Tag Archives: ANimals

Enjoy the Show!

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This Circus Replaced Live Animals With 3D Holograms — and Audiences Love It

(TMU) — The circus, once considered to be The Greatest Show on Earth, has been faced with rough times in recent years. Gone are the days when the circus train is synonymous with magic and entertainment for the whole family—these days, people are much more likely to associate the big top show with brutal animal abuse and animals lashing out at trainers or even members of the audience.

But now, Germany’s Circus Roncalli has devised a way to keep the circus alive along with the animal magic it invokes. They have phased out the use of live animals almost entirely, instead using a dazzling of array of three-dimensional holographic projections for its one-of-a-kind show.

From wild horses that gallop within the circus ring to gigantic floating fishes and elephants standing on their two front feet, the show has amazed audiences with holograms that measure about 105 ft. (32 meters) wide to 16 ft. (five meters) tall—large enough to fill the circus tent.

The move has been greeted as a brilliant alternative to the controversial use of wild animals in traditional circus acts, not only because it employs the modern wonders of computer-generated imagery in a spectacular manner, but because no actual living beings are at risk of facing inhumane treatment in the run-up to the show.

Circus Roncalli had already done away with wild animals in the mid-1990s, but kept its horses and ponies until last year. Now, the show is entirely free of live animals—a choice that was made as much due to logistics as it was over concerns for the animals’ wellbeing.

from:   https://themindunleashed.com/2019/06/circus-animals-cruelty-free-3d-holograms.html

A New Look at Animal Emotions

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The Emotional Lives of Animals

Grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and other things we animals experience.
animalempathy.jpg
Marc Bekoff

This article from the YES! Media archives was originally published in the Spring 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.

Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. And bats, dolphins, whales, frogs, and various rodents use high-frequency sounds to find food, communicate with others, and navigate.

Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It’s not surprising that animals—especially, but not only, mammals—share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions. In many ways, human emotions are the gifts of our animal ancestors.

Grief in magpies and red foxes: saying goodbye to a friend

Many animals display profound grief at the loss or absence of a relative or companion. Sea lion mothers wail when watching their babies being eaten by killer whales. People have reported dolphins struggling to save a dead calf by pushing its body to the surface of the water. Chimpanzees and elephants grieve the loss of family and friends, and gorillas hold wakes for the dead. Donna Fernandes, president of the Buffalo Zoo, witnessed a wake for a female gorilla, Babs, who had died of cancer at Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo. She says the gorilla’s longtime mate howled and banged his chest, picked up a piece of celery, Babs’ favorite food, put it in her hand, and tried to get her to wake up.

I once happened upon what seemed to be a magpie funeral service. A magpie had been hit by a car. Four of his flock mates stood around him silently and pecked gently at his body. One, then another, flew off and brought back pine needles and twigs and laid them by his body. They all stood vigil for a time, nodded their heads, and flew off.

I also watched a red fox bury her mate after a cougar had killed him. She gently laid dirt and twigs over his body, stopped, looked to make sure he was all covered, patted down the dirt and twigs with her forepaws, stood silently for a moment, then trotted off, tail down and ears laid back against her head. After publishing my stories I got emails from people all over the world who had seen similar behavior in various birds and mammals.

Empathy among elephants

A few years ago while I was watching elephants in the Samburu National Reserve in Northern Kenya with elephant researcher Iain Douglas-Hamilton, I noticed a teenaged female, Babyl, who walked very slowly and had difficulty taking each step. I learned she’d been crippled for years, but the other members of her herd never left her behind. They’d walk a while, then stop and look around to see where she was. If Babyl lagged, some would wait for her. If she’d been left alone, she would have fallen prey to a lion or other predator. Sometimes the matriarch would even feed Babyl. Babyl’s friends had nothing to gain by helping her, as she could do nothing for them. Nonetheless, they adjusted their behavior to allow Babyl to remain with the group.

Waterfall dances: Do animals have spiritual experiences?

Do animals marvel at their surroundings, have a sense of awe when they see a rainbow, or wonder where lightning comes from? Sometimes a chimpanzee, usually an adult male, will dance at a waterfall with total abandon. Jane Goodall describes a chimpanzee approaching a waterfall with slightly bristled hair, a sign of heightened arousal:

“As he gets closer, and the roar of the falling water gets louder, his pace quickens, his hair becomes fully erect, and upon reaching the stream he may perform a magnificent display close to the foot of the falls. Standing upright, he sways rhythmically from foot to foot, stamping in the shallow, rushing water, picking up and hurling great rocks. Sometimes he climbs up the slender vines that hang down from the trees high above and swings out into the spray of the falling water. This ‘waterfall dance’ may last 10 or 15 minutes.” After a waterfall display the performer may sit on a rock, his eyes following the falling water. Chimpanzees also dance at the onset of heavy rains and during violent gusts of wind.

