(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

The first dog I worked with was a young puppy. After we finished, he settled down for a nap.









I passed by this big guy each time I walked back and forth. He watched me with such focus and I enjoyed sitting quietly with him, asking for his health, happiness and safety.

His coloring was so different than anything I have ever seen. The steel gray of his coat shone in the light and his bark was big and deep - and impressive!

This little girl was our class dog. I don't know her name, but "Sally" kept coming to me as I interacted with her throughout the day so, to me, she is Sally.








Finally, this older boy kept following me with his eyes. I sat with him for a while, but he was uncomfortable with anyone being too close.

I pray each of these dogs finds a wonderful forever home very soon. Please join me in sending good wishes their way.

Of hope and despair

Over the past decade, I have studied Reiki - formally and on my own. I received my Reiki I attunement in 2003 in Tulsa, then again from a long-time friend several years ago. Just this past summer, I received my Reiki II attunement in Tulsa. It was a wonderful experience and came at a perfect time - my first weekend since becoming an empty-nester. It set the stage perfectly for this next stage of my life.

I took another step this weekend when I participated in an Animal Reiki workshop.

In all honesty, the class was nothing like I expected. I alternately felt sad, frustrated, irritated and restless. I firmly believe there are many paths and I disagree with those who say one path or the other is wrong while another is true or right. At the same time, I am adamant in my belief in training to work with animals. I don't just mean watch a television celebrity and imitate what they do or read a book and consider yourself a trainer/behaviorist. The animals always, always pay for that ignorance in the end and humans often pay a price as well. As a friend mentioned to me just yesterday, ego can be a huge boulder when working with animals. We cannot move another person's boulder; we can only chip away at our own.

So I tried to just keep breathing. I tried to focus on my own mission, which was to spend some time with dogs and cats at a shelter and - hopefully - bring them some feelings of peace and comfort. To an extent, I succeeded. It was a beautiful weekend, the last warm days of autumn. The sun was shining. Hawks hunted in the woods to the east of the shelter, their calls loud as they flew high above us. The animals welcomed us and we spend a good amount of time sitting with them, offering them what we could. My Wednesday post is devoted to photos of the dogs I met. For today, please offer prayers and gentle white light to shelter animals everywhere. They need us each and every day.