Choosing Ease
November 2021
Victra is an almost four-year-old husky pointer cross, born to my lead sled dog, Dory, in 2018. She was a spitfire of a puppy with sleek brown and white markings on lusciously soft black fur. She is curious, bold and always the first of her 4 siblings to do anything, including running in front of a 6-dog team with her mom at the tender age of 6 months. I had high hopes for her as a sled dog. She was a lithe 50lbs, fast and strong and so when she stopped eating well at 18 months old, I was heartbroken and made it my mission to figure out what was wrong. She would eat her kibble one day and then refuse it the next and for days after. I started to mix in fresh beef, chicken, fish, eggs and anything else I could tempt her with. She would always dive into the new food but then, always huddle in a corner shivering for hours afterwards. It was the shivering that clued me in that everything I was offering her was causing her pain. I wasn’t going to be able to fix this on my own and so, off to the vet we went for what turned out to be two thousand dollars’ worth of tests. I remember waiting in the fancy specialty veterinarian’s lobby while then performed an ultrasound and biopsies of her GI tract
“Well, the good news is that we found something,” said Dr. Diroff, a godsend of a veterinarian.
“Both her stomach and upper intestine are very inflamed which verifies our Irritable Bowel Disease suspicions.” He smiled at me. “It would be much harder when we didn’t find anything because then we wouldn’t know how to treat her,” he explained with confidence.
“I’m glad,” I said and did feel glad and mildly reassured. The treatment was to suppress her immune system with steroids and find a new protein that she had never eaten before.
This was the beginning of a journey with Victra that I would not have chosen but I am grateful for the beautiful connection and lessons she has offered me through it all. Today she is just four years old but she looks like she is 14. Feeding her is an art form and she is the painter. Will it be rabbit or duck today? Warm or frozen? And, if she chooses one of the 4 prescription kibbles for a meal it’s a true win. I’ve also learned Reiki because of her and although it helps, in her case, it is not going to cure. I’ve realized lately though, that every day with her is a win. We went for a 1 mile walk in the woods this morning because there was a break in our brutal New Hampshire winter cold. She, all bundled up in a hot pink sled dog coat, bound through the snow like she had never seen it before.
“Hey, what are you eating?” I yelled. Vic pulled her head out of a snow hole and pellets of frozen deer poop dropped from her mouth. She seemed to grin at me and sprinted off down the trail. I laughed because hey, how bad could deer poop be anyway and I couldn’t argue with her joy.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this whole idea of disease. It is dis – ease. No ease. But what if who she is, is normal and there is ease around it? Is she then healthy because I consider her to be so? This thought first came to me when I finally plucked up the courage to connect with her telepathically and ask her about it. I talk all the time with client’s animals but it’s hard to talk to my own sometimes. My emotions can cloud my ability to hear the truth but I should have known that Spirit would lead the message and that she was with me for a higher reason.
I opened the door in my mind to Victra and saw her in two forms. Her “sick” form and her oversoul which was huge and healthy. I felt immediately connected but it was her oversoul, her higher self that spoke.
“My purpose is to help you to understand the limitations of the body and the limitlessness of the Universe,” she told me gently. “I am as you imagine me. When you look at me, see the healthy Victra all of the time,” she had advised and I knew what I needed to do.
And so, as I watched her happily romp in the snow with no thought for being weak and no worry for getting hurt, I was proud that I have treated her as whole. She doesn’t know that she is sick and she is living a happy life with no angst or sadness. That is true health. That is true healing. As a wise cat named Traz told me once in a session, physical weakness doesn’t make the soul weak. The soul is still healthy and powerful.
I am so grateful to Victra for embodying this truth. We will celebrate every mouthful and every day we have together. And when her time comes to shed her limited body and pass to limitless spirit, I will celebrate that freedom for her too.
March 2022
Gone
It happened so fast. Her body just failed and ease turned into traumatic disease in the blink of an eye. I was not home but jumped in my truck and drove for eight hours straight to the vet where Kip waited for me and told me it was time. She looked at us with huge eyes and I knew she knew.
I know she is now in that limitless state of spirit that I wrote about in November because I have seen other animals there in my sessions. I know what it looks like, they are met by angels and gently escorted to the light. The release is beautiful, but celebrating is so hard when my heart is broken. I know she is joy and light - but the house is too quiet and grief hangs heavy in the air. This morning, as I lay in bed missing her playful running from room to room, a blue jay stood on my windowsill, looked right at me and cawed. They never do that and I knew she was here which finally made me smile.
I could barely bring myself to connect with her today but when I did, I saw beautiful healthy Victra shining brightly in front of me. There is no disease left, only deep ease. No words were spoken but I felt love so deep in my heart that my chest hurt.
I will miss her for a very long time, maybe forever, but I am deeply grateful for her company and her lesson that we don’t have to, even can’t, fix everything. Sometimes it’s more healing to accept a difficult life - with ease.
If you are wondering why, you and your animal are going through something hard, we can work together to gather their thoughts and ask Spirit to guide you to a higher understanding too.
I wish you all a life of ease with your beloved pets.
In Love and Light,
Christine
