maverick_weirdo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maverick_weirdo) wrote2006-07-09 11:05 am
maverick_weirdo) wrote2006-07-09 11:05 am
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My Totem Animal
To me totem animals are more a philosophy than a religion. The animals represent different ways of thinking, or interacting with the world.
One of the classic totems is The Eagle. Eagles are known for their keen vision. They can see fine details at a great distance. They represent the wisdom of perspective.
The Mouse (for another example) is small and quick. Mice live surrounded by grass, so they cannot see great distances. To a mouse touch is more important than vision. They represent the wisdom of intuition (being "in touch" with the world.)
My own experience is somewhere between the two.
My totem animal is The Squirrel.
The squirrel is a small animal like the mouse, but with great peripheral vision. A squirrel's eyes are high and on the side of their head. They have about 20 degrees of overlap directly in front of them (necessary when you jump from branch to branch) but each eye can see 180 degrees, so the have only a 20 degree space behind their head that they can’t see. When a squirrel eats is stands out in the open so it can watch for predators at the same time.
Squirrels have another “blind–spot”.
On humans, each eye has a single optic nerve, and when light enters the eye, the optic nerve leaves a blind spot in the center of our field of vision (The human brain corrects for this most of the time.)
Because of how wide a squirrel’s vision is, they have several optic nerves in each eye. Instead of a blind “spot” they have a “bar” were several optic nerves line up. The nerves are high on the back of their eyeball. Because the eye is a lens which reverses the image, the nerves obscure the bottom area of their field of vision. As a result, while a squirrel
can see both far and wide at the same time, they can’t see what is right under their nose.
(For those interested, this is a section from one of my toastmaster speeches.)
One of the classic totems is The Eagle. Eagles are known for their keen vision. They can see fine details at a great distance. They represent the wisdom of perspective.
The Mouse (for another example) is small and quick. Mice live surrounded by grass, so they cannot see great distances. To a mouse touch is more important than vision. They represent the wisdom of intuition (being "in touch" with the world.)
My own experience is somewhere between the two.
My totem animal is The Squirrel.
The squirrel is a small animal like the mouse, but with great peripheral vision. A squirrel's eyes are high and on the side of their head. They have about 20 degrees of overlap directly in front of them (necessary when you jump from branch to branch) but each eye can see 180 degrees, so the have only a 20 degree space behind their head that they can’t see. When a squirrel eats is stands out in the open so it can watch for predators at the same time.
Squirrels have another “blind–spot”.
On humans, each eye has a single optic nerve, and when light enters the eye, the optic nerve leaves a blind spot in the center of our field of vision (The human brain corrects for this most of the time.)
Because of how wide a squirrel’s vision is, they have several optic nerves in each eye. Instead of a blind “spot” they have a “bar” were several optic nerves line up. The nerves are high on the back of their eyeball. Because the eye is a lens which reverses the image, the nerves obscure the bottom area of their field of vision. As a result, while a squirrel
can see both far and wide at the same time, they can’t see what is right under their nose.
(For those interested, this is a section from one of my toastmaster speeches.)