Especially when it’s unexpected, look for the message when animals and birds show up in your life. Each one has characteristics that can alert you to pay attention to something or someone in your life, or within yourself. Ted Andrews’ book Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small covers everything from birds to animals to reptiles to bugs. I haven’t read it cover to cover yet (I use it as a reference and just read about whichever animal is on the scene at the moment), but it looks like he does the best job with birds.

I recently heard from someone who saw him speak that Ted Andrews is an amazing bird healer as well as having wonderful connections with all creatures.

Animal Speak is filled with drawings and photographs of the animals being described, but sometimes the black and white photos can leave room for debate over exactly which bird or animal you are looking at. For instance, we saw a beautiful barred owl the other day, but without a lot of previous owl experience, I wasn’t 100% sure which we were looking at.

Wondering exactly which animal it was that you saw? Here are a few links to animal and bird identification sites:

Birds:

http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/bio/birds/main/ident/bvk1.htm

http://www.americanbirdguide.com/birdidentification.shtml

http://www.owling.com/

https://www.owlresearchinstitute.org/barred-owl

http://www.owlinstitute.org/owlguidehomepage.html

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/birding123

Wildlife in General:

http://www.enature.com/home/

http://www.unity.edu/Library/Library_Paths/wildlife_bio.asp

http://www.uaex.edu/envirothon/wildlife/default.htm

How did Animal Speak help me recently? The morning before I was going to a holistic health fair, we saw the aforementioned owl. I checked out owls and barred owls in Animal Speak, and noted that getting a neck massage could be particularly helpful. It was!

The metaphysical approach that Animal Speak describes is easy to employ: just read the section about the animal, bird, reptile or insect you have had an encounter with, notice the parts that really strike you as being applicable to you, and use Andrews’ simple suggestions and action plans.

Let me know about your awesome encounters, how you use Animal Speak or if you have any questions about using it.