Spiders and Fruit Flies Oh My!

Hi all ~

This week I have been seeing lots of spiders spinning webs.  That's fine - I like to watch spiders.  Much worse are the fruit flies.  They breed so fast that it is difficult to get rid of them.  It doesn't help that they are not from this climate and there are virtually no predators of fruit flies.  Something has gone wrong in our food chain supply!

The spiders, though, signal that autumn is on its way, and the animal kingdom is getting ready for fall and winter.  I actually like spiders.  They are industrious and they help keep down the populations of flies and other pests.  Their webs are quite intricate and beautiful.

A few years ago, when I lived in a different place, I had to talk to a spider who had woven her web right where the outside faucet was.  I had to interrupt her web daily in order to water my plants.I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't listen.  Seemed to me she could find lots of bugs in the garden and we could help each other.  But no, she was determined.

Now living in a house with my Dad, I see spiders all over the place, but only outside.  These spiders are helping with the balance, and I appreciate their work.  I just wish the fruit flies could be lunch for the spiders!

Bowser the cat

Bowser the cat came to me from a couple who were getting more and more allergic to cat hair.  Bowser does have a thick, beautiful coat of hair.  He was terrified when he came to me.  The first thing he did was to crawl into the cupboard under the bathroom sink.  Of course I let him stay there as long as he chose.  After a few days he spent most of the time out of the cupboard.  It has taken a while, but he trusts me implicitly these days.

He came to me at 12 years old with declawed front paws.  The people who Bowser lived with before me told me he had "escaped" from the house and was gone for 6 months.  He had been about 18 pounds when he left and came back at 12 pounds.  I don't know how he stayed alive for all that time, or how he found his way home.

Bowser and I lived in a small apartment for several years.  He once got out into the hallway, but was totally frightened by a fierce female cat in the apartment next door.  After that he did not even attempt to go out of my apartment.

But for the past year, we have lived in a house with a large yard and a fenced in patio.  Bowser desperately wanted to go out beyond the fence, and he did escape several times.  Then, more recently, he came home with a bite that turned into and abscess before I even realized he'd been bitten.  The vet bill was more than I wanted to pay, but . . . the Bowser was worth it. The vet said he was a real gentleman, and everyone there liked him.  I'd say he one of the sweetest cats I've known.

Now Bowser still wants to go out of the fenced patio, but I am not willing for him to get hurt again.  For one thing, I would be sad if he hurts, and I don't have money for vet bills either.  Of course Bowser doesn't have any concept of  money.

Perhaps the most important thing is that Bowser and I are bonded to each other.  It took a long time, but he realized that he is safe with me and my Dad.  He trusts me implicitly.  And I love him dearly.  As with most family pets, there will be a time when Bowser dies.  Actually, fairly soon because he is about 16 years old.  For now, I just love him.

A Dog's Life – and Death

My dearly loved dog Shama was two feet tall, 100 pounds of muscle, and fiercely protective, yet she charmed almost everyone she met.  Her best dog friend Coco lived with my friend Lu (whom Shama also adored).  The two dogs ate from the same dish and slept on the same bed.  When circumstances led to Coco coming to the farm for an extended visit, Coco missed her "Mom," but generally was an outgoing and happy dog. 

Then one day I found Shama lying on the floor under the kitchen table whining.  I work with devas and nature spirits regularly, so I connected with them and asked if they could help her.  They indicated they would.  In fact, she had already ceased her quiet whimpering.  They also said no to my inquiry about taking her to the vet.  I talked to a friend who also communicates with animals, and she thought that Shama would be all right.

But by afternoon, Shama's belly was distended and hot, and the vet told me over the phone that expensive surgery was not likely to help.  Soon,  Lu arrived, and Shama laboriously got off the bed and went to her, leaning her massive head against her friend's legs.  Before long, I heard Shama'a death rattle and in minutes she was gone.  I later learned that Shama had gone to the astral plane, where a Native American teacher told her that her work with me was finished.  She was given a choice to stay with me for a brief time, for love, or take on a new job.  She decided to take on a new task.

We did ceremonial pipe over her body, and I heard my teacher in that lineage, Sun Bear, who was already on the other side, laugh at me and say "She's my medicine dog now!"  A friend who was present saw the same teacher, with Shama on one side and his long time companion Samoyed, Shasta, on the other.  Shama had not gone through the bardo, but went right from here to there, accompanied by Shasta. 

