Perfect Subjects

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animal communication with horsesSome years ago I had been thinking about getting some photos of my horses for my website when I saw a sign-up sheet at their barn for a photographer who was coming to do portraits of people and their horses. I jumped at the chance to get some professional shots of my two beauties. The day before the appointment I sent Reiki to the shoot the next day; I asked Senedad and Annie to help me by being at their best for the photos the next day so that their photos could be a part of my work.

When the photographer came the next day, Annie and Senedad were both visibly excited. When I led them to the area where the photos were being taken, each of them took up a position with all four feet squared and their heads held high with ears perfectly forward. They maintained that stance for as long as we needed them to do so. The photographer, who specialized in equine photography, kept saying, “I’ve never seen horses do this…I’ve never seen horses do this….” over and over again throughout the shoot. When the photos came back, the horses were picture perfect. Anything that was wrong with a shot was the result of something I was doing, never because of them. I got many beautiful photos that day, and I treasure them all the more for knowing how hard they tried to do their part to make the shoot a great success.

Hector Grows Into His Name

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For six years I lived with several herds of wild deer who came to our house daily for healing and companionship. At the time of this story, one of the herd, Hector, was a young stag slender and frail, with the small, thin antlers of a yearling. His skin was dull, and his breathing was always very rapid and shallow, as though his heart and lungs were in some way compromised and working very hard to power his frail body. He was shy and timid and always stayed in the group with his mother, other does, and the fawns instead of joining the group of young males his age. Encouraged by how well other deer had responded to Reiki healing, I began sending healing to Hector at every chance I got.

A transformation began to take place in Hector. Over the course of several months, Hector began to come into himself at the innermost level. He became a much stronger presence, at first arriving in the forefront of the group, later in advance of it, and finally coming on his own for visits and treatments. He began to hang out with the other young stags and roam in a group with them. His respiration slowed, and his sides no longer heaved all the time. He began to put on weight and fill out, and his coat took on a healthy sheen.

About this time we experienced a series of acts of vandalism, and it appeared for a short time that someone was targeting our house with ill intentions. This worried me, and the deer picked up my worry and took it upon themselves to help me with my concern. For several weeks, at all times of the day and night there was always a stag on “guard duty” in the courtyard. They challenged they didn’t recognize when they entered the courtyard, including the UPS driver. Stags of all ages took turns. And Hector often bravely took the “night shift”, positioned alone in the courtyard, ready to take on any danger that presented itself. He had become a true hero, thus growing into his name, that of one of the great heroes of the Trojan war.

Death & Grief Article

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end of life careThe time around an animal’s transition can be a period of greater closeness for the animal and his person as well as a time of growth and transformation; for this reason working with people and their animals during this period is very rewarding. Animal communication, Reiki, and flower essences help people and their animals to be able to move through an animal’s transition with greater ease and peace.

When an animal is approaching his transition, communication is reassuring for both the animal and his person. Animals often have important matters they want to talk about with their people as they prepare to leave this world. These matters can involve their physical comfort, the effects of treatments and/or medications, eating issues, and important emotional and spiritual matters they want to share with their people before they leave.

Communicating with an animal assists people in understanding how to help their companion be comfortable at the end of his life and, along with Reiki and flower essences, helps the transition to be as easy and peaceful as possible for everyone. Most importantly, communication helps the animal and the person to share their hearts with each other so that each can have comfort and a sense of completion as their time together in a physical form draws to an end.

“I spent millions of years in the world of organic things as a star, as a rock…then I died and became a plant–Forgetting my former existence because of its otherness. Then I died and became an animal–Forgetting my life as a plant except for inclinations in the season of spring and sweet herbs–like inclinations of babes toward thier mother’s breast. Then I died and became a human. My intelligence ripened, awakening from greed and self-seeking to become wise and knowing. I behold a a hundred thousand intelligences most marvelous and remember my former states and inclinations. And when I die again I will soar past the angels to places I cannot imagine-Now what have I ever lost by dying?”

