Restorative Matters ; Where ecology meets spirituality

Restorative Matters

Where ecology meets spirituality; Animal Signs.

Sometimes it can feel as if the natural world is mirroring something back to us.

A moment of connnection, of guidance.

We may even read it as a divine sign.

But, rather more boringly, perhaps it is simply the human tendency to search for meaning, a tendency that can sometimes, after the event feel a little whimsical, possibly even childish.

Either way many people in the west, especially those drawn to New Age spirituality, eventually encounter the idea of animal totems or spirit animals.

This is usually seen through imagery of creatures such as eagles, wolves, and other archetypal figures.

Much of that imagery is shaped by Native American traditions that are not our own here in England.

I’m not here to say that these associations are wrong, and I am certainly not going discuss what may or may not be bordering towards the cultural appropriation.

That topic in itself is vast

But what I am interested in exploring, is something more grounded and accessible.

And in many ways, to me, makes more sense.

And that is to work with the rhythms of our everyday lives, based on the lands we are actually living in.

For me, that land is England.

And part of that is mainly for practical reasons.

I am unlikely to see a bald headed eagle flying over Dartmoor on a Tuesday afternoon, just as I am unlikely to see a great white tiger strolling down my local High Street.

So for me, that land Devon in the south west of England.

This is where I work, raise my children, and where I move through the turning of the seasons.

I am interested in exploring a way of working with signs that is gentler, more grounded, more available to everyday life, and more connected to the land under our feet.

And I want to approach it with a soft scepticism, a curiosity rather than a doctrine.

Something we don't try to force, but slowly learn to notice.

The late Ted Andrews (1952 to 2009), whose work has influenced a lot of Western approaches to animal symbolism, and whose book Animal Speak was a real turning point for me, approached animal symbolism from careful and detailed observation.

He looked at the real behavioural qualities of animals, their habitats, their rhythms, and worked from there.

There is something deeply sensible in that.

Not the “my spirit guide is a wolf” levels of theatrics, rather just observing the living world and asking, “What might that mean for me, right now, in the context of my own life?”

This approach is based on ecology. There is an pragmatic intelligence to that.

For a long time, though, I wasn't sure what to do with the idea of “messages.”

Who was sending them?

Why me?

Why now?

And more importantly, was little old me really so important that the entire local animal kingdom felt the need to rearrange itself on the daily to whisper guidance in my direction?

Rather unlikely.

And actually, to presume such a thing is borderline arrogant.

But then came the other layer of thought.

The more holographic, interconnected, almost quantum view of the world.

The idea that reality relational, and that everything influences everything.

That patterns repeat at every scale.

That the universe, from atoms to ecosystems, is built on correspondence.

And then things began to sit better for me.

Because in that worldview, a sign is not a direct message being sent to you as somebody special from something else “out there.”

It is simply a moment of pattern recognition, of resonance, and of stopping to notice that resonance, like a reflection in the mirror of the world.

As if you imagine standing on the side of a lake.

You may not see the wind swirling around you, but you see the ripples that it produces on the water in front of you.

And if the world is one vast pattern, then of course the natural world becomes one of the clearest mirrors we have.

I am not suggesting we overreach or contort meaning out of thin air.

But I am suggesting that subtle noticing, gentle, observational, non dramatic noticing, can create a dialogue with the living world that feels grounding.

Curious, not dogmatic.

Present, not escapist.

For example, as I sit here writing this, I am watching three juvenile squirrels chasing one another through the evergreen trees outside the yurt.

One of them stops and stares at me with bold curiosity.

We both stay like this for at least 30 seconds and I cannot help but feel the intensity of that tiny creature to human creature moment.

A simple exchange of awareness.

Connection.

We humans forget that we are animals too.

We forget that we live in an ecosystem, not beside one, and that the world is always speaking through patterns.

These small moments remind us of that truth, because these moments are connection, which after all is at the root of pretty much everything we are motivated by in our lives.

And then there are the rarer stories, the ones that do not come daily, but stay with you for years.

Last year, I attended an incredibly prestigious training that I had waited a full year to take part in.

Three days into this residential course, something unfolded that was deeply unaligned with how I feel humans should treat one another.

In an instant, and before my thinking brain had fully caught up, my body knew this was not a safe place to be.

And so, despite the financial investment, the childcare logistics, the hire car, the enormous excitable anticipation and enthusiasm I had previously had to be there, I made the decision to leave.

The details of what happened are not important for this story, but what happened moments before I left is.

I was standing outside during the lunch break free time enjoying feeling barefoot on the grass, watching other students chatting and enjoying their lunch nearby, when I suddenly felt a sharp electric bolt of pain shooting up through my foot like a sting of lightning.

I looked down and saw a very large, in fact unusually large, red ant, a fire ant I later learned.

It was clamped onto my skin.

I had never seen one in the UK before.

I shook it off but was still shocked at how much pain an ant bite could cause.

Within what felt like the same second, I sensed somebody walking towards me.

I looked up and the interaction that followed was the one that confirmed what my body already knew.

This was not a safe place to be.

I left with tears hot on my face and the sting echoing through my foot.

Back home, after sharing the story a few days later with a good friend who works as a practicing shaman, she told me that in Totem medicine the ant represents protection through independent thinking, and the courage to walk away from the crowd toward what is right.

And whether literal or symbolic, it was true.

I had walked away from the crowd that day, guided entirely by my ethical compass.

The sting in my foot lasted five days.

So did the emotional sting.

A mirrored duration.

A mirrored message.

Not every sign is this dramatic.

In fact, most are not.

Most are small, soft, almost forgettable unless we pause long enough to notice.

A crow landing on the ground and giving you that knowing look before taking off again.

A toad on your doorstep when you get home on a Friday after a hard week.

A hawk circling low on a day where you need clarity, or the help to see the bigger picture.

Are these messages, or patterns?

Perhaps they simply coincidences.

But maybe it actually doesn't matter.

What matters is the relationship that forms through noticing.

A softening of the boundary between us and the world.

A rewilding of perception.

A recent book that seems to have struck a chord with thousands of readers, including myself is Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton.

It is a beautiful written account of Dalton unexpectedly finding herself caring for a young Levert.

The premise is unusual, of course.

Most of us will never raise a leveret or share our daily lives with such a wild creature.

Yet the book’s popularity points to something deeper than curiosity about wildlife. What it taps into is a longing many people feel but rarely name: the yearning for connection with the living world around us.

Through Dalton’s patient attention to the hare, the rhythms of its movement, the stillness required simply to observe, the reader is gently reminded how far modern life has pulled us away from those slower, relational ways of being.

The joy of the book lies not only in the animal itself, but in the way it shows that when we slow down enough to truly notice another living being, something in us remembers how to belong again.

This is why I favor a gentle approach to animal totumship, because its more that signs - its connection, and that in itself is deeply spiritual.

No “the universe is sending me a tiger so obviously I should quit my job and move to Bali.”

Just noticing what is alive around you and asking what qualities it mirrors in you.

A practice of presence.

The land we live on is our teacher.

The animals we coexist with are our companions.

And the patterns we notice are the places where inner and outer reality meet.

To me, that is the power of animal totems when approached with curiosity, with a interest in deeper relationship.

So often we take what we want from something and move on, the way modern life trains us to look for quick answers.

Just like our 'take a pill' approach to ill health.

What I m suggesting here, though, is slower than that, a willingness to sit with the relationship a longer.

To be present, rather than just take.

A conversation and deeper connection with the living world.

One small moment at a time.

Written in love, with wonder,

Olivia,

If this edition resonated with you, I always appreciate hearing from readers.

You are welcome to email from this link

Respond to Olivia directly