Book Review: The Beginner's Guide to Spirit Animals by Dawn Baumann Brunke

 

Title: The Beginner's Guide to Spirit Animals

Author: Dawn Baumann Brunke
Genre: Spirituality - Spirit Animals - Shamanism
Publisher: New Shoe Press - Copyright 2022
Publication Date: October 11, 2022
Read: November 12, 2022
Disclaimer: I received a digital advanced reader copy from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis from Publisher: Discover your spirit animals and embrace the wisdom all around you 

Spirit animals provide guidance and wisdom, and can help you to lead a happier and more fulfilling life. We all have one or more spirit guides—the key is to learn how to communicate with them. Adapted from Key to Spirit Animals by Dawn Braumann Brunke, Beginner’s Guide to Spirit Animals provides an overview of animal guides and includes interactive exercises that allow you to attune to animal wisdom and form a meaningful relationship with your spirit animals. 

Perfect for beginners, this book assumes no prior experience with shamanistic communication and provides a basic but detailed overview of all the common spirit animals, what they symbolize, and what a particular spirit animal tells you about yourself. Activity-based lessons and exercises help you discover and understand how to approach and communicate with your personal animal spirit guides. 

Beginner’s Guide to Spirit Animals features: 

*Exercises for discovering and attuning to your spirit animals—Learn to engage your spirit animals consciously through meditations and dreams, and fine-tune your observational skills to learn to interpret the subtleties of what animal encounters mean. 

*Reference entries for over 100 different spirit animals—Discover the power and spiritual significance of a multitude of individual animals, birds, insects, and reptiles through concise descriptions of each animal’s expertise along with questions, suggestions, and recommendations to benefit their teachings. 

*Practical ways to deepen your spirit animal relationships—Explore how to share consciousness to experience reality from an animal’s perspective, integrate animal teachings into everyday life, share your experiences, and give back to life in heartfelt ways. 

Beginner’s Guide to Spirit Animals also provides techniques for recognizing and interpreting an abundance of signs and omens from nature that you might not otherwise take notice of. 

Open your mind to the inherent wisdom of the animal world by following the guidance in this truly simple guide for beginners.

Review: The Beginner's Guide to Spirit Animals the one of the best introductory books I've read on the subject of working with animal spirit guides. Dawn Baumann Brunke has an easy style of writing that's like having a conversation with a wise friend or mentor. The book is filled with great information on how to connect with animal guides and incorporate them into daily life. 

The book starts with basic information on shamanism and connecting with animal guides. Exercises and meditations make it easy to understand and navigate these unique spiritual paths. Example encounters and interpretations are used to offer a deeper appreciation for how animals come into our lives to help and guide us, whether their presence is short term or forever. One aspect of animals guides I've rarely seen addressed in other books is that of Shadow Animals, those guides who come to us to show the not-so-pretty side of ourselves and how we may improve upon it. Personally, I'm happy to see this topic addressed as I feel it's one that is important, especially for beginners, to understand that spirit animals are as dynamic and multifaceted as their human counterparts.

The Beginner's Guide to Spirit Animals goes beyond some other books in that is offers information not only on the animals themselves but on other aspects such as color, number, location, postures and actions, and how not every animal will mean the same thing to every person. The book devotes an entire chapter to the spirit animals and their teachings under different categories likes large and small mammals, birds, insects and arachnids, and finally, reptiles and water animals. This makes for easy referencing so the reader isn't thumbing through pages of lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my!) to find information on the musical cricket or the humble frog. The book ends with how to integrate spirit animals into daily life. Again, samples interpretations are provided as well as suggestions for deepening our connection with our animal guides.

Overall, The Beginner's Guide to Spirit Animals is a perfect fit for anyone looking to discover their animal guide or wishes to deepen their connection with already established guides.