Lu made the decision that Coco would stay with me permanently.  For several years, she was my almost constant companion.  No one could replace Shama, yet Coco and I became good friends.  She was already fourteen when she came to me, and beginning to have aches and pains.  I began to talk to her about her choices.  She never understood "death."  When she finally had a severe problem that required surgery, I made the decision for euthanasia.  The vet was very gentle, yet I was devastated.  I knew she was fine – I felt her reach the light, and even heard her comical domination of the much bigger Shama.  She scolded in her sharp Aussie voice, "You didn't tell me where you were going, and I couldn't find you!"

I told my guides I needed a time out and wasn't willing to help any more animals cross over for a long time.  Not only Shama and Coco, but also two friends' dogs, a cat, two horses, a snake, and my own long time cat friend had needed my help within a ten year span.

Then I met Polly and Zoe.  Polly works with animal communication and Reiki, and Zoe was her service dog.  Zoe reminded me in many ways of Coco.  Zoe related to me very gently – licking my hand at one point – yet maintaining a slight but noticeable distance.  In talking to Polly about it, something shifted in me.  Zoe rolled over, exposing her belly and begging for petting and hugging.

Not long after, I met Thomas and his dog Jenny.  Thomas asked if I would create a flower essence blend for him and for Jenny, who had been having seizures.  The seizures had stopped, but she was very weak and lethargic.  Thomas was extremely distraught.

I found that Jenny was ready to die, but was waiting for Thomas to accept it.  The flower essence combination for Jenny was to assist after a paradigm shift – I knew she had already made the transition.  Thomas himself needed a calming essence and one for receptivity.

Also, my friend Shama, who still is definitely a medicine dog, came to me very strongly.  She said she would keep very close to Jenny through this, and take her to the other side when it was time.  Helping other animals who were getting ready to die was her new job.

There was a big gift in this work with Jenny that I did not even recognize at first because it was so obvious.

About 12 years prior a good friend's dog had an inoperable tumor on her pancreas.  She was having seizures 1 to 3 times a day.  Because my friend was too close to the situation to get clear, I often tuned in for her to see what was needed.  The family had long planned a complicated two week vacation with two other families – one of whom had non-refundable airline tickets.  So I dog sat while they were away.

The dog taught me a great deal about allowing – it was her life after all – and not being attached to the outcome.  She had refused to eat until I agreed with this principle, and then she began eating again.  Her family's return date was loose, the hour totally unknown.  But one a day near the date they were due to arrive, she was eager and excited all day.  Finally she insisted on going out front, where we sat on the porch for about 10 minutes until the car drove up.  A week later I was present when she died in her person's arms.  She was the first animal I supported while she was preparing for death.

Her name was Jenny.

Spirit had gently reminded me this was a part of my work and I really could not refuse to do it. 

When Polly asked me why I was taking Coco's death so hard, I realized that it wasn't about the animals.  Though I grieved, I could see them on the other side, and I KNEW they were fine. 

What it was about was stuck feelings/energy from childhood.   During an intense crisis at about age 10, I actually died, and went through the tunnel into the light.  It was so beautiful.  And what I was going through at the time was so horrendous, that I wanted desperately to stay.  But I was told, gently and clearly, that I had work to do, and a long and fruitful life ahead of me. 

Although I had healed much of the trauma around the cause of my near death, I had not processed the feelings and the energy around the death experience itself.  When I worked with animals who died, I saw them reach the light and longed for it myself.  It was too difficult, wanting to be there myself, to help animals reach their destination!

Finally, I have released that as well.  My work of communicating with Spirit and with Nature includes talking to animals, making flower and crystal essences for them, and sometimes helping them and their companions to prepare for their death.  Life is mostly joyful these days, and I am quite happy living my life until it's my time to go to the light.

Check out my web site at www.dragonflyessence.com, or call at (360) 789-9599, or email jackie@dragonflyessence.com.   I am a flower and crystal essence practitioner as well as energy healer (humans and animals) and animal communicator.  I also sells flower and crystal essences and combine them with aromatherapy in sprays.

