Acknowledging Power Animals
I drift down.
Into those with indigenous hearts and minds, those close to the earth and those in touch with their hearts.
Into the poet and novelist Anatole France when he writes;
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
Into Amy Meyer when, on February 8, 2013, she wants to see the source of the meat she feeds her family. Arriving at the Dale Smith Meatpacking Company in Draper City, Utah, she gasps through the barbed wire fence when she witneses a cow, sick and struggling to breathe, covered in feces, treated like rubble, flung into a tractor, hoisted into the air.
Reacting quickly, she retrieves her smartphone and begins recording. But in the state of Utah, she discovers, that is against the law.
Arrested and prosecuted under Utah’s new “ag-gag” law, she discovers that similar laws are on the books in Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, and Missouri. And ready to go in additional states.
The goal – to keep hidden the spirit I place in animals.
But I drift down and into Power Animals I place spiritual energy that embodies the spirit and essence of specific animals. Into each Power Animal, I place a special medicine – the voice of all the animals of that kind that have ever lived.
Within a Medicine Bear, I place the voice of all the bears that have ever lived and the Medicine Bear becomes the bear that can see itself and speak. And that is the secret of the Power Animals. They can see themselves and when they speak, they speak to your souls.
And if an animal calls to you, know that the voice that calls is pure and true – the Power Animal. And if you love an animal, know that you have power in your human heart and that, within you, rings the voice of all humans who have ever lived.
For you are a Power Animal and into you I place spiritual energy and the voice with which you speak is your soul.
Art by David Behrens
~ Stephen J. Bergstrom
The Literary Fiction of Stephen J. Bergstrom 
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