Do your words match what is going on inside of you?  I ask because animals are receivers of energy and masters at reading energy.   If your words don’t match the energy that is flowing in you then you are incongruent. For example if you have had an exacerbating time at work and are seething on the inside and act like everything is fine - - you don’t match inside and out. When you are incongruent you become a little suspect and untrustworthy to your animals since you are not reliably tracking the energy within.  

Every animal responds differently to incongruence; they may act out by playing out the energy they feel, they may move in close since they are worried about you, they may bite you or scratch you. Or they may not listen to or respond to you.  Their behaviors are trying to get you into the present moment to connect with yourself and become congruent.

When  you match on the inside and outside in the eyes of the animals you become more reliable and trustworthy.  Now imagine seething from your exacerbating time at work and letting your loyal companion know that you had a hard day and  express with words what you're feeling the best that you can.   For example just admitting and saying out loud “My day was really hard and I am so frustrated at my job.  I am really mad and here are all the reasons I am mad…...”  

No matter what the truth, your animals will hear it and stay in connection because you are like them accurately tracking the energy (your emotions) and being congruent.  You are trustworthy.​    Allow yourself to be congruent and stay in connection with your animals.​

Schedule a session if you desire help in communicating what's going on for you.

Companion animals are an integral part of families and they are masters at reading energy and great teachers of balance and harmony.  They spend their lives observing and responding to the energy within the home.   They have a deep understanding of what is going on energetically within the family dynamic often taking on jobs within the family to keep the energy flowing: absorbing emotions of their people or acting out to get stuck energy moving. Remember times when you have felt sick or just “down”  and your animal companion came to curl up beside you and “made you feel better.”  

Also, companion animals will do what is necessary to bring attention to what is out of balance in the house or within the family dynamics.  In their attempt  to get the energy of the house back to a calm coherent state, they might also be absorbing the energy.  This can result in odd behaviors, acting out, marking, pooping in odd places, aggression that appears out of nowhere - please add in your animals interesting quirks.  

Physical problems can also arise from absorbing too much energy that overloads their entire nervous systems.  Problems can be vast and varied; it may include digestion problems, excessive itching, over grooming, reactivity etc.   Basically they are a live wire with so much energy going through them frying their system and they react.  Think of the times your animal companion was doing something you couldn’t understand or tolerate: peeing outside the litter box, chewing holes in your coat, refusing to lift her hoove for cleaning, pecking at you as you tried to clean the cage, swiping you with claws.  

Remember that term “the canary in the coal mine” it refers to when miners brought caged canaries with them into the mines and if the canaries started fainting or died the miners knew it was time to get out due to lack of oxygen. Just like the miners -  look to your companion animals for clues of how the energy in the house and the family dynamic is doing and take necessary steps to restore balance and harmony.  

Is your sweet animal acting out or getting sick or just not themselves?  This is them trying to bring attention to the fact that there is a dam, a big energy blocker that has interrupted the flow of energy.  Their behaviors called you forth, into the present moment to evaluate the harmony and balance in the home and within the family. What is out of balance? What simple steps can you take to bring balance and harmony into the home?
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Take time to analyze what is going on within your home and make changes for balance and harmony so your companions can get back to being dogs and cats instead of canaries. 

Leave a comment below on how your companion animal was letting you know the energy was out of balance.​​​

​​Photo by Chris Roberts

Happy Valentine's day. The animals have asked me to deliver a message of love for you today.  They want to start off declaring every day is a day to celebrate love and to invite you to pause throughout today and everyday to savor the moments of love that are happening constantly throughout the day.  

Here is what you need to know about love according to the companion animals.

The frequency of love is sparkly and alive. It is has a clear connection that feels like being out in nature on a walk.   Love flows with connection, unconditional acceptance, compassion. 

Love is like a river it has many different qualities of flow it can be dynamic like rapids, it can be smooth and still like a inviting swimming hole, it can be gently burbling along, or it can be rushing with eagerness to get to the sea, and it has a constant flow.  

Love grows through the care and shared experiences with your animal companion and through these experience their loving acceptance and knowledge of you grows.  Since the animals speak the language of energy they track you, your moods, your patterns, your routines.  For you are their world and they accept you and love you just as you are - unconditionally.  They are your life witness, your comfort, your constant.  

Reflect on  their unconditional love for you and how they have been your life witness. Breathe in the love.