-Rumi (“What Have I Ever Lost by Dying”)

Reflections on the Book and Movie, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”

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If you get a chance to see a wonderful film called “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” which recently came out on DVD and video, or to read the book (by Mark Bittner), it’s well worth taking the time to do so. It’s the story of a flock of wild parrots who have lived free in San Francisco for 20 years and a man, Bittner, who became their friend and protector. Bittner was homeless for 15 years, and his story of finding meaning and purpose in his life through his association with the flock is as moving as the stories of the individual members of the flock.

What I particularly loved about the film was that it demonstrated some of things that I see over and over again in working with people and their animals and in healing wild and exotic animals.

1) Animal easily recognize kindness and compassion and are quickly drawn to it. Bittner’s small acts of kindness and sincere interest in the parrots drew them to him and initiated a deep and life-changing relationship.

2) Animals give as much as they receive. They give extraordinary gifts in return for the love and compassion shown them and can transform human consciousness. Bittner had studied philosophy and Buddhist teachings for many years; however, his interactions with the flock gave him a new understanding of the meaning of much of what he had read.

3) Respect for animals’ wisdom, autonomy, and freedom of choice is vital in establishing an authentic and intimate relationship with them. Bittner honored the individual members of the flock as valuable beings and tried to understand their life from their perspective. In doing so, he gained their trust and learned enormous lessons about the deeper meanings of life and death. In teaching healing, I always stress that this kind of respect is vital in establishing a relationship for healing.

4) Personal transformation and growth are often possible for both people and animals around the time of an animal’s transition, and animals often give their people wonderful gifts of insight through their transitions. Through the transition of Tupelo, one of Bittner’s closest friends in the flock, he came to understand that “wordless transmission of meaning” (what I would call animal communication or intuitive listening) occurs between beings and between species. For instance, speaking of watching the flock in flight, he says, “Scientists look for an outer signaling system, but I think the birds have such a ‘flock sense’ that at times they are of one mind. I picked up some of that flock sense, and at times it was uncanny. I almost always knew when there was a major development in the flock.”

5) The richness and complexity of animals’ emotional lives, relationships, and intelligence is much more like ours than most people understand. Our preconceptions often stand in the way of understanding this. Bittner learned much about the depth and complexity of the parrots’ emotions and relationships through his close interaction with them and ultimately understood that “All living creatures are personages, and the issues among us are similar.” He says:

“In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Sukoshi-roshi tells a story about a trip he took to Yosemite. While there, he stopped to watch a waterfall. It was one of the very tall ones, and he noted that when the stream at the top of the ridge hit the cliff, it split into many individual droplets on its way to the bottom. There the individual droplets came back together into one stream. I’d read that story many times without comprehending his point. At a basic level, it’s quite simple: There is one river until it hits that cliff, which is life. The one river then breaks up into many individual living beings-humans, animals, and plants-until we hit the bottom of the cliff and become one river again. Each droplet loses only its identity as a single drop. But nothing is really lost. It’s all still there. I’d encountered this in different ways many times over the years, but I’d never grasped it. It’s an elementary idea, and not so difficult to understand. But my problem was that I’d been thinking about consciousness solely in human terms. It wasn’t until I considered the minds of parrots that my outlook broadened. So my problem was not with anthropomorphism; rather it was with anthropocentrism, which is seeing human beings at the center of the universe. The parrots broke through that delusion. The understanding that ultimately came to me from looking in the parrots’ eyes was that their consciousness is one with mine. We are all one consciousness, and each finite being embodies a little piece of it. This is the preciousness of all that lives.”

The book contains much information that was not included in the film, and I highly recommend it, but the visual images in film are so great-very intimate and personal- that I recommend trying to see the film as well, if at all possible.

Reiki is a Gateway to Animal Communications

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by Elizabeth Fulton

Animal Wellness magazine, August/September 2005, Volume 7, Issue 4, p. 89-91.

