Jake And Gus

For a number of years I have had a spiritual healing and animal-communication practice which has given me many surprises, as well as great soul satisfaction. Here are stories of two of the many wonderful beings with whom I've had the privilege of communing.

Once when I was doing a communication clinic in a stable, most of the horses who spoke through me were giving advice to their riders about balance and technique, and practicing riding in meditation. A couple of the horses also had emotional difficulties resulting from Mother-loss, having been forcibly weaned, and separated from their dams too young. For them I did a healing procedure known as soul retrieval.

A brown-and-white pinto named Jake said something different from all the others. "I have a dream," were the words Jake sent to my mind. When I spoke these words aloud, the listening humans looked intrigued.Then Jake said, "I'd like for us all to go on a campout together." I spoke it aloud for him, but, since no other horse I'd ever spoken with had said anything like that, I wondered if I'd heardwrong. Jake was apparently satisfied,so I had to believe I had done his thoughts justice. A week later I received a phone call from Jake's human. She told me that the horse-owners had all been so inspired by Jake's dream that they'd found a place to camp out, and planned to trailer all the horses in the barn over there. Did I want to come, she wondered?

I did go out for the afternoon and early evening. They had found a beautiful place for the event: a lovely hilly pasture with many gorgeous old trees and a clear stream running through it; there was a resident herd of cows, and the horses were out of their trailers and all running free. I got to ride Jake bareback with a group of others doing likewise. It was easy to stay on, even bareback, because Jake was sweaty from galloping and dirty from rolling to scratch his back. The ride was magical.The whole event was - well, it was a horse's dream. And it was all because of Jake's vision. When I left the group in the evening, though, I was a little worried. The horses were free all night long, and of course, so were those cows. I wondered if I'd see headlines the next day: "Campers trampled in their tents by galloping herds." The next day, however, I got a phone call from Jake's human telling me how much fun they'd had, and that everyone had gotten home safely, and thanking me again for speaking Jake's dream aloud.

Not all animals are brilliant or visionaries or masters of other sorts. Just as with humankind, there are plenty of animals who are busy being just plain folks. This next story, about a yellow labrador named Gus, is a good illustration:

I once was being interviewed on a tiny pirate radio station broadcasting from someone's garage at midnight in San Marcos, Texas. The show hosts had asked me to communicate telepathically with the San Marcos River. They wanted to know the River's way of perceiving the issues in the local water controversy: how did the River feel about the University's use of water, how was it affecting the springs and the acquifer. When the show host found out I could communicate with dogs, however, he hopped into his pickup and went home to get his yellow lab, Gus.

Animals always know when there's a human who can communicate with them. If they have something to say, they come right up to me. If they want a healing, they make that known. So I wasn't surprised that, when Gus came into the studio he walked over to me and looked me in the eye and spoketelepathically, saying, "I can't do this."

"Do what?" I asked him.

"Talk into a microphone like a human being," said Gus.

When I told the owner what Gus had said, he explained, "Oh - that's because we tried to make him bark into the microphone before."

So I told Gus - out loud , but also using my picture mind - "Gus, you can see and hear that I understand what you tell me. So think about it for a while, and if you decide you have something you'd like to say on the air, then just give me your message and I'll speak it into the microphone for you."

Gus wagged and nodded to me, then went out and did his thing for a while. Finally he returned, and came straight over to me. He said, "I've got it. There's something I want to say." So I signaled the show host and we prepared the listening audience for Gus's revelation, whatever it was to be.

Gus said, "I've got a girlfriend."

"That's it?" I asked - "That's what you want to say? "

Gus looked straight into my eyes: affirmative. That was it. I loved it! I said it over the air for my friend Gus, who nodded at me and wagged, and went off to do more of his thing. Gus's human got a big kick out of that. He said Gus's girlfriend must be the dog down the street, whose owners were apparently giving Gus a generous second breakfast every day. I had to laugh, thinking of all of Guses in this world, dog and human.