How to Use These Sacred Journey Medicine Cards

Out of nowhere, a memory flickers across your consciousness. It is strange to you and yet familiar. A song playing in a café or an article in the news reminds you of a forgotten chapter from a past life. The leftover aura of past trauma and other crucial passages resonates throughout your present experience and catches the echoes of distant lives. Otter Medicine can swim into your consciousness when you are between worlds like this, to help you move between stages: when you are at the border of water and land, neither completely wet nor completely dry, or when you are in transition, your dreams full of people and animals from another lifetime. Otter conveys a sense of fluidity and the ability to play, encouraging your flexibility. Whether during birth, death, marriage, a sacred transition, or a crossing over to past lives, Otter’s positive energy and ease navigating transition can carry you.

Otter photograph, Monterey Bay, California, USA.

You are on a mission to gather the soul parts that have become separated from you. These fragments detached during times of great stress and trauma. Iguana is a wise teacher, helping you to understand that the instinctive reptilian brain protected you during that intensity. This small and ancient region of the brain responds quickly to stress in order to keep us safe. Iguana is not driven by language or thinking. Its actions are automatic and immediate which can cause a feeling of being out of control. In order for your soul to be restored to wholeness, a constellation of forces will come together, dismantling the old paradigm. Right now, as the chaos arises, know that it needed to happen, and it will quickly pass.

Iguana photograph, Florida, USA.

Two wild Zebras appear before you. The mother grazes to nourish herself, and her foal follows her, waiting to nurse. The patterns formed by the Zebra’s stripes are unique like fingerprints, reminding you to honor the singular set of qualities that only you have to offer. The sharp contrasts of light and dark symbolize the possibility that opposing characteristics can coexist in one being. You do not have to choose one extreme or the other; you can hold both, and it is plain for anyone to see how beautiful you are as you achieve this equilibrium. And still you can be wild and refuse to be tamed. Draw upon this quality to sustain you now as you glory in the blaze of your apparent contradictions.

Zebra photograph, California Coast Highway near San Simeon, USA.

Traveling on an island, you discover a young Burrowing Owl. This wide-eyed owlet, perched on a post so it can see all that surrounds it, is the gatekeeper of secrets: it sees through the darkness, through the illusions. This is an adventure of clear vision, of discovery, of deep intuitive self-knowledge. You may feel that the company of the baby owl is sparking the remembrance of an ancient prophecy. What you see now can be disturbing and can trigger transition, change, even a kind of death. Draw upon Owl Medicine to tune into your part in the fulfillment of the prophecy and embrace the change. It is possible, too, that you are the gatekeeper. Can you see your role as one who identifies and opens doors for others, creating a channel to connect with the Ancestors? Rely on your inner voice to guide you. Take this opportunity to explore the unseen, revealing what lies concealed in darkness, for yourself and others.

Burrowing Owlet photograph, Marco Island, Florida, USA.

Out of nowhere, a Bobcat appears in your path. Silent and cunning, eyes fixed on her prey, she draws you into the moment with the intensity of her focus. For Bobcat the hunt is on, but despite patiently waiting to pounce on and capture a meal, her efforts are thwarted when the ground squirrel disappears into its underground tunnel. Wasting no time, she retreats into the bushes, already redirecting her attention. Bobcat shows up for you in times of transition or strategizing. Allow yourself time to reflect and regain your stamina, and then face the change with eyes wide open. If your efforts are blocked, waste no time letting go; stop chasing what no longer serves you. You will have the patience and the clarity to adjust to your changing circumstances and to proceed with grace.

Bobcat photograph, Del Valle Regional Park, Livermore, California, USA.