"Deer teaches us to use the power of gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of wounded beings who are trying to keep us from Sacred Mountain. Like the dappling of Fawn's coat, both the light and the dark may be loved to create gentleness and safety for those who are seeking peace."

"This is the month when the solar energies are waxing to their peak at the Summer Solstice. People born at this time express their creativity intensely and rapidly, usually through some means of bringing attention to themselves. They will be active and versatile though prone to a moodiness that can be as stifling as the atmosphere under a heavy cloud on a sultry summer's day."

 "Antlers are symbols of antennae, connections to higher forms of attunement. Deer with antlers thus can be a signal to pay attention to your inner thoughts and perceptions, as they are probably more accurate than you think.

"When deer show up in your life, it is time to be gentle with yourself and others. A new innocence and freshness is about to be awakened."

"Identifying oneself with animals represents integration of the unconscious and sometimes - like immersion in the primal waters - rejuventation through bathing in the sources of life itself...For pre-Christian man the animal signifies exaltation rather than opposition...the trumphant power of the force of an instinct."

The gentle caring the female deer shows for the fawn provides an example of how we may care for each other, and for ourselves. But make no mistake, all human beings, male and female, have the capacity for gentleness and deep feelings, just as we all share the capacity to access the deepest instinctual levels of mind, where we sometimes find remarkable wisdom.

Sources

Andrews, Ted, Animal Speak. St. Paul, Llewellyn 1995.