Animal Totem

Written By Cristy

Our relationship to animals is indelible. Our instincts correlate to symbolic and literal animal figures. They become symbols of the soul and can communicate aspects of our psyches, shepherding our paths. 

We have related to animals in various capacities. We eat, feed, adopt, herd, hunt, train, breed, nurture, play, use, think, and grow with them. And they can also link us intimately with purpose, meaning and identity as individuals and as a collective.

My college mascot was a lion and I too am astrologically a leo. This regal creature as appeared in dreams and holds a big symbolic component of my paternity. The bear, likewise, is the emblem of my home state and has also appeared in dreams as a soul totem connecting me to the maternal. My relationship to these mammals connects me to my instinctual nature, loyal, protective, and relational.

How do you link to the wisdom of animals, both literal and figurative, in your life? 

Cristy

Hola, Piyali, Hello! I am a queer Latina Chicana mestiza ((detribalized Caxcan/ Iberian colonial) mother, storyteller and decolonial somatic psychotherapist licensed in California with fourteen years of clinical experience in the field of depth psychology. My private practice, Imaginal Therapy + Sacred Arts, centers soul care and offers ketamine journeys. I am a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Hakomi Institute of California. I specialize in intergenerational trauma, healing the family soul for personal and cultural transformation, and psychedelic/entheogen integration. I work with clients in a holistic approach to connect to collective wisdom through imagination, intuition, mindfulness, embodiment, dreamwork and creative expression. My treatment focus is on relationship, cultural wounds, trauma resolution, ancestral lineage repair, animist parenting, kinship ethics, and reconnecting to the sacred.

I am a certified Ancestral Lineage Healing practitioner and also an initiated serpent medicine keeper and priestess in sacred arts with 8 years of training. As a ritualist and coach, I offer virtual mentoring and circles globally. I am steeped in my traditions, mythology, cultura and roots, originally from the villages of Juchipila, Zac, Mexico, born and raised in Tongva lands, Los Angeles, residing on Nisenan land, Sacramento. My lineage gifts are in storytelling, dignity, sweetness, relating to the spirit magic of bee, deer, maize, and cacao. I have been given the medicine name, Cloud Serpent. I am honored to reclaim reverence for my mother mountain, Tlachialoyantepec, a sacred site. I hold a vow with my people to live the repair, in service of the anima, mundi, the world soul.

https://imaginaltherapy@gmail.com
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