The woodpecker is a colorful bird with a strong, sharp beak, which it uses to hack into branches and trunks to build a nest or catch insects or just for pure pleasure. The woodpecker was highly regarded by the American Indians because the rhythm of its drumming resembled the drumming with which the shaman imitated the human heartbeat or the natural rhythm of the beating of Mother Earth herself.
The woodpecker is your totem animal if you are a Cancer. With its sharp clawed feet, the woodpecker can cling very well to trees while drumming and this clinging aspect fits very well with the Cancer. Like your totem, you are a good parent as a woodpecker, but you have difficulty letting your young fledge when they are old enough to stand on their own two feet. You cling to your children well into old age, causing them to continue to feel dependent on their parents. Letting go is one of the most difficult lessons for woodpeckers, and in fact this is the test of true love. Just as woodpeckers create a comfortable nest for themselves and their young, woodpeckers also value a comfortable and harmonious home. If they cannot share their nest with people they love, female woodpeckers in particular can become embittered and even go crazy. Woodpeckers need someone to be of service to and if they have nowhere to focus their devotion they become deeply unhappy and sink into a swamp of negative emotions.
Your woodpecker totem plant is the wild rose, a thorny shrub with a creeping, climbing or straight trunk. The wild rose has numerous medicinal properties. Dried rose petals are good for headaches and mixed with honey they purify the blood. Rose hips are rich in vitamin C and are excellent for colds, sore throats and flu. Your totem gemstone is Rose Quartz, a crystal-like form of quartz, which owes its delicate pink color to traces of manganese. It is a stone for the heart chakra. Rose Quartz helps put an end to emotions that weigh on the heart, such as trauma, sadness, fear and hatred. The stone promotes understanding. Rose quartz is both a transmitter and a receiver and promotes love between parents and children, strengthening family unity and commitment to each other. Be positive in their company. Remember that your personal concerns become the woodpecker’s concerns. Woodpeckers are as easily infected by worry and worry as others are by a cold. Don’t push them too hard. They allow themselves to be led, but they never allow themselves to be pushed around.