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White Spirit Animals

Prophets of Change

Published by Bear & Company
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Explores the powers and wisdom of sacred White Spirit Animals

• Looks in-depth at the lessons of the major White Spirit Animals: the White Bear, White Lion, White Elephant, White Wolf, and White Buffalo

• Explains how to use shamanic dreaming and trans-species telepathy to communicate with these great spiritual teachers

• Reveals how White Spirit Animals are calling humanity to restore balance, respect, reverence, and honor to protect our animal kin, ourselves, and the earth

Beautiful rarities of nature, all-white animals are held sacred by many indigenous cultures and offer deep wisdom to all who will listen. In addition to the White Buffalo, there are other revered white animals, such as the White Wolf, White Lion, White Elephant, and White Bear. Each of these White Spirit Animals belongs to a species at the apex of their ecosystem, meaning the environment in which they live will unravel without them. Speaking through ancient and modern prophecy and the many humans who communicate with them, these White Spirit Animals are urgently calling to humanity to restore balance and protect our animal kin, ourselves, and the earth.

Combining sacred elder lore, science, and her own telepathic dreams, Zohara Hieronimus looks at the special role played by White Spirit Animals in spiritual traditions and prophecy around the globe, where they are seen as guardians of animal wisdom, each with a special purpose and gift. She reveals how they have collaborated with humanity since the last ice age, inspiring spiritual practices and conferring shamanistic powers, and are considered the stewards of the great spiritual transformations that occur during transitional times. Sharing the waking vision of White Spirit Animals that called her to write this book, and their message of CPR for the earth--conservation, preservation, and restoration--she explains how to use shamanic dreaming and trans-species telepathy to communicate with these great spiritual teachers. Exploring each one of the major White Spirit Animals--White Buffalo, White Lion, White Elephant, White Wolf, and White Spirit Bear--and the cultures in which they are honored, the author shows, for example, how the White Buffalo is called a harbinger of peace and abundance by many Native American tribes and the White Bear, the great earth healer, teaches us about nurturance and patience.

As a bridge between the spiritual and physical worlds, between humans and animals, White Spirit Animals are calling us to open our hearts to the wild, to the sacredness of the wind, the water, the earth, and dream a new world into being to heal our own personal and collective wounds and restore the earth to balance.

Excerpt

Chapter 3

Lion

The Golden-Hearted Alchemist

No matter who we are, no matter in which part of the world we dwell, we are one. We are one with each other. We are one with the Earth. We are one with the moon, the sun, and the stars.
--Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, Zulu Lion Shaman

In the land where trees are called “growing people” and ancestral spirits are consulted in community decisions, we meet the White Lions of Timbavati, South Africa.

Like indigenous leaders in whose homeland other White Spirit Animals are born, here too, in Africa, Zulu elders teach that there is vital significance in the appearance of the White Lions in Timbavati at this time. As with all the other White Spirit Animals, the White Spirit Lions have come to warn us of dramatic Earth changes, encouraging us to work together in these perilous times. Protecting the Earth, as Lions have protected humans throughout time, is our noble-hearted duty.

The African White Lions are regarded as animals from the last ice age and their white color is considered testimony of those conditions. One traditional explanation given to the White Lion’s stature stems from when, it is described, all of humanity suffered from disease and famine and the “anger of Mother Nature.” During those desperate times, tradition teaches, the people prayed all night and day. In response, the gods sent down the White Lions to teach the people how to survive, how to hunt, how to keep warm in the bitter, wild cold. Their mission of helping humankind during profound Earth changes is shared with Bear and the other White Spirit Animals.

Native legends recount that the White Spirit Lions, after helping the impoverished and stricken humanity overcome their adversities, left, promising only to return when humankind is in danger once again. And so they have returned. First observed in the 1930s and 1940s, and later in 1975, the White Lions’ reappearance in the twentieth century affirms ancient Zulu prophecy.

With Earth changes upon us from war and climate disruptions, millions of people are currently moving around the planet looking for both food and shelter, and there is a developing food scarcity in major cities around the world whose export polices have bankrupted food supplies in their native lands. World Wildlife Fund’s CEO Carter Roberts states, “We’re gradually destroying our planet’s ability to support our way of life. . . . We know that we all live on a finite planet and it’s time that we started acting within those limits.”

Conservation means taking responsibility worldwide and enacting practices in each locale that show love and compassion for all life. It was prophesized that the White Lions would return when humanity was on the verge of disaster. Apparently, now is that time.