As animal communication becomes more widely known and accepted within our culture, a growing number of people are interested in learning how they can talk to their four-footed companions. One effective way to open the intuitive channels necessary for animal communication is through the ancient healing art of Reiki. Like acupuncture, homeopathy, Qi Gong and flower essences, Reiki is part of the emerging field of energy healing, an ancient practice that is being rediscovered for use in modern times. If you look into the backgrounds of many professional animal communicators, you will often find they are also Reiki practitioners, and the two skills are frequently practiced hand in hand.

The following story describes my introduction to animal communication through my Reiki practice. At the time, I had been healing animals with Reiki for about a year, but this was the first time I was aware that I was communicating easily and naturally with a member of another species.

A doe at the door

Early one morning, my husband burst into the bedroom, astonished and upset. He said that each time he tried to take our dog out for a walk, he was charged by a doe outside our front door. Unbelieving, I went to the window and looked out. Indeed, there was a very agitated-looking doe standing just outside the door, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, breathing rapidly.

As I looked at her, the word “baby” formed in my mind. At first I thought she was pregnant and about to give birth. I told her it was all right, that no one would hurt or disturb her, and that she was safe. As I spoke, she visibly relaxed, and the thought that the baby had already been born came into my mind, with a very blurry image of a small, curled-up being. I looked around our yard and saw a fawn, still covered with amniotic fluid, lying curled up in the wood chips a short distance away. I realized that these ideas and images had come from the doe, and was incredibly excited by this brief exchange with such a glorious creature. We left the doe and her fawn undisturbed, and my husband and our dog left by the back door.

The next morning, I ventured outside to see if I could have another encounter with the doe. I roamed the area near our house, sometimes calling out softly to the doe, sometimes calling her internally. After a while I gave up, but as I turned abruptly back onto the sidewalk, I almost knocked the doe over. She had heard me and was standing right behind me! We gave each other a tremendous scare, and she leaped to the other side of the street. We stood looking at each other for a long time. No words or images passed between us, but a gentle, vibrant energy connected us and feelings of love passed back and forth along this connection. I felt that both of us were re-evaluating our ideas about inter-species relationships, and a bond was being forged between us.

Deepen your intuitive communication with Reiki

Animal communication, or telepathic communication, can also be described as deepened intuition. All of us have intuitive capabilities, and these can be deepened and expanded to become telepathic communication. Two of the biggest obstacles many people face when developing their telepathic skills are learning to access the energetic or intuitive “frequency” of animal communication, and putting aside their preconceptions about animals so they can “hear” what the animals have to say. People who meditate are already able to enter the quiet inner state where animal communication can take place. For others, Reiki training and practice is an effective way to begin to access that inner space. For many Reiki practitioners, finding the “frequency” at which animals communicate evolves as an integral part of giving treatments.

The Reiki practitioner is naturally drawn inward as part of the treatment, and her mind quiets in a way similar to meditation. By letting her mind remain still and unattached, the practitioner allows the animals the space and opportunity to be heard. What the practitioner hears will be different for each animal since, like people, they each have an individual communication style. Some communicate more often through visual images while others use feelings, sensations, thoughts, or ideas. Many communications will combine several of these aspects.

In addition to accessing a quiet inner space, the successful use of both Reiki and animal communication involves learning a new “language” of energy. In the process of learning and using Reiki, people begin to feel subtle physical sensations of energy in their hands or bodies and then to perceive subtle phenomena on other levels as well. They find that visual images, feelings and thoughts arise in their consciousness during a Reiki treatment, and gradually they understand that these images, feelings and thoughts often are not their own but come from the being they are treating. If people develop this awareness, it can become full-fledged telepathic communication.

My relationship with the doe has grown and deepened over time and has led to relationships with other deer in the area. They have become my friends and guides in developing my intuitive communication skills and in deepening my understanding of animals and healing. Both the deer and other animals have demonstrated to me again and again that the assumptions we make about them are erroneous, and that animals are far more similar to us than most of us think.

