Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

I received this book as a gift after a red tailed hawk made a visit to me every day for a week. In this book, according to Native American traditions, animals relate to us because everything in the earth is connected. There are messages being sent to us by these sightings. A fox runs out across the road (and hopefully, you miss it) not once, but three times? Red tailed hawk sitting on a street light along the highway every day for a week? All of a sudden, a squirrel comes to your yard and does something that catches your attention that you never noticed before? All of that has a message to you and you alone. I recently purchased two of these books as gifts for my sisters. And, they have shared it with their friends who have had similar sightings. Sounds kookie, I know, but it actually will make sense to you when the message is meant for you.

Easy reading, making good use of the English landguage with simplified wording which flows, I love that in any book. The content is well put together and covers the subject well and makes sense of what I was looking for. Thank You

This book was a gift two friends of mine made to me. I really thank them. It is a spirituality oriented book, and it contains much material of general interest on animal habits and human folklore that rotates around them, from tha "auguri" of ancient Rome, where fortune telling was told by the flight of the birds, to more recent simbology and interpretations, the author really loves animals. More of all the main aspect of the book is to "remind us" that we have always shared the earth with nature and Nature still keeps teaching us lessons every day, if we just observe it. It is very interesting even for people that are outside of neopagan totemism. 5 Stars^^

I have owned this book for many years now and still find it enlightening on a weekly basis sometimes every day depending on what life's dealing me at the time. once you have tuned in, the animals are aware and try to guide you with their presence and a message. Ted Andrews logical explanations of them are easy to understand and interpret into your own world, in dream or awake time.

I have this book as well as Animal Talk. This is not the kind of book I would read from cover to cover, but I do look through it a lot. It is a spirituality- oriented book, but I've actually learned a lot of things about specific animals- their habits, habitats, etc more than anything else. I never knew that hawks and owls are complementary to each other until I read this book. It has a lot of information about the physical aspects of animals, and from that he writes about what meaning they could have if they are a totem for a person. When coming across foxes, skunks and other animals in real life, I would go home and look them up in this book, as well as any animal that held my curiousity. So it helped me learn and have even more appreciation.
It also has some guidelines for how to determine a totem. He says a person doesn't "choose" a totem, because then they would choose a more glamorous animal. True, a lot of people have "sexy" totems like wolves and panthers, but actually I know several people with totems like squirrels, skunks, raccoons, turkey vultures and even cicadas! He also writes about what is the purpose of a totem. One thing he writes is that if at all possible you should find a way to help animals, either your totem or just any animals in general. I love this the most, and I have advised others "ask not what your totem can do for you, but what you can do for your totem."
The author works in a nature center, so I don't think he is a poser and at least he is trying to help them. I understand that cultures don't like to get ripped off, but with how many animals are endangered, it's better if people are interested in things like this. It seems small, but if people have a consciousness where they appreciate the animals and environment, it can affect their actions in small and large ways. We don't have people going around killing buffalo "just because" anymore.