 I have a one-legged Dark-Eyed Junco that occasionally visits the deck outside my living room. I love this bird; well, mostly I love all birds, but this one has my heart. He first started visiting in the early Spring two years ago, at that time he was an adult bird so he must be at least 3 years old now. This guy is one of the most resilient creatures I know.  He works harder than the other Juncos because when he hops around he falls over every once in a while and has to right himself (more calories needed); and when he sits and eats at the suet feeder he has to flap his wings more for balance (more calories needed).
This past February the Seattle area had much colder than normal temperatures and while I had seen the Junco in January, by February he was a no-show. I feared that due to his need for more calories he had perished during the colder weather. I know the location of his "home base" and was seized with the wild idea to go ask my neighbor if I could look for his corpse in her backyard. God knows what I thought I would do with it. Luckily the impulse eventually passed. Then a few weeks ago, he was back! Welcome back Dark Eyed Junco, you are always welcome here.
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 As I approach my 2nd Saturn Return, I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with the field of librarianship... a career I chose during my first Saturn Return! It's not the fault of librarianship... much has changed during the last 29 years as to how people find and interact with information, and what motivated me to attend library school is no longer needed. As libraries continue to re-evaluate how they serve their communities, I find myself doing the same thing on a personal level. Do I want to end my career in a cube farm doing a job I really no longer enjoy (or really enjoy small parts of)? Or do I want to make a life, doing something I excel at, while helping animals and their people deepen their understanding by resolving issues such as anxiety, behavior problems, and health concerns? Is that really even a serious question?! As I learned during an intuitive consultation with the fabulous Laura Bruno, your second Solar Return asks you, around the age of 58 or so, to look deeply at how you want to spend the remainder of your "wild and precious life" [Mary Oliver; "A Summer Day"; https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html] You see, I'm very intuitive and have lots of skills and have studied many things from house clearing to soul retrieval to tarot cards. I enjoyed learning all of these skills and they helped me hone my intuitive abilities, but I never felt like a could make them my life's work. Laura helped to point me in the direction of animal communication because when she mentioned that I was "a gifted animal communicator" she tapped into my deeply and secretly held desire to spend my days talking with animals. To strengthen my talents and skills in the field of animal communication and energy healing, I enrolled in Joan Ranquet's Communication with all Life University 18 months ago. While the time I have spent reading animals and learning energy healing has been invaluable, it has not been easy! It's a process and at least for me, was fraught with self-doubt and limiting beliefs that I needed to work through. Why did all of these issues surface now? Because now I am prepared to go out and earn a living doing it. This, this was going to pay my bills and allow me to leave academia behind, but I absolutely had to be clear and unfettered by those pesky limiting gremlins in order to make it happen. Luckily for me, Joan teaches a fabulous technique, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or "tapping"), that helps you move through those limiting beliefs and on to a life of your dreams. EFT also works fabulously on animals and I have seen some amazing outcomes that were the result of tapping and I am so excited to add it to the toolkit I use to help animals. The deep process of getting to know my true self and how I want to connect with my community as my beautiful authentic self has value beyond measure.  Welcome to the erratically (she is a cat afterall) occurring feature called Ask Pumpernickel. Pumpernickel is one of my cat's nom de plume and she has informed me that she will answer questions from her admirers. To start I have some questions for her (me being her greatest admirer): Pumpernickel you have many names under which you operate, Why? Well cats are more tuned in to the energies of the moment and so I choose whatever word suits me in the moment; sometimes I tell you what they are, mostly I do not. Me: I see. What you hope to accomplish with your post? Pumpernickel: Sigh. Accomplishment is such a limiting concept. Mostly I want to have fun and this seems like fun. If others want to join me in the fun great! If not? Great! Until next time. Burrruppp! I love youtube videos of cats mucking about in Christmas trees. These videos are so cute I could literally watch them for hours.
