don Jose Ruiz: The Ancestral Knowledge of Power Animals

When the book is done, my father likes to say, “it’s sleeping,” but when someone picks it up, that is when the dream begins. It begins with having an awareness of intent, of integrity, and integrity is our intent. That intent is the energy of our nonhuman Nagual energy. It is just a force that’s here to create. The animal is here to contribute. For instance, take the bees. The bees cultivate honey. If there are no bees in the World, we humans will not live that long. We need them for pollination. We, humans, have an important part to contribute to It planet. When we are responsible for the Organism, planet, animals, ourselves, we can see why we are here in life because we are bonded together. Some people wake up, and some people do not. When you wake up consciously, you cannot go back to sleep. Your Spirit has awoken to the truth. The service begins because nagualism is a service of creativity. The beautiful thing is that we are the living light and a network of energy that exists in everything.

OMTimes: How can we make a significant connection with our power animals?

don Jose Ruiz: We can make significant connections with our power animal by being honest with ourselves. When we are honest with ourselves, we have self-trust, power, and nothing to hide. When we are not pretending to be anything but ourselves or lying to ourselves, our inner animal can feel that, and it responds and connects. You begin connecting with the power animal inside you—it is the way. And guess who the power animal is your physical body. When your physical body feels that it can trust what your mind is telling it, you begin to surrender. You begin to become present. Living It way, you are putting your intention into the World and setting up a path for yourself. Its connection to your power animal will guide your path against temptation. Temptation against all the stories we tell ourselves to hold us back from our authentic self, all the excuses we tell ourselves to hurt ourselves in our life. When we are connected to our power animal, we stand in truth and no longer ignore our trauma or pain. We feel our power. We have self-respect. In these moment’s we are connecting to our true higher self, our power animal. When we open our eyes and take a look around in our everyday lives, there might be a hummingbird or another little animal in our presence. You might feel a connection, and that’s because it’s honoring you. It can feel that you took your power back, that you’re ready to guide yourself just like they do.

OMTimes: In your book, you talk about the different power animals and their teachings, characteristics, and different gifts. Have you had one that presented a challenge for you in a personal way? Will you share a little about that?

don Jose Ruiz: One of the more challenging power animals for me -of all the animals- was the Scorpion. I did not want to take responsibility for my inner Scorpion or the teachings of scorpion medicine. Why? Because the Scorpion has a tail with a stinger that stings poison. One day, I could not avoid It power animal anymore when my grandmother, in teaching, says, “it’s time for you to control the scorpion in your head.” I ask her, “what do you mean, grandmother?” She continues to say that we all live with a scorpion in our heads. Imagine that you are the Scorpion, sticking yourself with your stinger. For over 20 years, if I am honest, I had difficulty controlling my “stinger” I always used the word against myself with poison, stinging myself repeatedly. Until I began walking the path and living the fifth agreement of being skeptical but learning to listen, did I truly understand what my grandma was trying to teach me that day? Learning to be skeptical of my poison, self-judgment, excuses for not being happy, using all my poison to create a personal hell and not a paradise for me, I had to stop myself. That moment of clarity, I saw my thoughts being like a scorpion. I tell you, brothers and sisters, to control my emotional poison was a big challenge. The biggest challenge was living the second Toltec agreement, do not take things personally. You were learning to be honest about it, honoring the inner Scorpion, honoring my mind, and going into training. In the Toltec training, as I mentioned earlier, there is nothing left to learn but only to unlearn what takes our inspiration away. Taking my inspiration away was the misuse of my word against myself that became like a scorpion stinging me with my stinger.

The biggest challenge was learning to control my mind or stinger. I was tired of living that way. I took the responsibility to see what I was doing to myself. I realized that no matter what awareness you have, you always must be truthful and work on yourself. It was a beautiful thing that I encountered in my life, not to hurt myself with my mind. The Scorpion, like that of the snake, has poison. I must learn to control my poisonous thoughts and opinions with myself and all the judgments I was using against myself. This knowledge, my grandma said, was the awareness of the Scorpion that has helped me see myself. That was what hepped to stop corrupting my dream. I realized that the word is powerful. You can destroy with it or build with it. I decided to build a beautiful new dream, and I control my poison. That dream has only grown with love more ever since.

OMTimes: Would you define yourself as a Spiritual Animal Activist or more of a Toltec Zen Warrior (or both)?

don Jose Ruiz: I consider myself both a spiritual animal activist and a Toltec Zen warrior, a person who lives and strives to live peacefully with everything and everyone around him. When we live in peace, we do not see a separation between humans, animals, trees, or oceans because everything is sacred. The whole World becomes our temple, not just the physical temples like the ancient pyramids, cathedrals, or places like spiritual centers. Everything becomes our home, including our physical body. I will stand up for the rights and welfare of any animal in need. This month is my sixth year choosing to become a vegan. I made It a choice to honor animals. I believe they deserve a chance to live. I have not been healthy mentally and physically for a long time. Living It way has given me awareness in life and has woken up my Spirit to feel the trees around me, feel the animals now spiritually, and feel connected to everything.

I am here to also to stand up and fight for humans who are suffering from the parasite in their minds. Some are trapped in their heads like prisoners. I am here to help ease the suffering of whatever trauma or circumstance that caused them to become prisoners to their parasite. Suppose people who live with the hurt of racism or are racists, people who live in darkness, people who live with anger, trauma, or anyone who needs awareness and love. I understand that people get to these places because they are hurt. Life has disappointed them. It hurt, pain or trauma has them domesticated, and It is all they know now. But, behind every human, there is that love. I know that humans need help. They need help to open their hearts. A big eye-opener for me has been reflecting on Machismo. I think of it as a dream of suppression, and that image has become poison on It planet. All It dream does is hurt our Divine Mother Planet Earth because it is about illusionary power, greed, suppression, and anger. The real riches in life are love and working on how to live our authentic selves.

The dream of love has no price or time limit. No one can stop it. No one can buy it. Even the richest person in the world can have it for free. Creating a personal Heaven is the real wealth in a person’s life, what excites them, what motivates, what inspires them, that is the real gift of life. There are so many others like us wanting a better world. I can tell you a way to make a difference is to speak up. There is power in that; there is change. So many people do not dare to speak up, and by speaking up, change is possible. Heaven does not need Heaven. Who needs Heaven? Hell does. Toltec means artists, artists of the Spirit, so when we wake up with It medicine, we are here to share with whoever comes in our path. We don’t discriminate because we see people like love.

Continue to Page 3 of the Interview with don Jose Ruiz