The rewards of animal communication

The culture of animals differs from ours, and their communication is more exclusively telepathic. But, in so many ways, their intelligence, emotions, and spiritual lives are similar to our own. If we put aside our preconceptions about the intelligence of animals and what they are capable of feeling and communicating, they are freed to share with us.

Communicating intimately with animals is immensely rewarding and exciting. Their insights reveal a beauty, depth and generosity far beyond what most humans are conditioned to believe is possible. People who learn to use Reiki with animals find that many animals that are right for their unique paths come forward to guide them. Through learning and practicing Reiki, your intuition and sensitivity to subtle, energetic phenomena can be heightened and refined, along with your ability to rest inwardly so the voices of animals can be heard. Reiki and animal communication are natural allies, each contributing to the other to bring deep healing and to strengthen the bond between animals and humans.

What is Reiki?

The word “Reiki” (pronounced Ray-key ) is Japanese and is usually translated as “universal life energy.” It is a gentle yet powerful energy healing method that treats the whole individual, not just the symptoms of a disease. The practitioner acts as a conduit for the healing energy of the universe to flow through her hands to the animal or human client, causing a shift towards health at the deepest levels. It restores balance and harmony to the patient’s entire being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Reiki is also a powerful tool for personal growth and transformation. Until recently, Reiki healing was available only to humans, but increasing numbers of practitioners are establishing practices devoted exclusively to animals.

Elizabeth Fulton is a Reiki master and professional animal communicator. She offers a combination of Reiki healing, animal communication, and flower essences to all species of animals and their human companions, and teaches people how to heal animals with Reiki.

Two Major Elephant Sanctuaries in the U.S.

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The Elephant Sanctuary, Hohenwald, Tennessee

I was privileged to visit the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee several years ago to teach their staff Reiki. I was deeply touched by their dedication to making the lives of the elephants as natural and rewarding as possible and impressed by the extraordinary, state-of-the-art resources they’ve developed for the elephants at the sanctuary.

The Elephant Sanctuary, founded in 1995, is the nation’s single natural habitat refuge developed specifically for endangered African and Asian elephants. It operates on 2,700 gorgeous acres in Hohenwald, Tennessee – 85 miles southwest of Nashville, in a beautiful natural valley with a climate very similar to that of the Asian elephants’ natural habitat. The Elephant Sanctuary exists 1) to provide a haven for old, sick, or needy elephants in a setting of green pastures, old-growth forests, spring-fed ponds, and beautiful, state-of-the-art, heated barns for cold winter nights, and 2) to provide education about the crisis facing these social, sensitive, passionately intense, playful, complex, exceedingly intelligent, and endangered creatures. At the sanctuary the elephants live natural lives largely of their own choosing in idyllic surroundings. Read the moving stories of the elephants’ lives and learn more about The Elephant Sanctuary at www.elephants.com. Of particular interest: On their web site the sanctuary provides live-feed, 24 hour video coverage of the elephants through their “elecam” cameras placed in many locations around the sanctuary.

The Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), Northern California

The PAWS Sanctuary is a place where abandoned or abused performing animals and victims of the exotic animal trade can live in peace and contentment. Founded by Hollywood animal trainer and author, Pat Derby, and partner, Ed Stewart, PAWS maintains 3 sanctuaries for captive wildlife — 30 acres in Galt, California, and 100 acres in Herald, California, and the 1st Phase I of “Ark 2000”, 2300 acres of beautiful natural habitat in San Andreas, CA. They provide homes for many “exotic” animals, including elephants. Among their greatest concerns are the treatment of animals in traveling shows, animal acts, television and movies, as well as the problem of captive breeding, inadequate standards for captive wildlife and the exotic animal trade. Although captivity is never a substitute for the wild, “Ark 2000” is a large and beautiful home for victims of the captive wildlife industry.

