Intuition and body wisdom

I'm not entirely sure how I came to be looking at a website about donkey as spirit animal this morning, but as I was reading the page, it occurred to me that the donkey may be a good symbol for our emotional lives.

In Greek mythology, a braying donkey woke the goddess Hestia thereby saving her from being raped by the god, Priapus.

In Bamidbar a donkey saves the Moabite prophet, Bilaam, from approaching an angel who is wielding a sword with the intention of killing Bilaam. I re-read this story and was struck, pardon the pun, by how the prophet kept beating his donkey, his body wisdom, while the donkey continued to try to warn him of the danger.

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