ANTELOPE

[Terri Benning]

ANTELOPE: Active, agile, jumpiness, and willing to sacrifice

LINKS: http://www.controverscial.com/Antelope.htm

Strong survival skills and mental adaptability. Ability to leap over obstacles. Jumpy and easily startled. Knowing when a situation does not smell right, benefits of aroma therapy.

Antelope's Wisdom Includes:

* Understanding the conversation of death
* Value of strong survival skills
* Ability to leap over obstacles
* Swiftness
* Gentleness
* Connection to the earth

Swift-footed antelope, teach me survival instincts.
Make me aware of intuitive warnings.
Let the aggressor be brought low by his or her own actions.
Dispel his or her power to harm others.
Show me the path to safety, peace and harmony.

Action, Speed, Adaptability of the Mind

Antelope teaches survival.
How to avoid indiscriminate destruction of life.
The Antelope signifies knowledgeable action.

Antelope medicine is the knowledge of life’s circle, the knowledge and understanding of death.
Through Antelope you can learn to truly live and action is the key and essence to living.
If you have a problem which you cannot solve, call on Antelope
and he will speak to you and set you free.
Listen to Antelope, but more importantly, act.
You will overcome any obstacle in your path.

Antelope is the messenger of a higher purpose; he knows the way and through him, so will you.
Antelope can teach clairvoyance by listening to his voice inside of you.
An Antelope person is intrinsically psychic.
Often it is in the form of clear-smelling – fragrances and odors will awaken this power.
Mediate using a fragrance with musk in it.
Trust your instincts. If a person or situation does not “smell” right, back away from it.

ANTELOPE:

This animal represents metal agility and quick wittedness that helps one survive the most difficult of environments. When an antelope shows up as a totem, one may need to become more thickskinned, or maybe even come out of hiding. All antelopes have great speed. Those with the antelope's medicine will usually have a quick wit and know how to communicate these thoughts effectively. They will also have a great curiousity and their minds and imaginations are always active. The antelope will signal danger to others and mostly depend on sight. They usually have a sense of danger and as long as they pay attention to it, they will escape unharmed and can avoid a lot others seem to go through. The males usually have large harems. The female usually has twins and will give birth to them in different sopts. For protection, the mother will usually stay at a distance from the young, except at times of nursing. The fawns are born with very little scent, therefore as long as the mother does not touch them, they can go undetected by predators. The antelope can go for very long periods withuot drinking, and some will even go a lifetime, it gets its water from the plants it feeds upon. This gives those with its medicine the ability to withdraw necessities from whatever environment one lives in.

Antelope Totem Spirit and Medicine:
Contributed by - Patricia Jean Martin

As totem spirit animals, all horned or antlered animals have a strong connection to the qualities related to the Brow (or Third Eye) and the Crown Chakras. Those related to the Brow/Third Eye indicate intuition, insight and meditation, which clear the subconscious to open the Chakra to knowledge and intellect. Those related to the Crown are to do with the Higher Self, Spirit and spiritual connection to the Divine, other ethereal matters and wisdom.

The antelope has horns similar in some respects to the antlers of deer, however the horns of the antelope are permanent unlike the annually shed antlers of deer. This suggests that those with antelope as their Totem are most often focused on knowledge and wisdom and are incessantly seeking to connect it to their spiritual examinations. The antelope will ask even further that you use your mental prowess in additional endeavours, and will ensure that your quick-witted and keen mental agility will serve you well in all you do.

Seeing any antelope in a totem capacity (be it as a Life Totem or merely a Messenger Totem) may suggest that you will soon be engaged in increased mental activity, or it is an acknowledgement that you already have been and will continue to be engaged in such, but in an even more pronounced and worthy way. It is also an indication that your own psychic ability is about to increase in size and scope, and that you will be guided on how to use it in the most benevolent way. If ever stuck for an answer or for even a new way of looking at things, calling on antelope will provide the insight, knowledge and ideas needed to start drawing on that blank page before you.