The one hundred plus acres set aside for elephants is covered in native California grasses, shrubs and huge oak trees, which provide year around grazing and browse for the elephants. Located in the Sierra foothills, the mild climate, natural vegetation and large lakes are similar to the natural habitats of wild elephants and provide opportunities for the elephants to engage in natural behaviors. Two 20,000 square foot barns are stocked with all the equipment necessary to provide the best husbandry and medical care, including an indoor Jacuzzi pool especially designed for elephants with arthritis and joint disease. Learn more about PAWS at www.pawsweb.org.

All Creatures Great and Small

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reiki for insectsOne day, as I was turning on the garbage disposal, I saw an ant out of the corner of my eye just as I flipped the switch. I did not want to harm him but saw him too late, and he was caught in the swirling water in the sink as it went down the drain. I grabbed a small lid and tried to save him, but, although I prevented him from going down the drain, he had been swirling under the water for quite awhile and emerged twisted and crumpled on the side of the lid, where he remained motionless. Still, something told me he could survive, so I cupped my hand over the lid and sent Reiki.

There was quite a strong flow of energy, and I was pulled deeply into a meditative state. When I next became aware of the clock, twenty-five minutes had passed. The ant was still crumpled and motionless, but I decided to give it a little longer. After a few minutes, one antenna moved. A little later his head turned; still later he moved a leg, then untwisted his body a bit. After another ten minutes or so, he was untwisted and took a step. I put him down outside and watched as he walked off the lid and on about his life.

Reiki Saves the Day

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One of the basic tenets of Reiki is that Reiki does the healing and the healer is just a conduit for the healing energy. While the healer can ask for the healing he or she thinks is needed, sometimes what’s really in need of healing is not clear. However, Reiki always goes to the issues most in need of healing even if the healer is unaware of them. A Reiki treatment for a beautiful adolescent cockatoo named Birdie illustrated the lesson that Reiki often brings about healing in surprising ways.

Birdie was boarding at a pet shop where I offered Reiki with my daughter, Laura, many years ago. The first day he arrived, Birdie screamed non-stop at the top of his lungs, to the dismay of everyone within earshot. The staff was frantic and felt they could not endure the racket for the month they had agreed to board him. They asked us to help, if we could. I stood near the cage, hands lowered by my sides in an offering position, and asked Birdie’s permission to give a treatment. Within minutes Birdie became absolutely quiet, gradually moving closer and closer to me until finally he was pressed against the side of the cage, with his head hanging low and eyes closed, relaxed and looking comically blissful.

After I finished the treatment, he was much quieter, shrieking only a few times. Just before I left, one of the staff suddenly had the idea of putting Birdie’s cage in the window, where he could see the people outside as well as the activity in the shop. They moved him, and he never shrieked again, behaving perfectly for the rest of the month. The source of the problem was healed in a way I could never have anticipated!

Practical Applications

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reiki for antsI have used Reiki in our household in one practical way that has been appreciated by our whole family. Several times last year the ants in our area came inside looking for food. We would come into the kitchen in the morning and find overwhelming numbers scavenging everywhere. We had never experienced much difficulty with ants and certainly not in such tremendous numbers.

Of course, I did not want to hurt them. Instead I sent Reiki to them to help them find food in other places and told them in a kind but firm way that they were not welcome indoors and please to move back outside. The next day there were markedly fewer ants inside and the following day all of the ants had left. I thanked them very much for their cooperation and, of course, Reiki for its invaluable assistance once again.

 

 

Smokey Learns to Trust Again

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animal communication catsOne day when I asked the staff at the local shelter which cat needed Reiki, they immediately led me to a twelve-year-old Russian Blue cat, Smokey. He was feral and had been brought in three months earlier by a woman who had been feeding him for quite a while. She was moving and feared there would be no one to feed Smokey.

