The Animal Teachers in My Life

Me with Ting-a-ling and Bambi

 In the very early hours of the morning my past animal companions came to me. I just started to think of all of them. It felt as though a few of their names had begun to slip into oblivion. I couldn’t let that happen, so I began to name and remember each one.

Nature speaks to us through the animals. They are Nature and so are we. It’s been nearly 20 years since I had an animal companion. For a brief moment about four years ago a black cat entered my life and later a neighbor’s cat befriended me. But it’s been a long time since I lived with an animal. I miss that relationship. I think they came to me last night to remind me they are still with me and that I can still learn from them.

Here are the lessons from my childhood animal companions all the way up to the last one I had 20 years ago.

Bambi, a German Shepard mix, was pure love. She and the cat Ting-a-ling used to cuddle together. Together they taught me differences don’t matter. She was the first one to teach me about death and loss.

Ting-a-ling, a long haired beauty had an independent spirit typical of cats. She wouldn’t put up with much from us kids. She taught me to stand up for myself.

Billy Jack was a terrier mix who was a bit high strung. He was always ready for fun, though. He would ride on the front of the boat, the wind in his face and his tongue hanging out. He taught me to enjoy the moment.

Nipper, a border collie, came to us when she was five. She was very sweet and embraced us right away. She taught me change was okay.

Cleo, a gray and white cat, came to me as a tiny kitten via some neighborhood boys. I took her in when I was 15. She was mine from the beginning. The first night she came all the way downstairs to my room and climbed up to sleep on the pillow next to me. She was stocky and strong. She taught me resilience.

Max was a big white rabbit. We took him in after he ate through a friend of a friend’s stereo wires. He was jittery and funny. He often spooked Cleo. On purpose I think. He taught me to accept him just the way he was.

Willie was an orange tabby with lots of personality. He would meow at me and jump into my arms and snuggle in my hair. He only lived to be one, but in that short time he taught me to ask for love.

Sammie was a shy gray tabby. She was being picked on by a bigger kitten at the pet store. I couldn’t let her stay there. She grew into an independent cat who loved to play games. I had to leave her behind when I moved to the U.S. She died a couple of years later and came to me in a dream. She taught me about forgiveness.

And their teachings go deeper. When we bond with an animal, their greatest teaching of all is unconditional love. I’m grateful for all of these beautiful beings who came into my life. I say their names so they may continue to live within my heart and teach me.

Please share your stories in the comments. There is so much wisdom to be gained from our animal friends.

Circling the Isle of Stones

Nature taught me how to pray in feeling and movement. I prayed the rosary with my family every lent, but my walks around our island on Hubley Lake every summer taught me how to embody prayer. The rosary became a rote practice. My walks upon the stones encircling the island became a living prayer.

As I walked the stones, I had to be aware of the best place to step. My perspective changed as I went round. The land behind the island was different than the beaches across from it. Always the water lapped at the stones and gurgled as it found its way between them. Some days the lake was blue and sometimes it was gray. A reflection of sky and mood it surrounded me. And I took it all in as I stepped from stone to stone.

Water and stone. Stone and water. Prayer and Nature take us within but they also bring us out of our shell and into the world invoking gratitude and wonder. With each step came peace. With each step wonder grew at the expanse of water, the landscape of wind-worn trees, the chatter of birds and the ever changing sky. My circling brought the environment to me in ways speeding through it in a boat could not. Only know do I realize how much I became a part of the environment as it became a part of me.

The prayer of that place rests inside me still. Even though I’m thousands of miles from the island I can reach for that rosary of moments encircling a land of memories. For me Nature is not just a place in time but the prayer of Spirit cast in my heart forever.


Words to the poem in the picture:

The Camp (An island of memories anchored by stones my soul knows by heart.)

My foot lands on the next stone

and the next.

In this way I walk around the Camp,

an island rimmed with stone

on Hubley Lake’s rocky waters.

Round and round I go

Blue grey water eases in

and out of crevices.

I hear the glop, glop

as it hits rock.

Life breathes in and out

as I walk counter clock-wise

around this home

away from home.

Cabin

wood burning stove

well

outhouse

dock

boat house

all ancient

to an eight-year old’s

sense of time…

and here time has slipped

back to a past

where tiny porcelain dolls

with painted faces and

movable limbs play

in a tiny church.

