Flickers are master percussionists.  As a member of the wood pecker family, they have perfected the use of drumming with their beaks.  They can call a mate, designate their territory, and very effectively create a nest hole to perfect size.  They keep a clean nest and share the responsibility of parenting.  If you too have a desire to provide for and protect your family, Flicker might be your power animal.  If you feel you need a little help in that area, ask Flicker to assist you!

Woodpeckers symbolize change coming to you - a new rhythm to embrace.  They say to listen more clearly, to both the obvious and subtle changes that are occurring around you.  They ask you to use innovation and your smarts to come up with a solution to your current challenge.  Keep trying different ways to get the outcome you need.  They also help us find the rhythm of Mother Earth.  Feel it in your heart, and let it flow up your feet.  If a woodpecker comes into your life, they are asking you to step up and help heal the earth.

Flickers have a specific message.  The bright salmon/gold color under their wings and tail, the red streak on their head, and the black streak at their neck all have significance.  ​​They spend more time on the ground than most woodpeckers, making them even more connected to earth and sky energy.  The red on their head symbolizes the connection of our upper chakras. Red stimulates creativity and physical stamina, needed to embrace the change flicker says is coming your way.  The crescent black shape at his chest symbolizes a new moon, also a time of change, of newness.  Since it is at the heart this change will go deep into your core essence.  The orange-gold color that flashes as they burst across the sky represents strides forward in your intuition, coming in dramatic and memorable ways.

They have 2 toes in the front and 2 in the back of the foot, helping them balance perfectly on the sides of trees (and my house!)  Ask Flicker to help you find the balance within your growth and even daily activities.  Flickers are non-aggressive birds, finding balance in all things.  For example, I just filled the feeders out back, and while the scrub jays are fighting among themselves, the flicker waits patiently on the fence, and simply swoops in, takes some suet, and moves back out of the way.  How can you simulate that in your life?  I know it is a lesson I can get some help with!

​This is just a start of what Flicker means, here is a great article to learn more, and here too. What I like about the message is that it has so much depth about change coming my way.  Flickers are action oriented and speak of immediate yet balanced and calculated change.  I feel like I have been waiting for this and with the dramatic way Flicker came to me, I think that says the time is now. 

What Can You Do with This Information?  READ HERE about how to actually use animal spirit medicine in your life.  As I am typing this, the flicker is literally knocking on my house.  Not stuck thank heavens, but still trying to get through that wire mesh!  

Josh and I recently drove to Casper, Wyoming and back from Bend, Oregon.  We always see wildlife, and certainly lots of birds of prey, and always crows and ravens.  This trip, however, was absolutely full of hawks.  A few eagles and vultures, but hawks every where I turned.

Here is what HAWK tells us.  I know I got a lot out of listening, I hope you do too.

LOOK FOR THE BIGGER PICTURE
Hawk tells us to look at a situation from above.  Don't get stuck in the details, you won't find the answer.  If something is eluding you, take a step back and see how the pieces can fit together.

DON'T BE CAGED BY FEAR
Once you have done the "overhead view", decide if it is right for you.  Change is scary, and looking at something from a different perspective is often overwhelming and we do the opposite of hawk - the mouse that hurries underground to safety.  (Mouse is actually a powerful spirit animal as well!)

Even when a bird is used for falconry, he is partnered with for 2 years, and then set free.  The hawk is caged, and I imagine in great fear for some time.  Is what or who you are currently partnered with caging you?  Look deep down and see if there is fear there.  Or maybe you are comfortable in the current cage, and the fear is getting free?  What would you do then?

FOCUS ON WHAT IS AHEAD
Once you determine if and how you are going to move forward, focus on that.  Looking back at what you have accomplished is fine and serves an important purpose, and hawk says now focus that attention forward - to new things.  You have the goal in mind, you are ready to step through your fear, so go forth and soar!

HOW?
I have people ask me "How do I ask an animal to help?  What exactly am I supposed to do?  The message is great, but how do I actually use this?"

Messages from animals are meant as catalysts, as ways to open your eyes to see what you need to change. I feel the spirit of the animal helping me, but like with the angels, you need to ask.  And then have faith. 

