean house we increase the size of our world.  When we make space, new friends are able to appear and carry us beyond our limited view into a larger beauty.