Animal spirits can make exceptional allies. If you’re new to working with remains, it can be difficult to determine where to begin.

The most important strategy to working with animal spirits is to trust your sight. If you’re still exploring your sight, I’m going to offer some starting points.

If you have access to a store that sells bones, teeth, claws, scales, or any other type of remains, go and touch them. If they’re preserved, they should be reasonably clean and dry. If they’re fresh (in the case of a butcher shop, for instance) practice normal sanitary techniques that you would in any kitchen.

If you don’t have such access, browse online options. In either case, look for one that speaks to you. It can be as simple as a spark of curiosity, a feeling in your body, or even a sweet smell that appears. Everyone’s sight is different, and is rarely just literal sight.

What is important is that you feel a connection, no matter how big or small. Keep in mind that this is also the first time the animal spirit is perceiving you. Think of this as your first meeting. A good feeling is a sign it wants to work with you.

What Does it Mean to Work with an Animal Spirit?

When you create a relationship with any spirit, you become their doorway into the manifest world. It can be a beautiful and extraordinary thing. It can open pathways to awareness, ancestral knowledge, inspiration. It can bring out intrinsic qualities in you that you weren’t aware of, or hadn’t honed. The possibilities are limitless.

It’s also very important to set boundaries. This goes for anything from gods to animals to ancestors, and everything in between. It will give your magic greater potency to have authority over your own universe, and create mutual respect between you and your spirits. Just as you should not tolerate a living person that doesn’t respect your boundaries, the same goes for spirits.

In general, animals will not work with you if they don’t want to. So if you feel a spark, feel free to explore it. Animals carry memories of being alive, eating, breathing, growing, and so on. This is distinct from stones and plants, who have equally wonderful but different experiences to share.

I find animal spirits easy to work with because of this. They remember things like hunger, play, fear, curiosity. Their languages are easy to learn once you know what you’re listening for.

If you feel the need to thank the animal part for its gift you, do so. Then, let the relationship move forward naturally. Do not dwell on its death. Let it tell you stories of its life, if it wants to. Share stories, create new ones. To dwell on the tragic details of its transition through death is to keep those events alive and fed. Let the spirit experience new adventures by your side.

Cultural and Geographic Considerations

You can work with any animal spirit that wants to work with you. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen a live one, nor if it’s from a different continent. All life knows all life if you climb far enough down the Bone Ladder.

That said, you might find it easier to work with animals that could have lived near you. You will have similar memories of the land, and the land will remember you both. But do not limit yourself if you want to work with a springbok and live in Missouri. Connection is connection.

If it helps you to read about the cultural lore related to an animal, do so. Don’t let this be your only understanding of it. While valuable and illuminating, cultures are going to have a specific relationship to species that you might not have nor understand. I recommend this as your last step in your journey to understanding your new ally.

When I am meeting a new species for the first time, I try to let them speak to me through dreams, feelings, and questions I find myself asking. I hold the bone, tooth, etc, and imagine how the animal might have lived. Don’t overthink it; just feel and imagine.

Don’t judge your thoughts for accuracy. The language of spirit is fluid. You might imagine things that make no sense, like a coyote driving a blue pickup truck. But then you recall that your dad had a blue pickup truck, and riding in it made you feel safe. Perhaps the spirit is telling you it feels safe with you. Be open to any possibility, and don’t place unnecessary limitations. Your ally is learning to speak to you. Let it know you’re listening.

When in doubt, watch videos of the animal’s behavior. When first working with badger, I knew nothing about her. So I watched documentaries, saw her hunting, and digging, and running with coyotes to pursue prey. Then I learned about her cultural lore of walking on her knuckles to and from the underworld. Suddenly watching the way she burrows and emerges, it made sense.

Ethics

It’s good practice to source your animal materials as ethically as possible. Many sellers will specify if the animal was farmed, hunted, found as roadkill, or other.

Sometimes, it’s not possible to determine the origin. In this case, thank the animal, ask if it still wants to work with you, and let its pain resolve. More than likely, the animal was not killed for its teeth, claws, or bones. These are byproducts. Consider that you are keeping them from ending up in the trash as waste. You are helping use all parts of the creature, and giving it another, loving presence in this world.

If you find roadkill, it can be appropriate to take it home and work with it. If you get a strong feeling not to, don’t. Or if you feel terribly uncomfortable doing so, don’t; you’re not ready to cross that threshold yet. But sometimes the animal reveals its body to you because it wants to come home with you. Animals are experts at hiding, in life and in death. Perhaps this find was no accident.

Final Thoughts

There’s so much lore to get into, and methods to explore. But we’ll talk about that at a later time.

For now, just have fun and be curious. Regard your animal spirits not as tools, but as allies you’re adding to the ecosystem that is your home. They can love you, teach you, walk with you, enhance your magic, and so much more.

Many blessings in finding your pack!