This year, while contemplating a Christmas gift for my kitty, I thought "I'll get her a tree!" I could image the hours of fun she would have in a fir tree propped up in my living room (I had already designed a sophisticated system of bungee cords attached to various hooks embedded in walls...) where Lily/Pumpernickel/Buttercup (it's all the same cat, she just keeps changing her name) would be able to spend hours lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on unsuspecting passersby as they walked past her lair. As I began researching Christmas trees, I decided against getting her a Christmas tree as a gift. Namely because, as I recently found out, Christmas trees are sprayed to within an inch of their lives with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. I don't for a minute begrudge tree growers the means necessary to provide for their families, but I knew I would not willing subject Miss Kitty (easier to type than the above) to such an array of potentially hazardous chemicals. On one level this makes me very sad because she is an indoor cat and I would LOVE to gift her the gift of some "wild time" lurking in the branches of a tree, even if it's in my living room. Ultimately, however, I couldn't in all good consciousness subject my little furball to such hazardous conditions for a couple of days of fun.  I have a question for you... do you truly believe that we as a people can preserve the Orca whales from extinction? Short of a massive overhaul of everything, and I mean everything, we do as a race, do you believe can we save them? I'm starting to believe the answer is no. Everything we do is a mere band-aid on a limb that has been severed. Can we remove the radiation in the water? Restore the coho before the extinction? Prevent the US Navy from conducting sonar tests in their breeding grounds? I understand people who want to try something, anything, to prevent this calamity; but short of a different, and I mean completely different... not Hillary, not Obama, not Trump, not Bernie... group of non-sociapaths wanting to show some leadership do these non-human persons have a chance.
Given what the world looks like now, I don't see it happening. I don't know that the "good fight" is win-able any more... 30 years ago when I took up the cause, perhaps; but no longer. I've decided to withdraw from FB and other social media platforms for the time being because I simply cannot be involved at this level any longer. Those who think that electing Hillary or Bernie would have made a difference to the Orcas are fooling yourselves. Harsh words? Perhaps, but really, look around, has anything improved since the Reagan era? Or earlier? Not really. Not environmentally; not in the sex trafficking of women and children; not in our civil liberties;, nothing has gotten better. What do you think this world will look like in 10 years? 20? It saddens me to serve as a witness to the extinction of so much that I hold dear and I think that my friends and relatives who are suffering from depression, anxiety and similar maladies are feeling the same things I am. So, what to do? Does using one less plastic bottle help? Does one, or two or three cities banning plastic bags help? Not really I don't think. The world as it's currently constructed is not designed to support the long term existence of life on this planet . I guess it is up to us, those who feel the pain of those who suffer, of the Earth, throughout our day to day existence, to be the ones who stand up and say " I see you, and I'm sorry." Truly, I know of no alternative now. They had been together for 5 years when I started to work with Lisa and Jake; Jake, a soulful cattle dog, Lisa a contract biologist.
Lisa and Jake found each other about a year before Lisa's boyfriend of 8 years broke up with her. In the days and months after the break-up Lisa and Jake were inseparable. Jake was the reason she got up in the morning to go running, he needed the exercise, and because much of her work was outside Jake was able to come along. Lisa was so dependent on Jake's presence that Jake began to understand that his role was emotional support and protection. Nothing and no one would get to Lisa as long as he was around. Even though Lisa had healed from the break-up Jake could not give up his role as protector. As you might imagine this was not a good thing. Jake began barking at everyone who came to the house and nothing Lisa did could break him of this habit. Lisa started to worry that one day Jake would take things too far and bite someone. This is when she called me. I was able to communicate with Jake. First I got a feel for his true nature, what kind of a dog he was; he was loyal (obviously) but he was also playful and a bit goofy. Being able to communicate that information to Lisa was helpful for her to see past the stress that Jake was causing her, to help her remember what he was like when he wasn't being overly protective. I then worked with Jake and Lisa to help resolve the beliefs around Lisa needing constant protection. Just talking with Jake went a long way to helping him relax a bit, but I also did a session of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) so all of the various entanglements generated over the years were removed. Through EFT Jake could release the energetic imprint of needing to be hostile to those seen as a threat to Lisa and accept that Lisa was strong enough to manage her own emotions and keep herself safe. |
AuthorHi. My name is Ann Lally and I'm a 25 year practicing intuitive. I help people deepen their relationships with their animals. 
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