A Matter of Faith

I just got e-mail from a client tonight. Her wonderful Doberman died at home today, apparently peacefully, and totally unexpectedly. My heart broke again, as it does hundreds of times a year, for two souls I have never met in person, for the loss we all must inevitably endure if we are to love, for a sadness I cannot heal.

I am an animal lover. My life has been filled with animals since I was a child. I remember the first time I connected with an animal, a collie named Prince who belonged to a neighbor. Prince was the first animal to teach me the joy of being loved by an animal, without cause, and without question. Prince simply loved me, at a time in my life when I was only beginning to conquer an early fear of dogs. He came to play on our lawn with his owner one day, and he lit up when he saw me. In one afternoon, he utterly and completely reversed a fear that had no reason or cause, but which had prevented me from being open to any previous connection with an animal. I remember the moment when I caught that light in his eye, and the softening of his expression, the gentle way he moved his body. Prince was a huge, old-fashioned collie, sable and white, with a deep, soft coat that seemed to me to smell of clover and honey. It may have. Our lawns were filled with clover back then, before the days of chemical treatments. Or it may just have been the scent of love in the imagination of a little, four year old girl, who learned from a dog how to make a summer day into a never-ending delight of exploration and discovery. I began to look for Prince each day. He was my pillow for an afternoon nap in the sun, and he was a willing and able outfielder in a game of kick ball.

I am still an animal lover. I still share my afternoons with dogs and other animal companions. I still derive the same pleasure from the warm, sweet smell of my German Shepherds' coats, and I still feel the joy of the moment when I see the light in my animals’ eyes when they catch sight of me that I felt that summer afternoon when I first experienced the deep connection that Prince offered to me. My heart still opens when I see the softening of their expression when they recognize me coming toward them. I am still an animal lover.

Now I am not only an animal lover, but I am also a telepathic animal communicator. Though I have studied how to do this with others who do it far better than I, my teachers, since Prince, have primarily been the animals. No one can really teach about connecting the way the animals can. The connection that makes the clarity possible starts in the heart, not the mind, and while people have shown me techniques to use to narrow my focus and concentration, it is a willingness in the heart to allow it which first makes it possible. Prince opened my heart when I was just a child. Many others have opened it again and again since.

An animal communicator is no stranger to the skepticism, criticism, and outright dismissal of others. We are challenged to prove that what we do is true, sometimes by those who hope to prove us frauds, though even more frequently by those who desperately want to believe that what we are able to do is possible, but who are afraid to allow themselves to believe it is so. When I first began to grow this ability, I often felt the need to hide what I do from all. I work, during the day, in an academic community, and felt certain that I would lose both credibility and respect if it were known. Then, I began to think that somehow, there must be a scientific explanation that would be acceptable “proof.” I spent hours and days combing literature, searching the Internet, digging through journals. The evidence may exist. Science, as we know it today, may be able to explain the connection I experience, the information I get. Or it may not. I no longer require it myself, and no longer seek it to offer it to others.

What Prince offered me almost 50 years ago is a treasure I cannot explain to anyone else, and do not wish to try. In a single moment, when our eyes met, I was given a gift more powerful than anything that had preceded it in my short life, and, more importantly, one that remains as powerful as anything that has happened in my much longer life since. I can’t ever describe in a way that makes it real the impact of that moment, how it felt to be not only allowed into another’s heart, but invited openly to be there, and welcomed so genuinely once admitted.

In my workshops and seminars, I often spot the skeptics early on. It is amusing to me when, at the first break, those I have spotted as such come up to me and ask me privately, how do you know (which often means, “how will I know?”) that the connection is real. Just as I knew in that one, brief, surprising moment when our eyes met that Prince was offering me unqualified, unconditional love, I simply know. This work is the work of faith; it requires no proof. It simply is something I know in my heart.

The nearest I am willing to come to challenging other’s beliefs when they challenge mine is to ask them if their spouse loves them. When they, as they invariably will, answer “yes, of course,” I ask them how they know this. Their answer begins to lead them to where I stand on animal communication. They just, they contend, know. I press them. “How do you know? What proof do you have?” At this point, they are either beginning to get angry with me, or they are beginning to see my point. They simply know. There are some things for which we can require no proof. These are the things we simply know because we feel them. When I open my heart to an animal’s connection, I simply know when the connection is made. When I see happiness in a child’s eye, I simply know what it is and how it feels. When my eyes meet my friend’s eyes over the dinner table, we both simply know the connection, the acceptance, the understanding. Some things simply are.

So, tonight, when I opened my e-mail and learned of my client’s loss, my heart broke, as it does whenever I hear of another’s loss. And just as quickly, as I remembered the love and laughter, the pure affection and appreciation these two souls had for one another, it put itself together again. Nothing, not separation or death, can ever change that energy. That is the essence of the connection I make when I communicate with an animal. The only difference between what I do, and what any other animal lover does comes from a trained willingness on my part to become completely open, and to accept whatever comes without judgment. I don’t judge my own accuracy, nor do I judge whether what is happening is supposed to be possible according to the laws of science and the teachings of western society. I am as open to the “other” as I am to whatever is happening, which makes it possible for me to “hear” what I am getting. It simply “is,” and I allow that and accept it. In one moment when I was four years old, I saw this in a collie’s eyes. I heard it in my heart. I put aside my fear. And I simply accepted the energy and the connection. That is the connection that keeps me going. It is most commonly called “love.”