Love is the routine you have together.  The morning snuggles, the walks in the woods, the pocketful of treats, the playtime, the time you work, the quiet times, the dinner routine and the bedtime routines all of it is love. 

Pause now think about about your daily routine with your beloved companions. What part of the routine do you feel the love connection the most? Breathe in the love.

Throughout the past year your companion has felt the collective energy and has observed how the roller coaster of energy affects you.  The fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty of the future as well as many distractions which cause disconnection within your own system and upset in their world - you.  They track at the moments of disconnection you have lost the thread of love - most importantly self love.  And they feel it's their job to help return the focus of the energy back to love, back to flow and connection.  Connection not only to them but more importantly connection to yourself brings their world into balance.

Think of the antics they have gone through this pandemic to get your attention - sitting on keyboards, barking non-stop so you have to get up and move,  finding you in your lowest moments and offering a gentle paw, squawking to get more food, stamping their hooves and refusing to budge.  All of this is to break the energy disconnection -  to refocus you to the moment at hand - and demand your presence.  

Okay moment of reflection again - think of the antics they have been doing to refocus you.  Can you see how they were loving you in those moments? Breathe in the love.  

Now back to the metaphor of the river of love.  At times this river of love may feel like it is dammed by a pile of logs that are preventing the flow and yet the water pools and gathers trying to find a way through.  Think of the times your animal companion was doing something you couldn’t understand or tolerate: peeing outside the litter box, chewing holes in your coat, refusing to lift her hoove for cleaning, pecking at you as you tried to clean the cage, swiping you with claws.  This is them trying to bring attention to the fact that there is a dam, a big energy blocker that has interrupted the flow of love and in danger of diverting it for good.  Their behaviors called you forth, called you into the present moment to connect. Demanding you to connect with yourself. Giving you an opportunity to evaluate what you want, to assess the situation, to reset the intention of connection, to take action if needed and bring balance back to you, which means to them. For you are their world.  

Another moment of reflection. Think of some of the dams in the river of love.   How has your presence and attention helped the balance of love return?  Can you feel the love of your animal during those damming (pun intended) moments?  What lessons were learned?  Breathe in the love.

Your animal companion is grateful for how you love and tend them.  They invite you to think about how you tend to yourself.   Is your self care as attentive, loving and as kind ?   

• Have you gotten yourself a favorite treat or toy lately?  
• Have you made sure you get your daily walks or the thing your body and soul hungers for? 
• Have you stopped yourself from over indulging because it might upset your system?  
• Have you paused to brush out your energy at the end of the day like you brush knots out of their fur, or groom them? 
• Are you diligent in not interacting with people, ideas, distractions that can cause you to disconnect?  
• Do you notice you are reactive to certain situations and steer clear of them?  
• Do you let yourself out daily to get fresh air, touch the earth and move your body?
• Do you make sure to play everyday? 
• Do you reward yourself often and lavishly?

Love yourself as unconditionally and as compassionately as they love you.  Loving yourself and tending yourself  brings balance to their world. 

For you are their world and they love their world!!!  Pause and let that sink in.  
 Breathe in the love !

​Photo by Valerie Elash on Unsplash

Here we are 11/20/20.  Just right here. RIght here in this moment just like when your cat or dog engages with you.  They are ever present in the moment.  Not thinking of the cat nextdoor that crossed the fence line yesterday or what they are going to be doing in 20 minutes. Instead they are right there in the moment Being with you.

I highlight this because I have done a lot of explaining to animals during 2020 about what is going on their people and why they are distracted.  Animals also want me to explain the reason for the unease and uncertainty in the collective energy field and how it affects their people directly.  And now with the holidays approaching and the worldwide quarantines the animals notice the energetic collective upheaval coupled with the natural world's cyclical slowing down and turning inwards.  There is curiosity from the animals of why their humans can't be present and allow the emotions - the energy that wants to be in motion in the moment, to move by acknowledgement, by expression, by allowing so people can get back to being in present.  

The natural world is also providing glorious examples of honoring one's own cycles and following the impulse within our bodies and allowing the natural unfolding of life to embrace us.  As trees release their hold on their leaves and the leaves dance down to the earth it feels as if there is a big exhale and a settling in.  Here in Seattle we are on the tail end  of migrations of following that deep instinctual drive within. Allowing the impulse to fly, to burrow or to swim to move wild animals to return to more hospitality environments or to home.   Just like the animals are suggesting with the emotions by allowing the impulse of the emotion to return you home to you in this moment.   

