Intuition and body wisdom

This morning, I found myself browsing a website about donkey as a spirit animal. As I read, it stuck me that the donkey might be a powerful symbol for our emotional lives.

In Greek mythology, a braying donkey woke the goddess Hestia, just in time to save her from assault by the god Priapus.

Similarly, in Bamidbar, a donkey saved the Moabite prophet, Bilaam, from walking straight into the path of a sword-wielding angel. Re-reading this story, I was struck—pardon the pun—by how the prophet kept beating his donkey, his own body's wisdom, even as it continued to try to warn him of the imminent danger.

Balaam and the angel, painting from Gustav Jaeger, 1836.

How often do we ignore our intuition in favor of what seems logical or practical? Each of us has had moments where heeding or ignoring our intuition changed the course of our lives. Yet, we still struggle to distinguish true intuition from the mental noise of fear, habit, and desire.

Is intuition something abstract and spiritual, or is it something we can feel: an unease in our stomach, a quickened heartbeat, a sudden certainty?

At times, my intuition has been a loud, unmistakable voice in my head that demands attention. But most often, it’s difficult to recognize, requiring me to sift through emotions and impulses to determine whether I’m sensing truth, wishful thinking, or fear. If I have to wrestle with it, maybe I’m already a step removed from my intuition—what if the answer is waiting in my body instead?