Common Ground Series Part 4
Animals, like humans, are individually unique. Domestic or wild, their energy senses and psychic abilities are highly developed, and they are advanced in non-verbal communication compared to humans. I have observed through my experiences that they have an innate understanding when a human is able to communicate non-verbally. While it appears that domestic animals especially have evolved in their communication skills with humans, it’s my belief that it is humans who have developed their openness and acceptance of deeper relationships with their animal companions. This change removes limits that previously existed as societal norms.
Human beings have believed that they are superior to animals because they can speak with words. The illusion that there are superior and inferior living beings is a failure of human consciousness that harms our evolution in many ways. This one particular belief, that words somehow signal a superior being, creates a chasm between human and animal species that has caused misunderstanding and harm.
Vast amounts of time and money have been spent studying animal behavior yet rarely touch on basic attributes of how animals think and function because science ignores the energy fields of the animals who are being observed. Animals come onto this earth with an inherent comprehension of how to utilize their energy field and how to interact with the energy fields of others. They have no need for words to communicate with other animals. In fact, they will gladly communicate quite efficiently with any human who is able to utilize energy to create communication without words. From my perspective, animals are more evolved in communication than humans are. In the case of domestic animal companions, they are even willing to labor at discovering ways that you will understand what they are trying to tell you. Consider the current trend of using buttons connected to words that cats and dogs are learning to use so their human companions will understand them.
Although I have received gifts of clarity from wild and domestic animals, I am going to share stories from my relationships with domestic animal companions, since those are experiences to which we all can have access.
My connection to animals is an inherent part of me and always has been. My first clue that this connection was more universal, and didn’t just apply to animals I knew, came when visiting a friend of my mother’s when I was quite young. I sat in a chair and a cat immediately jumped into my lap and settled down, purring. I was delighted, of course. My Mom’s friend was astounded, telling me and my mother that this cat had never gone near anyone else but her.
One day, again I was very young, I was outside with my mother who was talking with a few other women. There had been much concern about a stray dog who was believed to be sick, possibly infected with rabies because, when seen, it appeared to have foam around its mouth. While that is a rabies symptom, it can also be caused by other things, but the women were understandably concerned about their children. Animal Control had been trying to catch the dog for weeks with no success. I stood quietly, listening. My mother turned and looked down at me and I felt her energy change drastically. There I was, with a dog with foam around its mouth sitting calmly by my side as I petted its head. As soon as my mother noticed, the dog ran off. It was hard for me to understand why my mother was upset. My empathy was with that dog, and the dog knew energetically that I was safe. For years, my Mom told that story and always ended it by saying that Animal Control should have hired me.
Although I have always accepted my psychic abilities, I learned more about how I functioned from experience because information wasn’t readily available in my youth. Animals, domestic and wild, were my teachers. I was driving home from work late one afternoon when I saw a small dog running up the middle of a side street on my right. I slowed almost to a stop, and the dog ran right across the road in front of my car. I panicked because just ahead was an extremely busy street and he was heading in that direction. I had come to a full stop and called out to the dog to stop. He did, directly across from the side street he had come from, and turned toward me, obviously annoyed. I begged him to go back home, telling him it was dangerous, and I was terribly worried that he could get hurt. Finally, much to my relief, he crossed back in front of my car and continued on the side street to safety. I was so relieved and then I suddenly noticed that all my car windows were closed. I realized I had not spoken out loud. Everything I said was a thought and the dog responded to all of it. That’s when my conscious mind grasped the fact that animals communicate through energetic vibrations and I knew how to do that. I still had much to learn but my relationship with animals amplified in ways for which I am grateful every day.
If you have experience living with animal companions, you may have noticed that they often seem to know when a household member is returning home before the person is in sight. During the time when my partner was attending college, she would often come home late at night. We had two dogs and three cats living with us. I began to notice that, on the late nights, consistently, one dog, Charity, would jump up from a deep sleep, run to the door and bark. Then she would appear confused, listen at the door for a moment, return to where she had been laying, curl up and fall asleep again. I started to pay attention to what time my partner returned home those evenings, and I asked her to take note of what time it was when she got in her car to come home. Charity was jumping up when my partner was leaving school. In her sleep, our dog was receiving the energy pattern that told her that her human companion was finally coming home.
When I began practicing energy healing, Charity taught me through her physical responses, validating what I was perceiving energetically. She was older, a big dog, and was beginning to have discomfort in her muscles and joints at times. As I worked on her, she responded with a tail wag or kisses when her discomfort or pain was relieved. I began to expose my animal companions to energy work as soon as possible after they came to live with us. We rescued many animals. It took time to know them, find the right feeding patterns, and understand their uniqueness. With most, there were physical or emotional issues to deal with, sometimes trauma. Opportunities came up where I could introduce each animal to energy work. All it took was once and each animal would then inform me when and where their distress was, looking for relief through energy healing.
This happened to me with animals whom I didn’t know also. I was out with a friend and she wanted to stop in a store where she knew the woman owner, whose dog was in the store with her. My friend and the store owner became engaged in conversation. The dog took advantage of this and headed straight for me. As he came nearer, I saw that he had recently had surgery and was healing. I crouched down and placed my hands on him. He relaxed, sat down, and we stayed like that for a while. Then he got up and walked away, just seconds before my friend finished with her transaction. As I was leaving, I turned back and the dog was looking directly at me. I felt and heard his thank you. Encounters like this are common in my world. The animals know that they can ask me for help.
