Helping the Animals — Who is Healing Who?

At the close of 2019, I was reminded of what a sweet blessing it is to be called to serve the animals.

December 22 was the second anniversary of my little dog, Ziggy, coming to live with me. Two years ago, I was volunteering at the shelter he was brought into, and he asked to come home with me. I had lost my heart dog, Elika, two years earlier and was not looking for a dog, did not want a dog, but he insisted, following me around in my head for two weeks, and so I brought him home.

He was a terrified creature, rescued from an animal hoarder. He had attacks of PTSD fairly regularly, uncontrollable shaking for no reason that I could identify, which meant I couldn’t prevent them. It was a long, hard road. But today, while he still suffers from anxiety, he is a sweet, happy, playful little lunatic who has enriched my life — my experience, my knowledge — in so many ways, most especially deepening my understanding of the long-reaching effects of trauma, of PTSD, which I came to understand that I suffer from. Starting to understand his responses shed light on some of my own. This would never have happened if he hadn’t insisted on partnering with me.

In the two weeks before Christmas, two horses asked for me by name, a deeply humbling experience. One horse was on her way to surgery when she asked her human to contact me.

Years ago, my two horses lived with her on 20 acres in an active, healthy herd. It was a good life for them. This mare was very special, dear to me. I shared a Reiki session with her, talked with her. She wasn’t expected to survive the surgery but did.

I checked in with her from a distance a number of times over the next 24 hours, sharing my Reiki hands and speaking with her. She was calm, unconcerned about her circumstances. She said that everything was going to be alright.

When I told her human that, a woman who can also hear the animals, we both sighed because there is no way of knowing what an animal means when she says not to worry, when she says that all is well. Animals don’t look at dying the same way we do. They are not afraid. They understand that they are passing from one form of existence to another. Two days later, when she lost the ability to stand, she had to be let go. She went in peace.

Her loss, like all loss, released memories and emotions. Tenderness. Love. I felt blessed to have been with her in her final days, deeply honored to have been called on to help.

Several days later, I was contacted by a woman I used to be friendly with but who quietly disappeared from my life for about five years. She said that one of her horses had asked for me by name. The woman is very close to her horses, very attuned to them, but she said this was the first time she’d ever heard words from any of them.

I went out to the barn the Saturday before Christmas, the Winter Solstice, and did neuromuscular retraining sessions with all three of her horses. The first horse, who is 29 and was having movement issues, appeared much more comfortable as she walked off after the session. I was humbled and grateful that she had asked me to help her and felt a sweet sense of peace as I began to work with the second horse, a beautiful, young gelding who had not experienced this kind of work before but who was patient and kind. Near the end of our session, my neck cracked fairly loudly, and the woman half-jokingly asked if the horse was working on me while I was working on him. At the end of our session he, like the first horse, walked off comfortably.

The third horse I worked with, the alpha mare, mother to the gelding, just wasn’t having it. She didn’t like being away from her herd and was on high alert, ears pricked, head high. She wouldn’t allow me to touch a number of areas of her body that I was drawn to touch, but she allowed me to work with her ribcage, the muscles around and beneath it, and the muscles along her spine. I could feel her relaxing, her back softening.

When I moved to touch her shoulder, up went her head. I stopped. “Will you let me touch you?” I quietly asked. “I know that you’re uncomfortable, and I can help you.”

“You think you know so much,” she snapped.

Just to make sure I wasn’t getting too full of myself . . .

I told her that, well, I didn’t know about running a herd like she did but, yes, I did know how to help her get more comfortable in her body.

She may have given me a bit of a break after that. In any event, I did my best to honor her boundaries, at one point moving away from her body and working with her from a distance (as I would do if I were doing the session from my home). She didn’t snap at me again and seemed to walk off comfortably at the end of the session.

I felt at peace leaving that barn, grateful to have been touched by the inner beauty of these three horses, grateful to have been touched by the inner beauty of their human.

That would have been more than enough, but there’s more.

I had surgery on my knee about five months ago — two tears in the meniscus, a hairline fracture of the tibia, a hunk of dislodged cartilage. All this from one bad step. The knee is pretty much healed but still aches from time to time. I do my best to ignore it.

But the week before my visit to the barn, I’d been standing too close to the dryer door when I swung it closed, and it clipped the top of that knee. It hurt but didn’t seem to be a big deal.

But the pain got worse day by day. Reiki helped. Stretches helped. Ibuprofen (which I rarely take) helped. But then the pain would bounce back, stronger.

Because of the pain, I’d been walking with a limp for a week, which had thrown my body out of balance. I was noticeably tilted to the right.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand at the barn for as long as I needed to, but was strongly drawn to keep the appointment. The moment I arrived at the barn, I knew I’d made the right decision.

I felt no pain as I was working. None at all. And the quality of my work was where I wanted it to be.

That night, I slept better than I’d slept in months. In the morning, my knee barely hurt, and I was no longer walking tilted to the right; my neck (remember the crack?), my shoulders, and my hips moved freely.

For me, the lesson of this beautiful December, of the Winter Solstice, a time of darkness and contemplation and renewal, was the reminder that giving and receiving are two parts of the same blessing.

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Reprint of January 1, 2020, weekly newsletter, “Bits and Pieces”

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