Here the past is layered

in the scent of wood smoke

and the memories of others.

Round and round I go

I look across rippled waters

see another island. Wonder

who walks its paths.

A whole other world

only a boat ride away.

I continue my rounds.

Why Nature is My Guru

Photo by Seaq68 on pixabay

Nature can teach us many things about life and ourselves. It is a teacher if we’re willing to listen, but this post isn’t about how Nature can be our teacher. It’s my story of how Nature became my guru.

In order for a guru/student relationship to work, there must be love. From an early age I felt as though I was safe in Nature. I trusted Its presence. I loved being surrounded by It and felt loved by It.

My first sense of the spiritual was in Nature and not in a church though visiting Sainte Anne de Beaupré in Quebec City as a child brought me to a higher order of spiritual feeling. It was those early ventures into the woods that first captured my spiritual imagination. It wasn’t the awe I felt in the cathedral but a quiet, peaceful feeling. Nature embraced me and I embraced It.

I was I very sensitive child. The noise of the playground was a bit much sometimes. The woods behind the school yard provided solace and even healing. I felt alone in a crowd but the crowded forest of trees and rocks and birds felt like one being holding me. There was no noise, only soft whispers of wind and birdsong. The solid boulder, rough with lichen upon which I sat grounded me. These woods were a peaceful sanctuary and the Being all around me was a greater teacher than those in the school.

For me Nature is so full of the Presence of Being, but as I got older, I paid less and less attention to Its love and teachings. In my late 20s I discovered Paganism, and made an attempt to listen and bring Nature into my life again. It was touch and go and I never really reached that deep relationship I once had as a child.

About 10 years ago, in my late 30s I began to bring Nature back into my life in a more visceral way. My husband and I acquired a mountain cabin in Green Valley Lake. I spent time walking in the woods behind the cabins across from us. For the first time since I was a child I began to relax into Nature’s Presence. I had grown somewhat fearful of being out in the woods because it had been years since I spent any time in a forest or with Nature at all except a little time in a park now and then.

I walked and got to know this particular land. I opened to it and it opened to me. But then the fire came and burned much of it. It was too painful to spend time there anymore. Nature receded to the background of my awareness again.

Lately I am a watcher in the window rather than a walker in the woods. Seeing the trees sway in the wind outside my office window does feed my soul to some degree, but I’ve lost touch with Nature’s heart. This blog is an attempt to bring my awareness back to Nature and regain the connection I felt as a child.

Nature is our greatest teacher. We need only to pay attention to Its rhythms as they express in the cycles of sun, moon, trees, plants, animals and our bodies.

We are Nature just as we are Spirit. I am earth, water, fire and the air that passes through me. I am clay, my blood a river, my heart the fire and I am inspired by the air I breathe.

Nature is my guru. It teaches me through all I do and experience. And when I am tired, it holds me and lets me know I am not alone. It will always hold me. Even as I transform, I will eventually leave behind what is Nature’s, my body. Even as I become identified with my soul, I will also become the wind in the trees and the soil that brings forth new life. I and Nature will always be together in the One Spirit that is all.

The Teachings of Place and Climate

Manzanita on the Sandberg Loop Trail, northwestern L.A. County (David Lockeretz)

Fall here in Southern California often brings hot winds and soaring temperatures. And these bring fires. In the land of what must seem like eternal summer to some, summer holds fast to its last days as if to rage against the dying of the light.

In another life, another world, fall was about a touch of coolness in the air, blustery winds and a mix of warm days and early frosts. Fall sneaks in before the Equinox in Nova Scotia. The tips of leaves begin turning color in August and the air is sometimes just a little nippy before Labor Day. Fall on that tiny peninsula is a brilliant precursor to winter’s eagerness to coat all in white and bring on nature’s dark night.

Both environments have taught me much. As I’ve embodied this environment, as it has come into my soul over the last 16 years, I’ve learned about persistence and how important it is to make the most of the time you have. And in Nova Scotia I learned to embrace the inevitable. I’ve learned to sense the subtle signs of change, to enjoy the journey and to let go into those dark nights with the eagerness of winter, knowing that spring is on the other side.