Introduction: The Door is Wide and Open

This is a book of possibilities.

Maybe you’d like to learn to telepathically communicate with animals, or maybe you want to relate to your cat or parrot or horse in a deeper way. Maybe you’re looking to find an animal guide who can show you a few things, or maybe you dream of a small golden toad and want to learn more. Maybe your beloved dog is dying and you want to know how to connect with her in her final days. Or, maybe you’re interested in discovering what it’s like to see the world from an entirely different perspective – experiencing life through the eyes of a whale or dolphin, eagle, giraffe or jaguar.  

If any – or all – of these things are true, then this is the book for you. For in the following pages we will explore many new ideas and exciting ways of awakening to all the world’s animal voices. We will share in the wisdom of two-legged, four-legged, winged and gilled alike – from spirit animals and guardians to mythic animals and human teachers, from dogs and cats and llamas and lions to ravens and sharks and flies and frogs.  

One of the foundations of this book is that there are limitless ways of being in the world. As such, we will look at a wide variety of techniques and tools – a rich tapestry of ways to see and feel and hear and touch and sense and be. There will be games to shake loose your thoughts, meditations to open up your inner world, and hopefully some laughter and a good deal of fun along the way. 

Behold, a sacred voice is calling you. 

All over the sky a sacred voice is calling you.         

                      ~Black Elk     

We begin the journey by recalling a time when humans and animals shared a common awareness and connection within the great web of life. Our ancestors were able to tap into this universal language, communicating easily with animals and all aspects of nature. We, too, carry this ability within ourselves. So, if your most burning question is Can I really talk with animals? the answer is Yes! And not only that, for one of the great things about learning how to listen to animals is that you can’t help but learn to listen to yourself as well. The process changes us in ways both inspiring and unforeseen. 

We will investigate unusual encounters and magical meetings of the animal kind – those moments when an animal shows up in your life in just the right way, at just the right time. We will discover the ways of animal guides and teachers, look at the awe-inspiring ways that animal spirits, power animals and totems visit our everyday lives as well as our visions and dreams, helping us in so many ways. We will visit the unusually creative world of dreams – of both humans and animals – and examine some of the treasures that come to us in the wee hours of the night. 

We will deepen in relationship as well, looking at ways to heal with animals and how to be more present in our lives, especially during times of transition and death. We will develop skills to see animals and ourselves with new eyes and form partnerships in more meaningful ways. We will play with shifting the shape of our consciousness, viewing the world from wider, deeper perspectives, seeing through animal eyes, beholding the splendor of diversity, and so also seeing ourselves anew. 

Throughout your adventures, some of what you read may not make sense. And that, too, is often a fine and helpful thing. For always in our experiences we are planting seeds. By reading and playing with a variety of ideas and suggestions, we may be surprised to find that some of the things that do not fit now may be just what we need at a later time. 

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.  Never lose a holy curiosity.                                                 

                                                         ~Albert Einstein

Did you know that yours is the first generation in a very long time to open the global connection with animals, nature and the world at large in a deeper, more conscious and profound way? We live now in incredible times. As author, animal communicator and teacher Penelope Smith notes, “My prediction is that by 2012 kids will be saying to their parents, ‘You mean there was a time when people didn’t communicate with animals?’” Or, as her beloved orange cat Sherman puts it, “It’s all progressing very rapidly. It’s all getting much more relaxed. Humans are less uptight than they used to be.”   

We all have brilliant gifts we bring to the planet, both as members of our own species and as spiritual individuals. As we share our talents and visions in appreciation, we celebrate the richness of our diversity, the many distinctive and exceptional ways we all have of seeing, sensing, understanding and contributing to the world.  

Maybe you, too, sense a deep connection, something longing to be birthed – but what is it and how does it come forth? How can you contact it and how can you become a vehicle of expressing your own special truth to the world?  

I believe the call of our time is to awaken the individual gifts we came here to share and to give them voice in our world. These are the things we desire in the deepest parts of ourselves – that which ignites our enthusiasm, inspires our thoughts, encourages our dreams and leads us to embrace the wonders of this little planet. Attuning ourselves to the deeper awareness that flows through all things, we begin to see that all is possible. We begin to accept the advice and wisdom and support that is so freely offered us from animals and the natural world. And so we begin to live with a sense of joy. 

Most hopefully, this is a book about change in our world. It’s about awakening not only to the voices of animals, plants, the earth and other humans, but to our own brilliant voice within. It is to know that as we shine our clarity out to the world, we help to illuminate radiance in everyone. 

This book is dedicated to my daughter, as it is to you. It’s the type of book I wish I had read when I was much younger. I hope it offers you the encouragement that everything you need is right here, right now, before your eyes, within you, just waiting to be called forth.  

My wish to you is that you consider the beauty, love and wonder life has to offer us, that you choose your path based on what feels right and good and true to your soul, and that you trust yourself enough to shine what is most unique and magnificent about you to the world.  

This is a book of possibilities. Let us begin…

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. 

Don’t go back to sleep! 

You must ask for what you really want. 

Don’t go back to sleep! 

People are going back and forth 

Across the doorsill where the two worlds touch; 

the door is round and open. 

Don’t go back to sleep!

                                                ~Rumi

 

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