I end here with love and gratitude and the beautiful poem Wild Geese by  Mary Oliver

Wild Geese 
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

​You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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I am looking forward to opening sacred space for the Day of the Dead Celebration for the animals on November 1.
As I gather items to create the shrine for my dearly departed companion animals I am bumping into all sorts of repressed emotions: grief, anger, confusion mixed in with love and joy. As I thumb through pictures searching from my childhood animal companions. I am seeing my younger self again. The little girl who was loved and tended by these sweet beings.  Due to circumstances I did not get to say goodbye properly to these sweet dogs.  And then I was not supported through the stages of grief from losing my best friends. Leaning into these emotions and meeting my little girl I can now allow the emotions to flow and be the parent for myself that I needed then and allow their spirit to surround me again. WIth the new perspective of being the loving parent to my younger grieving self I can know delve into the impact this pups had on my life.
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The Day of the Dead is not simply a day about mourning your loved ones and telling stories of them; it’s a day about remembering their lives and the impact they had upon you.   As well as keeping in mind that just because they’re no longer with you doesn’t mean that they’re entirely gone, because you keep them alive in your hearts and memories.

Around this time of year there is much talk about “the veils are thinning and the spiritual world is moving in close.”   What does that exactly mean- veils, thinning and why should you care?   And what does this have to do with you or your  beloved pet?  
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The best explanation I came across for the meaning of veils thinning and why is from Tess Whitehurst, a soul sister who believes like I do that “Life is Magical.”
“At Samhain/Halloween, that relentless, all-pervasive Mystery is as close as it ever gets. And now we’ve arrived at what we mean when we talk about “the veil.” You might say it’s the place where the everyday illusion of separation brushes up against the divine truth of eternity and universal interconnection. The place where form meets spirit, seen meets unseen, known meets unknown.

Why does the veil thin at Samhain? Because the days are getting shorter and the natural world is preparing to temporarily withdraw from the realm of life and growth. The harvest cycle is waning, but it’s not gone. This means Samhain is a transition: a doorway between the season of life and the season of death. Beneath this realm of constant change, there is a wide open space of eternity. A place of stillness in which the appearance of change arises. A serene openness to which we will always return, and with which we are one, even at this very moment.”

Now what does this have to do with  your beloved pet? A lot, since animals are much more energetically attuned with the earth and the spirit world.  As the veils thin the animals feel the closeness of the spirit world.  If  your beloved is elderly and ready to cross they feel the  pull and sense the ease on which to cross over back to spirit form.  Psychic abilities are enhanced at this time as well so have a conversation with your elderly pet and hear their wishes on how they want to move on so you can honor and support them.  

For your beloved pets that are in spirit now is a good time to connect with them. Honoring them and remembering them by sharing stories invites them to come closer.  Then you can tell them what's on your heart and listen with all your psychic senses for responses.   Imagine how wonderful it will be to feel their presence - the soft head nuzzle, the weight of them in your lap, the pleasant familiar sense of them. Don't trick yourself that you won't feel them.  Instead treat yourself to the mystery of life - connection and love.  The animals always come when called.

Join the 1st annual Day of Dead Celebration honoring your past companion animal/s.

Photo by Karly Jones on Unsplash

​The animals are such great teachers about energy.  Today the wasp teaches about clearing off energy that can get stuck on you when entangled in someone else's web -  dream, energy etc. And to thoroughly clean yourself off before flying off into the next moment.

Being spider web season here in the PNW today  there is a lot of activity around the webs.  Today I observed a paper wasp cleaning every part of its body.  Balancing on the front four legs as its back legs cleaned off its abdomen then moved up to thoroughly cleaning its head off. 

I was curious why there was so much cleaning?    As I was thinking this a spider shimmed up into the center of its web and the paper wasp launched itself trying to grab the spider.  It was an unsuccessful attempt since the spider had dropped quickly between the deck boards.  The wasp investigated all around trying to find the spider to unavail.  It then zoomed back up and flew aggressively back and forth through the web destroying the web.  Then the cleaning started all over again. 

Here are some of their suggestions for you to become more present.
 
















​Leave the computer, the phone and any other electronic device and get outside. 

“The idiot box or energy drain” is a term often used by the animals when talking about computers or  phones.  When you engage with the computer or phone to them it's as if nobody is home in your body.  This makes animals very nervous and worried for you because  you are not present.   Their suggestion is:

​Get outside, move around, feel your body.