The antelope can live almost anywhere, and is found in various environments. They have a very thick hide - thicker than most - and it is used in a protective capacity in order to be able to endure these different environments. Those with antelope as a totem may find that they need to develop a thicker skin of their own, meaning to become less emotionally sensitive and more secure in their knowledge of self-worth, something which precludes being able to deal well with adversity of any kind. Or, it may indicate that you already have a thick skin and can withstand much more than other more sensitive types, and like water rolling off a duck’s back, not too much will be able to penetrate and bother you. It is very common for one who is very emotional or very empathic to have antelope show up to deliver these messages and more.

This thicker hide acts like an insulator. Being insulated, you are better able to venture outside and come out of hiding. Once out in the open, antelope can teach you how to communicate with the great wit and wisdom that you already possess. All antelopes are fast - adults are able to run up to 70 mph or more, and baby fawns can even run up to 25 mph within the first day of life! This signifies the quick-wittedness and intelligence already there and just waiting to burst out in communication with others. There will also be an increase in curiosity...questions, questions, questions... all meant for further gaining of knowledge that will lead to wisdom. Those with an antelope totem are prone to have very active imaginations.

Antelopes have large eyes. Their eyesight is excellent (8 times that of a human’s) and they possess a wide range of vision. When antelope comes into your life, you will be pushed to widen your own range of vision. With large eyes (also a signal that clairvoyance will be increased), you may find your mind and imagination will be in over-drive, constantly seeking out and enjoying greater and greater thoughts and ideas. The antelope uses this wider range of vision for both greater insight into what is going on around them, and for a greater ability to protect themselves. If danger arises, an antelope will raise the white patch of fur on its rump end as a signal to others that something is amiss. This shows another side of their survival instincts and capacity to protect themselves and those around them. Those with antelope totem will be both loyal and protective with their family and friends.

Being able to see with their keen eyesight that small white flash on the rump of another antelope far in the distance, symbolizes a heightened development of psychic and intuitive prowess in those who harken to antelope’s call. Your senses are known to be sharp already, but will be further awakened. Learning to use this inherent sense of prediction will increase your chances to live a “charmed life”. It also helps you in disarming your opponents and outwitting them at every turn. Antelope medicine teaches action based on knowledge. Protect yourself though from the arrogance that may accompany such broad based knowledge, and you will have learned a valuable lesson from the spirit of this swift and sure-footed animal.

The sense of smell is strong for the antelope, and so may yours become stronger. Aromatherapy should be studied and utilized, especially the scent of musk. Along with your increased psychic awareness, this greater sense of smell will allow you to more readily pick up on the fragrances of spiritual entities, or on anyone around you actually. It’s not unusual for those working with antelope to suddenly smell strange fragrances in the air around them. In another sense, this strong sense of smell symbolizes the antelope’s ability to teach you how to more readily discern the differences between things which “smell right” and would thus be advantageous to you, and things that “don’t smell right”, thus warranting a more careful approach. In either event, antelope will teach you how to make wise decisions and how best to act on them.

Spring is the most fruitful season for the antelope. Females usually give birth at this time (sometimes to twins) and will deliver them in different areas. This can be a prediction of two separate and different activities or opportunities that will present themselves to you during springtime. It doesn’t have to necessarily take place in spring though, as it may depend on when the antelope first arrived as your totem. Whenever they do arrive, always be on the lookout for a dual interest or activity to show up in your life. The activities may be connected in some way, but are uniquely their own in essence. Good fortune may come from them if pursued wisely. And sometimes they are just two back-to-back strokes of good luck. Giving birth and consciously deciding to deliver their infants in different areas is also an indication of the cunning protectiveness of antelope, along with reminding us to not put all our eggs in one basket. It is best to diversify for the protection of one's assets or for the birth of one's newly-formed ideas.

Antelopes can go for a very long time...sometimes years or even a lifetime...without drinking water. Their digestive systems allow them to get all the water they need through the plants, shrubs and sagebrush that they feed on. In this, Antelope can teach you how to exist and prosper in any environment, wherever you may be. They teach you how to adapt in even the most stringent or inhabitable places. Antelope medicine will show you how to find greater love and an abundance of life in most anything you encounter.

END

Totem Sources:
"Animal-Speak" by Ted Andrews
Antelope, himself