In June 2006, Jane and I visited a chimpanzee sanctuary near Girona, Spain. We were told that Marco, one of the rescued chimpanzees, does a dance during thunderstorms during which he looks like he’s in a trance.

Shirley and Jenny: remembering friends

Elephants have strong feelings. They also have great memory. They live in matriarchal societies in which strong social bonds among individuals endure for decades. Shirley and Jenny, two female elephants, were reunited after living apart for 22 years. They were brought separately to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., to live out their lives in peace, absent the abuse they had suffered in the entertainment industry. When Shirley was introduced to Jenny, there was an urgency in Jenny’s behavior. She wanted to get into the same stall with Shirley. They roared at each other, the traditional elephant greeting among friends when they reunite. Rather than being cautious and uncertain about one another, they touched through the bars separating them and remained in close contact. Their keepers were intrigued by how outgoing the elephants were. A search of records showed that Shirley and Jenny had lived together in a circus 22 years before, when Jenny was a calf and Shirley was in her 20s. They still remembered one another when they were inadvertently reunited.

A grateful whale

In December 2005, a 50-foot, 50-ton, female humpback whale got tangled in crab lines and was in danger of drowning. After a team of divers freed her, she nuzzled each of her rescuers in turn and flapped around in what one whale expert said was “a rare and remarkable encounter.” James Moskito, one of the rescuers, recalled, “It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing it was free and that we had helped it.” He said the whale “stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun.” Mike Menigoz, another of the divers, was also deeply touched by the encounter: “The whale was doing little dives, and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it … I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something I will always remember.”

Busy bees as mathematicians

We now know that bees are able to solve complex mathematical problems more rapidly than computers—specifically, what’s called “the traveling salesman problem”—despite having a brain about the size of a grass seed. They save time and energy by finding the most efficient route between flowers. They do this daily, while it can take a computer days to solve the same problem.

Dogs sniffing out disease

As we know, dogs have a keen sense of smell. They sniff here and there trying to figure who’s been around and also are notorious for sticking their noses in places they shouldn’t. Compared to humans, dogs have about 25 times the area of nasal olfactory epithelium (which carries receptor cells) and many thousands more cells in the olfactory region of their brain. Dogs can differentiate dilutions of 1 part per billion, follow faint odor trails, and are 10,000 times more sensitive than humans to certain odors.

Dogs appear to be able to detect different cancers—ovarian, lung, bladder, prostate, and breast—and diabetes, perhaps by assessing a person’s breath. Consider a collie named Tinker and his human companion, Paul Jackson, who has Type 2 diabetes. Paul’s family noticed that whenever he was about to have an attack, Tinker would get agitated. Paul says, “He would lick my face, or cry gently, or bark even. And then we noticed that this behavior was happening while I was having a hypoglycemic attack so we just put two and two together.” More research is needed, but initial studies by the Pine Street Foundation and others on using dogs for diagnosis are promising.

It’s OK to be a birdbrain

Crows from the remote Pacific island of New Caledonia show incredibly high-level skills when they make and use tools. They get much of their food using tools, and they do this better than chimpanzees. With no prior training they can make hooks from straight pieces of wire to obtain out-of-reach food. They can add features to improve a tool, a skill supposedly unique to humans. For example, they make three different types of tools from the long, barbed leaves of the screw pine tree. They also modify tools for the situation at hand, a type of invention not seen in other animals. These birds can learn to pull a string to retrieve a short stick, use the stick to pull out a longer one, then use the long stick to draw out a piece of meat. One crow, named Sam, spent less than two minutes inspecting the task and solved it without error.

Caledonian crows live in small family groups and youngsters learn to fashion and use tools by watching adults. Researchers from the University of Auckland discovered that parents actually take their young to specific sites called “tool schools” where they can practice these skills.

Love dogs

As we all know, dogs are “man’s best friend.” They can also be best friends to one another. Tika and her longtime mate, Kobuk, had raised eight litters of puppies together and were enjoying their retirement years in the home of my friend, Anne. Even as longtime mates, Kobuk often bossed Tika around, taking her favorite sleeping spot or toy.