Bowser

One of the reasons I have been feeding the birds is for the benefit of Bowser. Despite the name, Bowser is a cat, not a dog. He is a twelve year old rescue cat who loves to sit in the window and watch the birds. When I said yes to taking Bowser, I wasn't sure why I was needed. His front feet are declawed. The people who gave him to me said that at one time he escaped from the household and was gone for about six months. When he came back to his people he was very skinny.

They didn't tell me he was terrified of having his head covered - something I found out accidentally. I am pretty sure someone captured him in a bag or blanket that went over his head. He was almost always crying in his sleep. And then I realized he needed healing. Actually, the healing I've offered has been very passive (even though my work is energetic healing). The main ingredient is loving him and behaving in a way he can trust.

One remarkable thing in this story involves my mesa. The mesa is a medicine bundle, created over time in my work as an energetic healer. Mostly it consists of powerful stones from the mountains of Peru and Western Washington. Bowser loves to sleep on top of it. Because we are talking about stones wrapped in a layer of wool, it cannot be the kind of comfortable that cats usually enjoy. Aside from my mesa, Bowser generally picks the softest places to sleep: on my lap, on a pillow, on a very soft wool blanket . . . . You get the picture.

He began to cry less and play a bit more.

And then . . . Bowser wasn't peeing. Actually he did occasionally pee on the carpet. Money being a bit more scarce, and reluctant to subject Bowser to a trip to the vet and pharmaceutical remedies, I asked him if he would be willing to let my friend Rose attune him to Reiki. Rose is a Reiki Master, and often attunes animals who need this tool to heal themselves.

Rose had done this for my friend Misty before she died. In the year or so after Misty received the Reiki attunement, she had healed herself of incipient kidney failure. Any doctor would tell you this isn't possible. Kidney function does not return. Besides the kidney, Misty healed her hind leg that had been shattered in a tangle with a car when she was 2 years old. Most of her life she had walked on all four legs, but had run on three legs. Not long before she died I watched her run flat out after a rabbit on all four legs.

Back to Bowser - he was ebullient! He healed his bladder issue in just a few minutes, and it is back to normal. Bowser no longer cries in his sleep. He loves to play, and talks a LOT. He had been afraid of my next door neighbor, and now he loves his new friend. He has more energy too, and is pestering me more to play with him.

He was very clear with Rose about what he wanted. Sometimes we think animals don't know very much. What I know is that they can be much smarter than we are about very practical matters!

The First Robins of Spring!

This winter has been crazy! It is cold, windy and snowing where I am and a few days ago it was sunny and the temperature was around 50 degrees. The birds are as confused as I am. There were four fat robins in the tree one morning a couple of days ago, huddling against the cold and blowing snow. Is it actually spring? Because it sure doesn't look or feel like spring.

As I meditate on the idea of spring I remember the maxim "Hope springs eternal." The word "hope" has been bandied about for the past two years. But isn't hope based on a real possibility? Nowadays we are hearing more about the time it might take to repair the damage of greed and an economy made of air and deception.

Still, spring does always come. We will do what we need to do to survive and even thrive in the midst of chaos and change - remembering the Chinese word for "crisis" includes parts of the words for "danger" and "opportunity". Many times in known history we have been on the brink of disaster. According to Malthus, for example, there are too many of us to actually feed. Yet somehow we are still here - all 7 billion of us!

We will find ways to live more in harmony with our beautiful Earth. Who knows, we may seed other planets in the future.

The Odd Duck

After my last post I received information from a number of readers. What resonates is the word from a professional ornithologist that the "odd duck" was most likely a juvenile cormorant. It doesn't seem likely . . . but my neighbor did see a cormorant on her daily walk about the same time. Whatever it was, it was out of its normal environment.

Whenever I see something that strikingly out of place, and so blatantly communicating with me (the bird stared at me the whole time it was sitting in the tree outside my window - a couple of minutes ), I know there is a message for me. In this case, I remember one of the first rattles I made out of rawhide. I didn't know what I had done until a friend saw it and said "You've made a cormorant!" The bird-rattle head was lifted higher than the wings. Likewise, the cormorant flies with its head elevated, the only bird I know that does this. When I made the rattle, I had no knowledge that there was such a bird, let alone how it flies!

Since it has appeared in my life, I did look up cormorant, and found some interesting facts. They catch and eat fish underwater. They do the impossible, diving as deep as 100 feet because their bones are heavier than most birds, they swallow pebbles, and they squeeze the air out of their feathers. Long ago the Chinese and until recently the Japanese kept domesticated cormorants to catch fish. They tied a string or a ring around the necks to keep the birds from swallowing their catch of fish.

