Animal Medicine #17

Is there a difference between caribou and reindeer?  No, not really.  They are the same species, but it is generally considered that reindeer are domesticated, whilst caribou is the wild cousin.

When you think of reindeer, what comes first to mind?  Rudolph!  And what a wonderful, mystical creature he is, pulling Santa’s sleigh all around the world by flying high in the sky.  I don’t think it was by chance that reindeer are the animals given such a huge task.  In their wild aspect, as caribou, they are the most nomadic terrestrial animal, covering around 3,000 miles every year.

Rudolph gives us some hints, but it is the wildness of the untamed caribou that holds important information for us today.  To access that information, ask yourself this question:  “Which path do you follow?  The contained journey or the wild journey?”

Reindeer and caribou are strong aspects of the karma that we all carry.  Karma is an essential element for the manifestation of human life here on Earth.  It is karma that gives cause for the things we chose to experience in this lifetime, but humans have this tendency to think that karma is only about righting past wrongs.  It’s not.  Karma is not just negative – it is also a positive energy.  In one way, building good karma could be described as raising your ‘energy credit’ for your next incarnation.

In many ways reindeer represents our lesser self, and our attachment to our belongings and even our physical body, in what we consider to be the reality of this lifetime.

Reindeer – contained, domesticated – holds an energy that many of us seek.  We look for stability, for assurance that everything will continue as it always has.  We hold an attachment for a level of permanence in our lives.  We may aim to fly high every now and then, but generally we hold tight to our belongings, to our attachment to this planet we call home and even to what we consider as our consciousness – our Self.

Caribou – wild, and free, represents our Higher Self, and, as such, holds no attachment to belongings or to the human body, because it knows that this lifetime reality is just one of many; that continuity extends beyond a single lifetime and a single human body.  Caribou is not afraid to leave behind the ‘things’ that belong to this ‘now’.  When humans come into this lifetime reality, they forget that there is no separation between our lesser self and our Higher Self.  These things are simply layers of our connection to the One Mind.  When this is understood and accepted, we can more easily understand that freedom of moving unfettered, wild, through the cosmos.

Caribou.  The Great Cosmos Traveller.