• Go for a walk and talk to the animal.  Even if they are not there, Mother Nature will connect your energies. 
• Go online and look at images of the animal.  What does it make you feel?  What does it stir within you? 
• Say a prayer to the animal.  You can find a lot online and in books, but you can also just make one up.  Try creating a HAIKU for the animal.  That is a simple poem you create.  The first line is 5 syllables, the second is 7, the third is 5.  1 or more verses.  Seems easy, but can be hard to do.
• After reading the message, journal.  Really the answers come from you, so start talking to yourself through journaling or whatever works for you.  Meditating, talking to a friend, etc.
• Keep at it.  If your animal seems to go silent, that is okay.  Keep bringing their energy and message to the forefront of your mind and... do your work.

Here is the HAIKU I came up with for HAWK while driving on the amazing open road.

You soar on your wings
Oh the wonders you must see
The wind as your guide

Did you ever fear
Or want to stay on the ground
Help me spread my wings

Keep coming to me
Give me your message of change
Help me move forward

Help me see the path
The courage to leave my cage
​On my own wings - fly.
​

​Since I love animals, and love the challenge of creating new things, it was a natural fit for me to start creating.  The more I created, the more inspired I was.  To learn about what each animal's universal message for us was (and still is!) fascinating.  And more importantly, as people started buying them and noticing they really helped them with their personal journey, the more I wanted to create deeply energetic energy art animals.  

They started out a little whimsical, and have become more detailed.  This is so they can talk to you on a more personal, deep, and realistic level.  By realistic I mean that the animal you are holding and meditating with looks enough like the real thing that you can sense when wolf, or otter, buffalo, even lizard are providing you with guidance.  As I mold and detail every one with the process of needle felting, the animal spirit medicine comes to me and helps me create what they want the sculpture to look like, and then guide me to the perfect energy healing vehicles to combine them to.

The Herkimer diamond that is placed in each one is the perfect vehicle to project out the energy to you.  It is a high enough vibration that the guides can connect to it, and it can also connect to us, bridging the physical and spiritual worlds together.

What I was not expecting was to find that they also wanted to be infused with a flower, gem, or color essence.  My Flora Corona and FES bottles were lined up on the back of the desk where I was using the sacred geometry to activate the animals, and I looked at them and one stood out.  As I started experimenting, I realized that there was an essence that would further ​amplify and specialize each energetic vibration of that particular animal.  When my many crystals I have lined up also started standing out, I knew I was really onto something.  By placing the art item along with the energy items into a copper pyramid, I enable the items to infuse each other with the closet vibration and frequency of the spirit animal's particular energetic footprint.  I can actually feel the energetic shifts as I find the correct combinations.

HOW CAN THIS ACTUALLY WORK?
I believe that the angels, guides, and animal spirits are all trying to communicate with us, and when we give them a vehicle, a channel, and way in which to communicate with us, they are very excited and take full advantage of it.  These energy art needle felted sculptures have one foot in the world with us, and one foot it the frequencies of the collective spirit of the animal.  Just as the universal spirit of hawk can work through the actual hawk sitting in a tree, he can use these energy art creations to connect with us.  

Do I think you need to believe in order for it to work?  You bet.  Not believing is putting out a frequency that specifically says "you are not welcome here."  The guide will still try, and that is why glimmers sometimes come through.  If we are open to believing, this provides a portal, an energetic link for the guide to utilize to help us.  

HOW DOES IT HELP YOU?
For me, getting a message from an animal is easier to swallow and digest than from a person.  For example, Quail is one of my spirit animals.  One of the many things they tell us it to take immediate, or explosive action.  When a quail is spooked, they burst into the air, all wings and feathers flying.  If my husband tells me, no matter how accurate, that I need to get off my duff and do something about what I am complaining to him about, I get my own feathers all fluffed and defensive.  If I draw a card from a totem animal card deck, however, and read that I need to take action, I say "you are aright, I can do this, thanks quail."

Going back to believing, if given the gift of communing with a spirit animal, take it, no matter the form.  If someone talks to you about it, or you keep seeing a particular animal popping up every where (not just live, but in commercials, or a book, or some art, etc.) go with that and find their message.  This holds true with your favorite animal too, they are your favorite for a reason.  It works in the opposite direction as well.  Scared of spiders?  That means spider has a message for you that you are not yet ready and/or willing to hear.  Start gentle and see what she has to say.

I encourage you to look through my Spirit Animal Photo Gallery and see if an animal speaks to you.  Click into the store and find the animal - there is a description of what their message is for you.

Enjoy your spirit animal journey, they are amazing partners!
Claire