Years ago a friend took me to a talk offered by her spiritual teacher. I remember this because the topic of the evening was unconditional love. The teacher began by talking about the nature of pets. Years later I can still remember his definition of a pet: “A little tuft of consciousness that circles around a person like a moon around a planet, and completes their energy field making them more whole.”
As I read the deeply honest and very beautiful things that so many of you have posted on my website or Facebook page, or sent me in emails or texts, I am reminded of this. Perhaps pets are a little tuft of Divine consciousness, and by offering us a taste of the great Love, which is the foundation of this imperfect and impermanent world, they heal us in ways that are profound. And in some powerful and mysterious way even the youngest and smallest of them can kindle an echo of this Divine love in us as well.
I was born and raised in New York City and I did not really know an animal personally until I was 27 years old. As the child of a brilliant and intellectual family of doctors and nurses I grew up with the distinct impression that dogs and cats and rabbits and hamsters were a lower form of life. But perhaps this is not the case. How can creatures capable of such effortless unconditional love be of lesser consciousness than we are? How can lesser creatures embody the sort of unconditional love that can perhaps only be learned over countless lifetimes?
I have been fascinated by the idea if reincarnation since I was quite young, and at one point in my life read a great deal about this. I still wonder. What if each of us is a thread of consciousness which passes through many lifetimes like beads on a string, each lifetime offering its lessons and opportunities for growth, each one purifying the thread passing through it so that finally we become the pure thread of consciousness that is our essential being and we do not need to return. Perhaps some of those who are about to get off the wheel of repeated incarnations and go on to higher things may take one last reincarnation in order to accomplish a last tiny piece of karmic business, something left unlearned or undone that can be completed in 10 or 15 more years of living.
Perhaps our pets are such high beings, dharma teachers who have almost fulfilled their Karmic mission over lifetimes and whose hearts through generations of learning and practice have been made able to love unconditionally. Perhaps this is what makes our dogs or cats capable of loving us as they do and able to evoke in us a love more unconditional than that which we offer one another. I sometimes wonder when I meet a dog out on a walk, if I am in the presence of a spiritual teacher who is serving the person on the other end of the leash.
In the Presidio at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge on the San Francisco side there is a little cemetery where for 75 years, service men and women and their families have buried their pets. I first walked through this cemetery 30 years ago, shortly after my mother died. I could not help comparing it to my recent experience of the very old cemetery in New York City which is her final resting place. My mother’s funeral was formal and somehow remote, managed competently by others. I was there mostly as a witness. But every creature buried in the Presidio pet cemetery had been tucked into the earth by loving hands. My mother’s Marker and the Markers of her neighbors are made of stone beautifully and expertly carved but somehow cold and even a little frightening. The Markers in the pet cemetery are varied: some are small wooden boards painted in an uneven hand, others are tiny hand-carved wooden headstones. The love expressed on them all is still palpable: deep, enduring, personal and unconditional. I remember thinking that I wanted to be buried here.
Unconditional love is a high spiritual state. It does not mean infinite forgiveness; it means the perception that there is nothing to forgive. It is love beyond approval (a form of judgment) and love beyond criticism (another form of judgment.) It is the capacity to love so profoundly that it is without expectation but only deep appreciation of a uniqueness in each one of us that makes all comparisons meaningless. It is the recognition of the one soul that is our essential self.
If all the people now alive and the people who have ever lived were gathered together in the dark, your dog or your cat would be able to find you. “Aha!” you say, “this is because of their keen sense of smell.” But what if it was something far more profound than that, the capacity to see the unique essence that is who you truly are? What if our pets know us, not by a sense of smell, but a capacity of their enlightened hearts?
The national course for medical students that I first developed at UCSF is also taught in schools of veterinary medicine. A few years back I asked a faculty at one of these schools why she had chosen Veterinary Medicine as a career. “Because of what my patients teach me” she replied. She later sent me this poem by Sharon Kunin:
Maybe
a little
like meeting God
Through feather, fur, or fluttery thing.
To be judged not by words,
But by the timbre of my voice.
Not by ability
But by the gentleness of my touch.
And not for knowledge,
But by the Light that shines from my eyes.
To be loved
For the nature of my heart.
As I have grown older I find that being loved by an animal feels more and more like grace, a gift of immense value that is offered to me unearned, a clear mirror of who I might actually someday become as my true self. Even more I am grateful for the capacity to love that my cats have uncovered in me, a larger and wiser and somehow better love which I am grateful to find is becoming a part of who I am.
For those of you who would like to see pictures of the pet cemetery, you can find them here at this link.
I do so love that definition of a pet in the first paragraph, and would love to share it with others …. and would like to give credit to the spiritual teacher whom you quoted …. Rachel, could you share that person’s name with us?
Thanks ….
Helen
This is so beautiful and profound Rachel. Thank you! So our pets are more than angels. More mystery and more gratitude. A totally different take on who adopts who. And knowing just how much we are blessed by our fur babies.
Pets are wonderful….their love amazing.
Our cat likes to softly rub up against me, purring & it feels like being kissed by grace. In watching him, I feel like he models both being content with who he is as well as how to just ‘be’. I so appreciate all your insights, wisdom & eloquence, Rachel. You are a gift to all sentient beings everywhere!
Dear Rachel,
thank you for sharing your wisdom and how much it validates my heart since i was a child that only a Pet can love me unconditionally.
They are the reincarnation of pure LOVE.
