Power Animal comes first and stays first: it is your first and foremost Guide, and it leads every journey. A Human Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer Guide usually comes next, once the bond with the Power Animal is strong, and becomes a second great teacher alongside it, never a replacement. The two work together, and the Power Animal often introduces you to your Human Guide and is the one to check with that a Guide is genuine.
Why do Human Guides come after Power Animal? #
Because the Power Animal is the foundation. “After finding your Power Animal and developing a strong bond with it, the next step in terms of Guides is usually to find a Human Guide to work with.”1 Lots of journeys come first, “to strengthen the bond with your power animal”, and only “When you feel ready” the journey to find a human teacher.2
There is also a practical reason for care. The only humans most of us know are from Taker society, and so “when it comes to meeting Lower-World Humans and Tribes, our middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer experiences and ideas about human tend to get in the way.”3 In seeking a Human Guide, “What is crucial in doing this though is to make absolutely certain that you are in the Lower-World, and that the person you are meeting is a Lower-World being.”4
Do Human Guides replace Power Animal? #
No. “Your first and foremost guide working through you should be your Power Animal.”5 It is “your constant and dearest companion, and your greatest guide, ally and teacher.”6 A Human Guide joins it: “Along with your Power Animal, this Human Guide will become a profoundly important teacher in terms of developing and deepening your shamanic practice.”7
The Power Animal also goes on leading the journeys. “Do not go anywhere without your Power Animal”, because “it is your Power Animal, not you, who should be leading the journey. Always.”8 Finding a Human Guide does not change that.
Can Power Animal and Human Guides work together? #
Yes, and they usually do. A Human Guide may simply start appearing in journeys, or “your Power Animal may take you to meet them and introduce you to them.”9 Once you have met, the Guide “should be a constant companion to you and your Power Animal.”10 Healing can come from both, so ask “for lots of healing, from your Power Animal and Lower-World helpers.”11
The Power Animal is also the safeguard. When meeting a Human in the Lower-World, you ask your Power Animal whether this is a true Human Lower-World Guide and the right teacher for you, and “If your Power Animal shows any ambiguity or unease whatsoever, then do not work with that person. Trust your Power Animal!”12 See What is the role of Power Animal in shamanic journeying?
How are a Human Guide and a Power Animal alike, and how are they different? #
Both are faces of an Oversoul, but they are met differently. “Much in the same way that your Power Animal is not a single individual animal but the OversoulOversoul. A branch of Mother Earth representing the whole of a species: the single being all the individuals arise from. Lower-World work is always with the Oversoul, never an individual; environments are composite Oversouls, wheels within wheels. More about this of the species, the Ancestral Guides are the Human Oversoul in a form or forms that we can have a relationship with.”13 The difference is the face. Paul Francis does not give his Power Animal a name, because he relates to the whole species, but “when it comes to working with humans, it is very hard to relate to the Human Oversoul”, so a Human Guide is met as an individual, with a name and a personality.14 See What are Human Guides?
What is the relationship between Human Guides and the Lower-World Soul? #
They are different things. Your Lower-World Soul is a part of you, “our truest self, our true nature. It is a part of us that is wild and free”.15 It is “our true Self-identity”.16 A Human Lower-World Guide, by contrast, is an “autonomous being”, not “a part of my psyche”.17
The Guides help us find Soul. The journey to meet the Lower-World Soul is made with your Guides, who take you there, and on meeting Soul you are to “check with your Guides too.”18 Soul is who you truly are; the Guides are the others who accompany you to meet it. See What is the difference between Soul and a soul part?
Will I have more than one Human Guide? #
Probably, in time. “It is common to have at least one main Human Lower-World Guide”, and eventually other Human Guides appear, often with “different shamanic specialisms”.19 And “at some point in your shamanic journeying you will meet your Lower-World Tribe”, whom you may meet unexpectedly or ask your Power Animal to take you to.20 Through all of this, the Power Animal remains the first Guide.