Ted Andrews in his book Animal-Wise says that when cormorant appears there will be a teaching or new opportunity that enable us to accomplish what doesn't seem possible. It is a reminder to me to do what I have been hesitating about. I am grateful for the reminder!

Feed the Birds

Where I live we have had a hard winter. Yes, I know much of the United States had a hard winter. Where I grew up in the Midwest, we expected hard winters. Now I live in the Pacific Northwest, where we seldom have snow, and almost never have snow feet deep and lasting for more than a day or two. In the small town where I live the main street is the only one plowed. I haven't asked, but I suspect it is actually the state that plows that street - it is the end of a state highway and also leads right to a border crossing between the States and Canada.

After the snow, there were floods. My apartment was an island in the midst of water varying from 2 inches to 2 - 3 feet. Thankfully, nothing in our building was harmed.

However, I was thinking about the birds. I had put out a bird feeder before all the weather came on. But I decided I would add some suet. At the beginning, the birds were Juncos and Swallows eating seed. Then I saw Finches. Next there were two Flickers, pecking away at the suet. Soon after that, the Starlings found the feeders and descended in droves. And then today, I saw a Steller's Jay.

I love watching them, and so does my cat friend Bowser. He sits in the window a lot, sometimes making Akkk-aakkkk noises - you know, those sounds cat make when stalking prey. At first the birds would leave when he was visible, but by now they just ignore him.

There is one bird I have not been able to identify, despite looking not only through my two books (Sibley's and Audubon), but several others that friends had and a search on the internet. This was fairly early on. When I saw the bird, I thought "That is an odd duck!" Well, it didn't look like a duck, or any other bird I have ever seen. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was out of time and space.

This bird was slender, about two feet tip to tail, with a long dark decurved (downward arching) bill and a longish tail. I first saw it sideways to me and it was looking right at me - directly into my eyes. I saw its head and back, which were dark with greenish iridescence. Then it turned and showed me its whitish speckled breast. And flew away.

The only birds I saw in my research that looked at all like this bird were birds that do not live in the part of the world where I live: like the Little Black Cormorant, which wouldn't be perching in a tree anyway! None really looked quite like this bird. I am stumped. If you have an idea, let me know. I still think it was an odd duck - perhaps sending me a message that I have not yet decoded.

Please remember your feathered and furred friends. If we have had a hard winter, remember they had less shelter and more challenge in finding food.

Grief and Blessings

Yesterday I learned that a friend died. She actually died more than a year ago, but I didn't know. That was a big awakening for me - that in my daily busy-ness, I need to remember to connect with the people with whom I share a heart connection. I am glad, at least, that we had a very sweet time together not so very long before she died.

There has been a lot of mourning in my life, particularly in the last couple of years. An Uncle died suddenly of a cardiac arrest. His wife, my Mom's sister, is still in mourning. She doesn't want to be alone. I know why. It's because she feels her grief more when she is alone. I understand it helps to have support. I also know that mourning, in the end, is a lonely process.

My cat friend Misty died 16 months ago. I cried a lot alone in the evenings for most of a year. Every time I cried, Misty was present and comforting me. Even when I laughed, she showed up, thinking that I was crying (I guess the laughter sounded a lot like crying).

I am writing a book about animals, their souls, and their dying. It brings back all the wonderful animals who have shared my life and home, and I have grieved again for each of them as I write.

Not so long ago, Misty came and told me she wants to come back to me in a new body. Then another cat friend, Samantha, who died when Misty was about 5, said she also wants to come back. And then Coco, one of the dogs who lived with Misty, Sam and I, said "Me too!". I had to tell them to wait a bit, so I can make a place for all of us (right now I live in a very small apartment). There is life after death!

I also have mourned my own limitations, which have been quite present in the past year and a half, with two foot surgeries and a great deal of pain. Thankfully, I have found ways to minimize pain and inflammation. I am stubborn, and I refuse to live on anti-inflammatory drugs or even worse, methotrexate or Enbril or Humera. Through diet, and natural supplements, I can move through my days and through my life. Hurray!

Through letting go of people and things, I have learned to open my heart even more to receive the blessings. And that is a good thing.