First of all, what are spirit guides? Well, they’re a metaphor for spirit. And we place form and names and personality on spirits so that we can relate with spirit. That’s our doing as humans. But this idea that we have totem animals, that we have helper animals, that we have animal spirits that speak to us. This exists in just about every indigenous culture.

Why? Because we are animals. We humans are living, breathing meat suits just like the creatures around us. So how do you know who your animal spirit would be? Your spirit guide? Well, sometimes it kind of comes out of nowhere. I remember once when I had just gone through my big intuitive awakening, and just to remind you, I was a lawyer and a Catholic and was not looking for an intuitive awakening when it happened to me.

But once it did, I could hear spirit, I could feel energy, I could, you know, help heal people with my hands and stuff that I hadn’t really believed in previously. And I got some support from some folks who have a more shamanic point of view. In other words, more earth wisdom, point of view, including my Apache mama Maria Yraceburu, who’s my teacher and my mentor and my aunty and my adopted mama.

And she’s taught me a lot and actually she’s taught me a lot, but she’s also given permission a lot for what felt natural for me. I remember once kind of early in my game here where I was on a hike in Arizona in the Mongolian rim. I was staying at my uncle and aunt’s house up in pace in Arizona and which interestingly is the same area, a similar area close to where the White Mountains reservation is, where Maria grew up.

And it’s beautiful land and pine forest. And I remember thinking, I’m going to go for a walk and I’m just I really need to know that I’m not alone because I was having all these visions and intuitive stuff happening and it felt kind of lonely. You know, here’s I’m staying with my uncle and aunt, who are sweet people, very Catholic, very mainstream people at the time.

And I couldn’t talk to them about some of this stuff. I didn’t feel like I could talk to them about this stuff. But I did go for this walk and I was praying really hard, like, I need an ally. I need an ally to show themselves to me and I want to find something. I want to find rock or a branch.

I want to I want to sign. I want a physical, something that I can hold on to. And as I was walking, I was on my own hiking out in the forest. And I looked down and I saw this red volcanic rock on the ground. And I knew that was the rock. And it was kind of triangular shaped.

And I picked it up and it was rough hewn, like lava stone sort of. And I was like, Well, this is kind of cool looking. And I turned it over. And when I turned it over, it had eyes and like a skinny chin, it looked like a skull, it looked like death and freaked that crap out of me.

And then my vision shifted and it was an owl. And I realized, this is this is like one of those heart faced owls that it’s a barn owl and it’s death. great. And I thought, this is is this bad? Is this scary? And as I tuned in, I’m like, It is dark and it is death, but it feels friendly.

And I just like you got to understand, at this point, I’m just barely out of the Catholic Church and I’m like this. I don’t know, this feels like a good sign, but it’s very confusing because it looks like a bad sign. And I brought it back and eventually I showed it to Maria. She’s like, chances are this is the ghost faced owl.

This is the barn owl. I’m like, Yeah, okay. What does it mean? She’s like, Well, honey, you’re in a major life change right now. I’m like, Yeah. She’s like, It’s practically a death of your old identity. And you’re. You’re finding your new identity. It’s like a death and rebirth. And I was like, yeah. So, yeah.