Search A Light In The Darkness

Monday 20 August 2007

Power Animals: The Ant

The ant is very industrious. Some ants are solitary but most are part of a large community. Within the community there is a repertory of activities and behaviors. Their activities include gathering and hunting. Within a community each ant knows its place and performs its duties with total loyalty to the whole.

Worker ants are excellent architects and can show us how to construct our dreams into reality. Ants are very persistent and can teach this skill as well.

The power of ant medicine is teamwork. Each ant will do its part to ensure the survival and health of the whole colony, regardless of the role it has been assigned. If ant has to fight, it will; if ant has to dig tunnels, it will; if ant has to carry leaves for miles, it will, all for the good of the community.

Ants are selfless servants always looking out for their fellow ant. They focus on the best outcome for the community and teach the art of self sacrifice and true service. The queen ant has wings and the ability of flight until fertilized. Once fertilized she pulls off her own wings sacrificing her own flight for the birth of a newborn. Although there is a caste system within the ant community all ants honour and respect each other and work for the common good.

Ants are tireless workers and hunters and teach the art of perseverance and patience in all that they do. Those with this totem will find that many of their life lessons will involve the mastery of patience in some way.

Ant medicine is subtle yet powerful. It teaches us how to release our egos and aligns us with the virtue of equality. Imagine what the world would be like if humanity held and applied the values that the ant expresses. The next time you step on, squash, injure or kill an ant intentionally, ask yourself why you are choosing to destroy the unconditional love that the ant shares so freely. Valuable insights about yourself and your history can be learned from this tiny little totem.

Symbolically the Ant is a tiny totem. One which can find the cracks and weaknesses of any apparent solid object. Even the most apparently solid of walls will have a means of ingress to those most persistent of ants should the ant detect something of worth on the other side of the barrier. The Ant is linked to the Universal Consciousness. To the eternal one just the same as you or I are part of the 'I AM I'. It too is a mere mote in the cosmic wheel. Therefore the awareness which is ‘the ant’ is within us all. Through shamanic contemplation a journey as the symbolic ant can reveal many things. Those tiny insignificant things which are often disregarded. From this most minute of perspectives, it is possible to comprehend the patterns and structures of sacred geometry. ‘Being the Ant’ is a beneficial meditation.