Shadow Animals

“What we most dislike in others is often ourselves. We tend to project our shadow side--the aspects of ourselves we have repressed or denied--onto other people and situations. Recognizing and recalling such projections is a key to becoming whole and to healing all our relations. With her new book, Dawn Brunke makes a spirited and original contribution to shadow work, showing us how our buried histories and childhood fears take shape in our feelings and phobias around animals. She encourages us to ask: Is the spider or snake an aspect of my own power if I can move beyond fear in a conscious encounter? She reminds us that shadows are caused by the obstruction of light, and the clear light she turns on her subject includes personal dreams with the power of revelation and transformation. The book is worth its price for the chapter on bats alone. Studded with precious vignettes from mythology and folklore, honed with a naturalist’s eyes for the social habits of the animal world, stocked with simple and effective meditations and exercises, Shadow Animals is a marvelous addition to the literature of shadow work and inter-species communication. Highly recommended.”

“Shadow Animals is a beautifully written, profound, and timely book. Brunke skillfully guides us to explore the shadow aspects of ourselves that we project onto animals. With helpful, practical exercises, she reveals how to reclaim those repressed or rejected aspects of ourselves and how to see the animals we once feared as teachers, guides, and healers. This book is particularly valuable given the increasing polarization in our world. By seeing and integrating our shadow aspects, we move toward wholeness, coming back into right relationship with ourselves, each other, and all sentient beings on our planet.”

“Shadow Animals focuses on your waking and dreaming animal connections, providing practices to uncover the profound treasures and transformative insights waiting there. Read this when you feel ready to go deeper into your psyche and return to the nature of nature. Highly recommended!”

“Brunke’s Shadow Animals is a tour de force. Using the world’s ancient mythologies and folktales to explore modern humanity’s shadow, or hidden self, we learn from rats, bats, wolves, spiders, horses, and many other horned, hoofed, clawed, and winged creatures that can arouse fear in us. Sharing exercises, multicultural stories, and dream translations, Brunke’s book holds a mirror to our psyche, gifting the reader access to the hidden, wounded, or shadow self that resides ‘in the subterranean levels of the collective psyche.’ A remarkable book, Shadow Animals shows how to respect and treasure these fascinating nonhuman beings, as they become our allies, teachers, protectors, and healers guiding us to wholeness on our shared journey home.”

“Shadow Animals is a fascinating book that beautifully sheds light on the animals that help us to tap into fear-based emotions and the powerful role they play in our own inner transformational journeys. Dawn explains how each of these animals is in fact a bearer of light that has intentionally crossed our path to bring us their unique soul-healing medicine. She provides a rich and detailed history of the most common fear-triggering animals, their message and gift for you, and exercises to gently induce deep healing, safety, and peace. Shadow Animals is an important and muchneeded book that I highly recommend!”

“A compelling read that makes you look at yourself and the relationships you have with your animals. Shadow Animals makes you delve a little deeper than normal, think, and then heal.”