Our pitoodle came to us just before my son’s deep drug habit surfaced… just before my mother went on hospice and died…just before my father went on hospice and lingered and lingered and died. All within a couple of years. Stella’s loving, quirky, goofy, spastic humorous soul filled our otherwise difficult lives with so much joy-for-the-taking. She continues to be the great leveler in our lives….balance embodied!
I have long admired and loved you from the first moment I read your books. I, in fact, still read a chapter every night because I am going through a rough time and I find your words so comforting. Now, to learn that you love animals just makes me love you more. As an avid animal lover (from the day I was born) I am so pleased with your articles on the subject. Thank you, Naomi, for making my life better.
Thank you for the beautiful perspective 🙂
Dear Rachel
I was deeply intrigued by your reflection that our pets are, perhaps, more enlightened beings than we are and thus are our spiritual teachers.
With my cat, Tailgate, sitting next to me (we’re sharing the heater), I often think that I am the “little tuft of consciousness” and that Tailgate is actually more closely attuned to the greater whole of which we both form a part. When I enter the field of his energy, I find a place of calm, centred balance, which is much more profound than the world I typically inhabit. What he brings to our life and our home is a great gift.
Thank you for your thought-provoking words. I am so glad you’ve shared them.
It’s always nice to read about people appreciating the connection with companion animals. I don’t think, tho’, that any nonhuman animal (we humans are animals, too, so I like to refer to other animals as nonhuman animals, but for simplicity, I will say animals) would choose to be reincarnated as an animal. Humans dictate who lives, who dies, who is used in research, who will be taken from their homes and family and have their wings clipped and be caged to be used as “pets” – let alone chimpanzees and other wildlife we define as “pets.” “The HSUS estimates that animal shelters care for 6 – 8 million dogs and cats every year in the United States, of whom approximately 3-4 million are euthanized.” And yet, people still breed and buy from breeders.
I do agree with you that we have a lot to learn from our relationship with other animals. We have the opportunity to learn how we are all interconnected. We have the opportunity to learn that all life matters. We have the opportunity to learn, that like us and like our dogs and cats, we share sentience with other animals. Like our dogs and cats, those we reduce to food, cows, chickens, pigs ducks, geese, have feelings, care about their lives, care about their friends and family, and are aware of what is happening to them and around them. We have the opportunity to learn that if our dogs and cats matter morally to us, then so should all living beings, because the lines we draw are arbitrary. If they matter morally, then we don’t eat them, wear them, or use them for our entertainment.
Rachel thank you so much for these stories. When my french bulldog died after 11 wonderful years I experienced that silence, so profound, so pure. I knew it was grief, but in a pure form that I had never felt before. It was in sharp contrast to the harsh logistics and family discord that had accompanied the death of my husband 4 years earlier. That bubble of pure grief and unconditional love allowed me to go back and grieve for my husband in a necessary way. I was able to finally unpack his ashes and find ways to honor his memory. I am so grateful that in death my frenchie Zack gave me yet another lesson and gift.
Oh Yes Rachel ,Thankyou And I think of Oliver,
His eyes:
Deep, wise , brown
They hold me making a conduit to huge Safety
Reflecting the found Me
Letting go the lost i
His tongue:
Pink, rich being,
Making real the breathing in
And breathing out
All Held in his wide smiling mouth
And by its best friend
His Tail:
Thump , thump it hits the floor
Here, Here, Now Now
We are touching in our breathing
we Are – Me, You
Safe
In one moment
Forever
With gratitude for you Rachel, love Mary
How beautifully written and profound. Yes, I think we as humans who have been blessed with pets are moving away from that sense that they are “lesser” creatures and more in tune with our own capacity for loving fully, whole-heartedly. I wonder about reincarnation also—there have been two times when I have met the gaze of a pet and felt instantly that it was the reincarnation of one of my pets who had died. It is a powerful experience, and a comforting one.
There is a novel called The Art Of Racing in the Rain that is written from a dog’s point of view—-it is worth the read both for entertainment and certainly for being thought provoking.
This has been a wonderful opportunity to connect with others in a deeply satisfying way. Thank you to all for sharing.
Pat
Thanks for articulating what I feel and believe in my heart.
Rachel – Thank you for being a gentle and unobtrusive soul. Your words touch me so much. I am new to your work, but every time it is brought into my life, I love it more and more. Thank you for this beautiful message and perspective today. I am saving it and sharing it with those that need to hear it <3
Dear Rachel, You have written many beautiful and touching stories, but this essay on the beauty and high vibration of animals really touched my soul. I also love how you defined unconditional love, whcih is beyond all judgment and need to forgive. Thank you, thank you for your wisdom and beautiful words and your willingness to share them. I am passing on your words to others for whom they will resonate. Many blessings to you. Jane
A lovely, lovely piece. And I can personally attest to the reality of feline reincarnation because I have at least one cat that has returned to teach me the next set of lessons. I saw a picture of him as a kitten, and something grabbed me. But he was unavailable – until suddenly, he was. I flew to Phoenix to pick him up, and we settled in with one another.
I was pretty sure that I recognized his energy and so when a friend came out to do a reading on my cats, I asked her to ask Enzo if he’d been with me before. He said, “Yes.” I asked her to ask him for a name. He didn’t give her a name, but he told her that he “used to be that other darker color. And that he’d been with me before to get me through a very hard time, and now he’d come back to teach me how to do it easy.”
And so William – the Ruddy Abyssinian boy I adored – became Enzo – a much beloved Blue Abyssinian. And I’m working at learning how to “do it easy.” And it’s kind of a funny feeling to look at that little Redwood box on the shelf and think, “Oh, William – I kept your old clothes.”