SNOW LEOPARD Spirit Animal

Snow Leopard Spirit Animal
Ghosting and Going Unseen

Known as the “Ghost of the Mountains”, snow leopard spirit animal teaches us how to be elusive. Her camouflaged coat, quiet movement, wary habits, and vast, inaccessible home range make snow leopard sightings extremely rare.

Snow leopard spirit animal carries the ghost archetype. She’s an expert at ghosting.

Challenges come with inhabiting the ghost. You can feel in between worlds. Be apart from the world. This is isolating and lonely, like haunting your own life. Snow leopard most active at dawn and dusk. These are the in between times with low visibility.

When working with snow leopard symbolism, you may be tempted to avoid vulnerability by ghosting others. Slipping away. Hoping they’ll forget you.

Snow leopard comes to help you manage your conflicting attraction and aversion to people not seeing you. She helps you decide when you’re noticed and when you’re not. Choosing solitude in a healthy way. Rather than avoiding intimacy.

You may also experience other people ghosting you by causing physical or emotional distance. Snow leopard spirit animal provides much needed companionship and guidance during periods of estrangement.

Snow Leopard Spirit Animal
and the Exorcist Archetype

There was a poet-saint that lived in the 11th Century in Tibet named Milarepa. He entered the “Great Cave of Conquering Demons” to meditate and devote himself to spiritual practice. A long winter storm came and trapped him in the mountains for six months. The nearby villagers thought him dead and held a funeral. In the spring, they went to look for his body. During their trek through a mountain pass, they saw a snow leopard sitting on a rock, watching them.

Later, they found Milarepa at the cave, singing and well. He asked them why they were so slow to arrive. He’d seen them hiking through the pass a long while ago. The villagers said they didn’t see him but a snow leopard. He responded, “I was the leopard.” [1]

Milarepa shows us that snow leopard spirit animal is connected with the exorcist archetype. In the Great Cave of Conquering Demons, Milarepa faced fears of loneliness, isolation, starvation, and death. Conquering his own demons, he paved the way for his community to do the same.

The exorcist and ghost archetype have a close kinship. Embodying both, snow leopard spirit animal helps you walk hidden realms. Clear out what haunts you and find our own skin.

A Guide into Solitude

Snow leopard symbolism relates to solitude. These big cats live a lot of their nomadic lives alone, traveling across vast territories.

In working with snow leopard spirit animal, you can overcome the perils of solitude and embrace the gifts it brings. If circumstances force you into solitude, snow leopard helps you cross the barren snow fields of abandonment and leap over the chasms of loneliness. Snow leopard hunts down nourishment on the other side of discomfort. Solitude brings you to new heights. You meet the Divine in the sacred mountains the snow leopard inhabits.

If you choose solitude voluntarily, snow leopard spirit animal shows you how to blend into the mystery and discard escapism. I share a good deal about the intricacy of solitude in an article called “The Seriousness of Solitude“.

Western scientists say the snow leopard is a solitary species that lives alone. This “fact” comes from a male point of view. Male scientists started the narrative focused on male snow leopards. Male snow leopards do live the vast majority of their lives alone. The exceptions are the first two years of their life when they are with their mother, and a couple days a year when they join with a female for mating.

The Feminine Side of Snow Leopard

Female snow leopards are a completely different story. Single mothers, they bear and raise cubs entirely on their own. They reach sexual maturity at 2-3 years old, spend two years raising a litter of cubs, and go into estrus every other year. The typical lifespan of a snow leopard in the wild is 10-12 years. If she only has two litters in her life, she’ll spend four years rearing offspring. That combined with the two years she spends with her own mother means that she could spend around half or more of her life living with family.

Once she regains solitude, it can still be interrupted. A mother snow leopard may meet up with her young after the initial separation. Then there’s mating season every other year. During this time, male and female snow leopards may hunt in pairs.

When viewed from the female snow leopard’s point of view, we see that solitude isn’t king here. Her life is one of ebbs and flows of solitude and intense intimacy. Nursing blind, helpless cubs for months and then teaching the adolescents how to hunt in a vast landscape is no easy task. It requires closeness and attentiveness. “Me time” isn’t happening often when the little ones need their best shot at survival.

Intimacy of Snow Leopard Spirit Animal

Snow leopard spirit animal brings us the wisdom of mixing intimacy with solitude and the ability to flow between the two with grace. She guides us into embracing the holiness of aloneness and togetherness. We are present with and grateful for what is, not hungering for one while with the other. Always the pendulum will swing to the opposite.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with solitude, snow leopard spirit animal reminds you that the season for intimacy will cycle around again. The same is true for those of you feeling a bit smothered by those close to you. The time for solitude will come.

During times of physical distance from others, snow leopard reminds us that we can still communicate. Snow leopards regularly scent mark trails as a way to stay in touch.

Snow Leopard Spirit Animal’s Agility

If you find yourself out on a ledge, snow leopard spirit animal guides you to safe footing. She can jump six times the length of her body to carry you across great divides. Her ability to navigate unsteady mountainsides during high speed pursuits of prey brings the gift of grasping nourishment in times of uncertainty. She is an apex predator, a queen residing over the realm of rocks and ice. Like many of the big cats including mountain lion, she guides us into sovereignty over our own lives.

Exposure to a Cosmic Perspective

The snow leopard lives in a very specific habitat above tree-line but below the oxygen deprivation zone. This is a barren landscape, largely inaccessible to humans and most wildlife. Snow leopard spirit animal speaks of resourcefulness in scarce, harsh environments.

Snow leopard spirit animal thrives in climates with high exposure to cold and aridity. With her thick coat, tail full of stored fat, and big feet like snowshoes, she endures harsh freezing temperatures and long winters. You don’t need to move to a colder climate or buy a thick parka to appreciate what it takes to endure exposure to the cold.

During cold-snaps in life where you can’t find warm feelings or your loved ones ice you out, she is there. She wraps around your heart when you feel cold inside, stripped bare. Snow leopard spirit animal keeps you warm when you are given the cold shoulder or shunned.

When she breathes, her large nostrils take in big quantities of air and warm and humidify it. More air and easier breathing equals more oxygen. The ability to think straight at high altitude is critical. If you are struggling with understanding the higher purpose of your life, snow leopard spirit animal can help.

Climb to the heights, clear your head, and find the cosmic perspective that will sustain you in sparse times. Mythologically speaking, mountains are abodes of the gods. Think Mount Meru in the Himalayas and Mount Sinai in the Bible.

Snow leopard spirit animal helps you inhabit heavenly spaces to get a clear picture of the divine design. Her magic brings you into communion with Divine magic. Breathe in the fresh, thin air and thrive.

Resources

[1] https://snowleopardconservancy.org/text/myth/tibmyths.htm

https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/snow-leopard

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/snow-leopard

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About Author, Stacey L. L. Couch

Stacey Couch is a Spiritual Advisor who supports creative seekers learning as they go on the spiritual path. She serves beginner and life-long students of the soul. Her compassionate and collaborative approach honors the humanity and value of each person. Wisdom found in story, mysticism, and nature provide guidance and healing in her work. Through meeting with Stacey, lost souls find refuge. Connection to the Divine is realized. Belonging comes. She is the author of Gracious Wild: A Shamanic Journey with Hawks. Learn About working with Stacey