My belief: If you see animals as piteous, as always abused, always in need, only as things to be rescued, as children, as babies, as having our emotions, our words. If you are always seeking evidence that animals are like us, you will find stories to fit: the mourning elephants, the brilliant border collies, the death cat, your mother’s dog who grieved for months, this story you read, that one you heard. If you believe the animal you love will never die, but walk with you through all eternity, then this your choice, your right, your belief. Mine is that if you believe these things, or only these things, you may not ever get to experience the miraculous experience of talking with an animal, or listening to them talk to you.
These are only my beliefs, not the final word, the law, the final science. Just my belief. Every day, I learn something about communicating with animals, and I am getting stronger at it. I can wave my hand and Frieda will lie down as a motorcycle races by the farm. I can bring a broken spirit to the pasture and Simon will come to my side and help me heal, and his emotions will talk to mine. I could bring Izzy into the house of a dying person and look him in the eye, and Izzy will go and help this person leave the world in warmth and dignity. Lenore comes into a doctor’s office and lies on the floor at my feet, bringing me love and support. When I take a photo of Meg, we are talking, she is speaking to my camera. When I stand in the field with Rocky, there is something so tangible passing between us, messages and feelings about life, aging, love and death.
If you think your animals understand what you are saying, and feel grief, jealousy, separation and resentment the way we do, and in the words we use, then my belief is that your words will sail over and off them like feathers in the wind, and they will look you in the eye and wag your tails and go right through you, and your intentions right through them. Your spirit and theirs will pass over one another. They are so wise, they have so much to teach us if we are open to it.
You can see it all of the time, people wondering why their dogs don’t listen, won’t come, can’t calm. I begin my conversations with animals this way: In total silence, completely still. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years sometimes never. I began to learn this active listening in hospice. I respect them as animals, not as people. When I am open, and my emotions are open, they will find me, connect with me, respond to me. It is a beautiful thing, and I wish I could pass it on, but I often run into this wall of personification, emotionalizing, this sometimes arrogant human idea that because we love them, they must be just like us. So many people do not want to hear it, and I can’t help it but sometimes see this as selfish.
They are so very different. I will write about it, in a book.