Raccoon: Dexterity, Disguise

One night, shortly after I moved to the country, I was writing an article on Reiki and universal love. As sometimes happens, I was also thinking about a newspaper article I'd read about a rabid raccoon attacking a local man. In that moment I recognized the battle going on in me between love and fear.

At the same time I heard a scratching at the glass door of my room. I saw a large raccoon, standing on his hind legs and staring at me. I went to the door, and decided to try to communicate with him. As I concentrated, I experienced his desire for understanding and appreciation, and love. In response I charged my hands with Reiki and put them on the glass. We stood that way for a few minutes; then the raccoon went away.

That was my first experience of communication with a wild animal, and when I think about now, I realize it's a perfect story of Raccoon Medicine.

The raccoon is in some way the ultimate scavenger, able to open doors and garbage cans with his clever hands. Because of this and especially because of its mask, it is known as a bandit.

The mask, however, has a deeper meaning. It teaches us that none of us are quite what we seem, even to ourselves, that in our lives we can experience the freedom of many identities. This medicine helps us to assume and release the many roles we play.

Raccoon's lesson isn't that identities are negative, simply that -- just as this creature is dextrous with its hands -- so we can learn to be skilled at assuming identies with the same sense of appropriateness with which we choose clothes.

That night I was playing a scared person, while pretending to be a spiritual and trusting one in my writing about Reiki. My raccoon visitor taught me to recognize that both of these ways of being were identities, and that I could also (however briefly) assume the identity of animal communicator. Finally, he led me to a place beyond identity, where I could be in unlimited appreciation of another being.

This is the greatest gift of Raccoon Medicine.

Raccoon is one of the Wild Earth Animal Essences.