Badger carries the medicine of appropriate aggressiveness. It’s very important to understand the medicine of this animal in our modern times.
A badger can be very violent and when it attacks it does so in a very powerful way. Its cousin of the tundra, the Wolverine, is so wild that it deserved the name Kwi’ kwa’ ju’s, the evil spirit, by the Micqmaw Nation of Canada. It easily gets angry and is capable of responding to all dangers quickly. It has a powerful sense of survival and preservation. Its paws are powerful and its claws are large and sharp. Even black bears are afraid of him and no predator encroaches on its territory.
Such is its medicine: to fight for its sacred space and family. Its aggressiveness, in certain circumstances, is a very good medicine.
The badger often obtains what it wants, as its reputation precedes it. Nobody crossed his path if they can avoid it. Badger will be up to anything to achieve its aims.
It’s a good thing to cultivate the will and courage to affirm our sacred space so nobody has the inclination to take advantage of us, to cut the wool off our backs or step on our feet. A person who has cultivated badger medicine will never be intimidated by ill-intentioned people. It is good to be well rooted in our sacred space, know our boundaries and be able to react with aggressiveness when necessary.
Badger knows all root medicines as they hang from the roof of its den. Thus, many powerful medicine women have the badger as a totem and are persevering and aggressive in their wills to do all that it is necessary to achieve healing for their patients. Happy are those who can appeal to such medicine woman when in need.
It’s a rare occurrence that aggressiveness becomes necessary in our lives, but when it happens many people do not know how to be firmly affirmative and even aggressive if need be. Indeed, it’s a behavioral trait of modern civilized society to always defer to others to solve our problems. But that doesn’t always work, the police might not get there in time, the lawyer might not have your true needs at heart, the doctor might be more influenced by his conditioning to sell pharmaceuticals than your true needs. This ability to stand up for oneself has been switched off, often by the educational system and many people and especially women let themselves be aggravated, intimidated and taken advantage of by other more forceful people.
Now, the opposite, if we bite everyone who comes close to us, important people will have the tendency to avoid us. But if we do not know how to assert ourselves and defend our sacred space and living territory others may take advantage of our lethargy. It is thus very important to know how to measure our aggressiveness. We must learn to express how we feel in the right way and be ready to do what is required to obtain what we want. Sometimes, people are so afraid that they do not dare begin the necessary steps to obtain what they desire and thus live in a boring and insipid world which lacks the spice of life.
Badger medicine will often characterize the mentality of a boss and manager. Now, if balanced and not in excess, and used when its time and in the right way, such a mentality will allow the leader who possesses this badger medicine to empower his company to stay afloat and be prosperous.
The badger also teaches us to use anger in a constructive way. Great masters during their lives have often demonstrated a moment when anger was necessary. A well-known example is Jesus chasing away shop keepers trading their goods within the temple.
Thus badger medicine is also knowing how to express anger and frustration in a non-destructive way. Most of the time it’s unhealthy to express the anger in everyday life, in the working environment or in the family. On the other hand, if we have these feelings and don’t know how to express them, they can turn against us. Either they accumulate and then explode out in ways that are destructive or they fester within creating psychological or physiological problems. The organ that suffers from excess or repressed anger is the liver. People who have a bad liver will speak too loud, too often.
Thus it’s important to learn how to express anger in a constructive way. The wisdom of the First Nation’s talking circle is very useful as it creates a framework within which we can express all feelings without damaging our relationships or directing these feelings against a person in particular.
Badger medicine is correctness in the expression of anger. Appeal to badger medicine when you have difficulty expressing your strong emotions and when you need to assert your needs in a constructive way. Appeal to badger medicine to solve important health problems which threaten your life or those of your close relations. Appeal to badger medicine to better integrate the understanding of vegetable roots and medicinal roots for your health and those of your family, friends and community. Use badger medicine to obtain all that you want and need for yourself, your family and your community.
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One note about ” A well-known example is Jesus chasing away shop keepers trading their goods within the temple.”
He was fine with goods traders, it was the money-changers whom he attacked – they were gouging the helpless newcomers who were there to worship & had the wrong currency with which to buy the goods for sacrifice.
They were turning the temple into a “den of thieves” !