The White Animals are messengers of change. They are wisdomkeepers and chroniclers of Earth events much like human historians. They speak to the ancient past and the vast, unfolding future. Similar to human prophets who warn of great challenges or pending calamities, they also teach that the impacts of these events can be attenuated. Credo Mutwa, Africa’s preeminent Isanusi (high-ranking shaman) and Guardian of Umlando (the “Great Knowledge”), says, “Today we live in the most important time for human beings. We live in a time of catastrophes and real miracles.”

The Maasai Lion Guardians

Heart intelligence can help us transform past destructive practices into approaches that sustain and elevate life. The Lion Guardians organization, founded in 2007 by Leela Hazzah and Stephanie Dolrenry, is an important example of transformation in Africa.

The Maasai of East Africa live in present-day Kenya and northern Tanzania. For centuries, they have hunted lions as part of their initiation into manhood. The Lion’s imminent extinction has not stopped these rituals. But Lion Guardians offers an alternative manhood initiation by emulating another Lion quality, that of protector.

The Maasai live a mostly pastoral life and depend on their livestock to feed their families. If they lose any of their livestock to lions, or believe that it was from lions, they retaliate by killing lions. Lion Guardians helps return lost livestock, rebuilds animal fencing, tracks lions, and notifies herders when Lions are near, enabling them to take different routes. They employ sixty-five Lion Guardians throughout East Africa, who are paid the equivalent of $100 a month, taught to read and write, and tasked with tracking, naming, and knowing the whereabouts of the Lions they protect. Their ultimate goal is to prevent any conflict with Lions and to reduce Lion killings, increasing their now dangerously small populations. In the past fifty years Africa has lost 50 percent of its Lion population. But in Amboseli, Kenya, the Lion Guardians have documented a near tripling of the Lion population since beginning their work.

Here we see that an ethos of care rather than exploitation and destruction can change a death economy to a life-elevating economy, enlisting members of local communities to reshape and redefine their relationship to their own environment and its populations, human and animal.

As the symbolic alchemist, Lion reminds us that protecting the Earth is our noble-hearted purpose.

About The Author

J. Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus, D.H.L., author of The Sanctuary of the Divine Presence and Kabbalistic Teachings of the Female Prophets, is an award-winning radio broadcaster, social justice and environmental activist, and passionate organic gardener. She founded the Ruscombe Mansion Community Health Center in Baltimore in 1984 and hosted the daily regional radio program The Zoh Show from 1992 to 2002 and the national radio program Future Talk from 2002 to 2008. She cohosts 21st Century Radio with her husband, Robert Hieronimus, and lives in Owings Mills, Maryland.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Bear & Company (October 24, 2017)
  • Length: 368 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781591432487

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Raves and Reviews

“Great Book! White Spirit Animals combines shamanism, trans-species telepathy, historic research, and native stories to show the reader why we must save the bear, lion, elephant, buffalo, wolf, and other species from extinction and how they have guided humanity in the past. A unique testimony to the close relationship between humans and animals and our ability to communicate and collaborate with each other.”

– John Perkins, New York Times bestselling author

“Brilliant visionary work that pulls humanity into alignment with our animal kin and forgotten souls.”

– G. A. Bradshaw, Ph.D., author of Elephants on the Edge

White Spirit Animals is a beautiful and deep work of art and heart. It provides a wealth of cross-cultural, historical, shamanic, and mythical information. It is likely to connect the reader with the symbolically deep realm where dreams come from. The images and stories resonate with that place of inner knowing in us. I am enthusiastic about this book--thank you, Zohara Hieronimus!”

– Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., author of Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman

“The traditional Haudenosaunee/Iroquois view is that those in the animal world are related to us. As humans we are within the same circle of life as animals as well as trees, plants, and the earth itself. Animals and birds serve as symbols for the family clans, and the bear and the wolf are part of that. These teachings are clearly covered in this book.”

– John Kahionhes Fadden, cofounder of the Six Nations Indian Museum

“In these times of turmoil, it is critically important that we listen to the phantom shaman-animals who have stepped forward to guide us. Zohara Hieronimus knows where to find them, and she knows their language. With White Spirit Animals, she has given us an invaluable portal into their world. I implore you to go there.”

– Tamarack Song, author of Becoming Nature: Learning the Language of Wild Animals and Plants

“Zohara’s magnificent White Spirit Animals reminds her readers of the human/animal bond and its continued importance. Her book hearkens back to shamanic practices that employed spirit animals as copractitioners. . . . White Spirit Animals can teach, protect, and heal their human siblings, and in so doing expand the boundaries of what is possible.”

– Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Alan Watts Professor of Psychology at Saybrook University

“Zohara Hieronimus provides an important bridge linking modern objective science and ancient and traditional shamanic beliefs--a very useful contribution.”

– Stephan A. Schwartz, author of The 8 Laws of Change

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