Smokey didn’t do well in the shelter and tried to escape several times. Soon after he arrived he became very sick and would have died if one of the staff had not force-fed him and nursed him back to life. As he grew stronger, however, he continued to be very wary of people, often biting volunteers who tried to handle him. About a month after he arrived, a staff member found a tooth on the floor of his cage, and when they looked in his mouth, they found a horrendous situation of pervasive gingivitis and infected teeth. The vet extracted several teeth, cleaned them all, and put him on medication for the infections. For about a week after this he was a little friendlier but then returned to his old ways.

When I met him they were very concerned because after three months in the shelter he sat hunched in one corner, never moving from that spot, severely depressed. He started at every noise and movement, and, although he could be taken out of his cage by a few of the most experienced volunteers, he would try to bite people¹s faces as soon as he saw them. I worked with Smokey over a period of several weeks, always sitting on a chair outside his cage, my hands in my lap. For the first treatment, Smokey accepted Reiki readily and allowed himself to doze lightly during the treatment, but each time there was a noise, or even the slightest movement of my hands, he would start and jolt himself awake.

During the second treatment, while I was deep in the meditative state often induced by giving Reiki, I received a strong impression of a blow to the head. I also felt certain that Smokey was very sensitive to light and that this vision problem and his dental problems were related to this blow to the head. I thanked Smokey for communicating this to me and told him how sorry I was that this had happened to him. I praised him for his courage in reaching out to me with this communication. I told the staff my intuition about Smokey and suggested that they try working with him with the light off, in just the dim light from the adjacent room. When they tried this, it made an amazing difference. Smokey came out readily and no longer lunged toward faces. There were no more biting incidents. He was still a cat to be handled only by the most experienced volunteers, but with them, he was an angel. He began to move around his cage, come to the front, and roll over on his back playfully and touch people gently with his front paws when they came to visit.

During his sixth Reiki treatment, he allowed himself to go deeply into a relaxed state and sleep, oblivious to the noises and movements around him. Afterward he got up and ate with his back to me, something he never would have done earlier. The next time I came, he was sound asleep, so much so that the volunteers had to tap on the cage bars and raise their voices to get his attention, and then he just opened his eyes briefly, stretched out toward me, and went back to sleep.

As I continued treating him, I kept getting the intuition that his dental problems had not been fully dealt with and finally shared my feelings with the staff. When they looked in his mouth, they found a large white area of abscess under a front tooth and several areas of gingivitis. For the week preceding his vet appointment, I continued to offer daily Reiki treatments. When Smokey went to the vet, there was no sign of the abscess or gingivitis. In examining Smokey the vet determined that he was almost blind and that his vision and dental problems had been caused by a blow to the head. There was a large area of calcification on the side of his jaw, where the vet felt the blow must have landed. Amazingly, Smokey’s blood work was perfect, not just for his age, but even for a young cat.

When the staff and volunteers learned that Smokey was nearly blind, they began to understand his point of view. They could see that as a formerly feral cat, who had been seriously injured by a blow to the head, he was understandably wary of humans. This wariness was compounded by his limited vision, which left him feeling vulnerable at all times. When people took him out of his cage onto their laps and he looked up at their faces, he was blinded by the strong fluorescent light just over their heads in the small room, became frightened because he couldn’t see, and reacted defensively by attacking in the direction of the light.

Now there was an outpouring of love and sympathy toward Smokey. Basking in this love and feeling that his situation was finally understood, Smokey relaxed and became positively affectionate with his favorite people. He was never at ease with just anyone who wanted to interact with him but was much more relaxed with his favorite people and no longer attacked anyone. I became unusually attached to Smokey and often let him lick baby food off my fingers, something I never do, but somehow Smokey was extra special. Smokey loved his Reiki, however, and more often than not, chose to have Reiki first and the baby food treat after his treatment was finished. For a cat who was very possessive of his food and had difficulty allowing people to remove his food dish and refill it, this was a high compliment indeed!