The Pig:

So often, when the novice encounters "animal medicine," they want to be associated with the Eagle or the Wolf. Many people just don’t realize that ALL animal medicines are powerful and none are more important or better than any other. The Creator has given us each a purpose, and so it is with the animals as well.

Our first encounter with pigs usually comes when we’re children, in the form of cartoons or bedtime stories. As we grow into adulthood, pigs represent a more base part of life. At best, we know that all animals speak metaphors, that’s why they can show up everywhere. Above all else, they are teachers of the multiplicity of meaning. As metaphors, animals transfer themselves into language, their behavior becoming words: old sow, little piggy, hogging, piggishness. Even their parts are used in language — pig’s eye, pig’s behind, ham-handed, sow’s ear, little pork-chop.

Our visual picture of the pig is usually not complimentary — pig sty, fat pig, old sow, little piggy, hogging, piggishness. But, let’s look a little closer at "pig medicine."

The pig gives its body as a delicate succulent food for mankind. It is known to devour, uproot and lay bare. It is considered to be obstinate. Yet, it moves in a stright forward manner, even charges forward. The pig doesn’t hide from anything. It’s almost as if it says, “here I am, see me, smell me, touch me, hear me, and watch me.” The pig’s coat is its very torso, as if it were naked.

So what is any of this saying? Perhaps the one word to describe pig medicine is balance. We see the pig as cute, cuddly, decorations for cakes, filled with pennies, flying with wings, playing fiddles, and praised in poems. Turning that description upside down, we see the pig as fat, slovenly, loud, bulky, always wanting more.

If the pig appears in your life, it may be a time for taking a good look at ALL aspects of your life…the positive as well as the contrary. Is the picture that you are presenting to the world a reality of what you really are? Is it time for you to uproot something in your life which is no longer serving a purpose? Is it time for you to bare your soul, your feelings to someone who has been turned off by your outer appearance? Is it time for you to get to know yourself in a more positive way? Are you being obstinate or are you being tenacious? Are you insecure with who and what you are? Are you doubting your value? Maybe it’s time for you to take the short steps like the gait of the pig to move forward in a way that does not side-step the true issues in your life and realize your gifts need not be hidden. You don’t need to accept the "slop" from the world. It’s time you realize that God made all things in perfection and with all of your contradictions, you are indeed perfect! ¤