Another big lesson during those years was that my animal companions knew my thoughts and my emotions. They can be affected in the same way as children by their environment. Two instances stand out. One time, I had concern that one of the cats, Sugar, might be unwell. Something in her manner seemed a little off but hard to explain in words. There weren’t physical symptoms, just my feeling, but I paid attention to those feelings because I knew by then that energetic information comes before anything physical shows up. I had some tests done and waited for the results. When the phone call from the vet came, Sugar was in the room with me. The news was good and I relaxed. What was interesting to me was that something in Sugar shifted too. I didn’t get the same feeling as before. Sugar was responding to my anxiety about her and, once I was relieved, so was she.
The second time revolved around plans for a week’s vacation. The animals would stay home. Arrangements had been made for a friend to stay with them. I always explained to my animals when I would leave them for any reason. This trip was still a few months away when the friend left a message on the answering machine, inquiring about something related to his stay with the animals. Back then, everyone in the house heard when an answering machine played a message. Charity tended toward anxiety when separated from me but I didn’t think of that right away. I just felt something off with her – more nervous, easily upset, clingy. When I finally pieced together the phone message and my feeling, I realized Charity was anxious because she thought I was leaving and didn’t understand why or when. After I talked with her and explained, her behavior returned to normal. It’s not crazy or a waste of time to explain things to your animals that can affect them. They will understand and you will save vet bills. Prolonged stress, as we all know, can lead to illness. Domestic animals have adjusted to understanding and feeling their human companions to such a degree that their physical bodies now respond much as human bodies do. In other words, they get sick from the same things humans get sick from.
I learned a great deal during the years shared with Charity and our other dog, Hope, as well as the cats who lived with us. Charity and Hope were adopted from a shelter at the same time when both were 9 weeks old. At the end of their lives, they transitioned within three months of each other. I knew that as special as my relationship with each of them was, and it truly was, I would have an even deeper relationship with my next animals. My awareness of communicating and understanding them had expanded greatly in the latter years of Charity’s and Hope’s lives. Now, I would be starting a relationship from this point of awareness.
Some months later, Sage entered our lives. This little bundle of dog energy was unusual from the beginning, and I am so grateful that he came into my life when I was able to recognize his unique qualities. After all that had been learned from Charity and Hope, we decided that we should begin working with Sage right away. Sage was black and we were discussing colors for a nice, new collar for him. He was fast asleep, lying at my partner’s feet. Silently, we agreed on a color. I asked her to picture the color in her mind and then ask Sage, by thinking the thought without speaking, if he liked the color for his new collar. We both did this. Sage jumped up out of his sleep. He trotted over to a laundry basket where I had gathered clothes to be washed. Sage stuck his head into the basket, rummaging around and popped his head up with a yellow blouse held in his mouth. He trotted over to my partner, dropped the blouse at her feet, looked up into her face and wagged his tail. Yes, you guessed it – the color that we had picked was yellow! Current science, based on the physical structure of their eyes, states that dogs can only see yellow and blue. That may be true but that premise ignores their energetic senses and psychic abilities. Every color has an energetic vibration that can be distinguished. Additionally, we never spoke the word yellow. We only thought it.
Sage was a communicator. He had advanced skills in all forms of communication, including verbal. I would teach him a new word and show him what it relates to, as you teach a child. Once he heard a word and related it to something, he never forgot it. He displayed the same kind of development with psychic abilities related to communication. He knew a thought that I had before I finished the thought. His ability to pick up on energy patterns in this way was amazing. Sage taught me so much, including about communicating on an energetic level. He even drove a friend right out of my house with his skill! It was near Christmas and we were sitting in my living room, chatting. She asked if the animals received presents too. I told her they did. Sage got up and went to the toy basket. He rooted around in it and pulled something from the bottom, then brought it to our guest. Not only had he picked a Christmas gift - he chose his favorite one from the year before. When I told my friend this, she was so startled that she said it was time for her to go home!
Some animals communicate only through energy. They’ll use symbols or send thoughts repeatedly. Sage would touch his nose to the back of my leg, at first, just to say he loved me. Once I connected what he was doing and what he meant, he started using it to thank me, let me know I had understood an energetic message, or that he really enjoyed something. This same symbol has been used with me recently from another dog and for the same reasons.
Animals use their psychic abilities naturally so you will not cause them to experience fear as a human might. Quite the opposite, actually. For an animal, domestic or wild, their learning from birth is through their energy senses as well as their physical senses. I have found that my animal companions really enjoy interacting with me in this way. It adds another dimension to our relationship that greatly helps our communication with each other. Engaging my energy senses along with my physical senses has also allowed me to have some amazing encounters with wild animals. Because this process is so natural for animals, they immediately recognize a human who navigates the world in this way and, therefore, are not fearful during chance encounters.
However, all animals will sense human fear or aggression and that completely changes any encounter. I am extremely respectful of all animals and their space, and I follow their lead if I am forming relationship. It’s helpful to remember that every animal has their own personality and observation is our key to becoming the human companion they deserve.