Late in life, Tika developed a malignant tumor and had to have her leg amputated. She had trouble getting around and, as she was recovering from the surgery, Kobuk wouldn’t leave Tika’s side. Kobuk stopped shoving her aside or minding if she was allowed to get on the bed without him. About two weeks after Tika’s surgery, Kobuk woke Anne in the middle of the night. He ran over to Tika. Anne got Tika up and took both dogs outside, but they just lay down on the grass. Tika was whining softly, and Anne saw that Tika’s belly was badly swollen. Anne rushed her to the emergency animal clinic in Boulder, where she had life-saving surgery.

If Kobuk hadn’t fetched Anne, Tika almost certainly would have died. Tika recovered, and as her health improved after the amputation and operation, Kobuk became the bossy dog he’d always been, even as Tika walked around on three legs. But Anne had witnessed their true relationship. Kobuk and Tika, like a true old married couple, would always be there for each other, even if their personalities would never change.

Jethro and the bunny

After I picked Jethro from the Boulder Humane Society and brought him to my mountain home, I knew he was a very special dog. He never chased the rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, or deer who regularly visited. He often tried to approach them as if they were friends.

One day Jethro came to my front door, stared into my eyes, belched, and dropped a small, furry, saliva-covered ball out of his mouth. I wondered what in the world he’d brought back and discovered the wet ball of fur was a very young bunny.

Jethro continued to make direct eye contact with me as if he were saying, “Do something.” I picked up the bunny, placed her in a box, gave her water and celery, and figured she wouldn’t survive the night, despite our efforts to keep her alive.

I was wrong. Jethro remained by her side and refused walks and meals until I pulled him away so he could heed nature’s call. When I eventually released the bunny, Jethro followed her trail and continued to do so for months.

Over the years Jethro approached rabbits as if they should be his friends, but they usually fled. He also rescued birds who flew into our windows and, on one occasion, a bird who’d been caught and dropped in front of my office by a local red fox.

Dog and fish: improbable friends

Fish are often difficult to identify with or feel for. They don’t have expressive faces and don’t seem to tell us much behaviorally. Nonetheless, Chino, a golden retriever who lived with Mary and Dan Heath in Medford, Oregon, and Falstaff, a 15-inch koi, had regular meetings for six years at the edge of the pond where Falstaff lived. Each day when Chino arrived, Falstaff swam to the surface, greeted him, and nibbled on Chino’s paws. Falstaff did this repeatedly as Chino stared down with a curious and puzzled look on her face. Their close friendship was extraordinary and charming. When the Heaths moved, they went as far as to build a new fishpond so that Falstaff could join them.

An embarrassed chimpanzee: I didn’t do that!

Embarrassment is difficult to observe. By definition, it’s a feeling that one tries to hide. But world famous primatologist Jane Goodall believes she has observed what could be called embarrassment in chimpanzees.

Fifi was a female chimpanzee whom Jane knew for more than 40 years. When Fifi’s oldest child, Freud, was 5 1/2 years old, his uncle, Fifi’s brother Figan, was the alpha male of their chimpanzee community. Freud always followed Figan as if he worshiped the big male.

Once, as Fifi groomed Figan, Freud climbed up the thin stem of a wild plantain. When he reached the leafy crown, he began swaying wildly back and forth. Had he been a human child, we would have said he was showing off. Suddenly the stem broke and Freud tumbled into the long grass. He was not hurt. He landed close to Jane, and as his head emerged from the grass she saw him look over at Figan. Had he noticed? If he had, he paid no attention but went on being groomed. Freud very quietly climbed another tree and began to feed.

Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser observed what could be called embarrassment in a male rhesus monkey. After mating with a female, the male strutted away and accidentally fell into a ditch. He stood up and quickly looked around. After sensing that no other monkeys saw him tumble, he marched off, back high, head and tail up, as if nothing had happened.

Animal rescues: feeling compassion for those in need

Stories about animals rescuing members of their own and other species, including humans, abound. They show how individuals of different species display compassion and empathy for those in need.

In Torquay, Australia, after a mother kangaroo was struck by a car, a dog discovered a baby joey in her pouch and took it to his owner who cared for the youngster. The 10-year-old dog and 4-month-old joey eventually became best friends.

On a beach in New Zealand, a dolphin came to the rescue of two pygmy sperm whales stranded behind a sand bar. After people tried in vain to get the whales into deeper water, the dolphin appeared and the two whales followed it back into the ocean.

Dogs are also known for helping those in need. A lost pit bull mutt broke up an attempted mugging of a woman leaving a playground with her son in Port Charlotte, Florida. An animal control officer said it was clear the dog was trying to defend the woman, whom he didn’t know. And outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a dog rescued an abandoned baby by placing him safely among her own newborn puppies. Amazingly, the dog carried the baby about 150 feet to where her puppies lay after discovering the baby covered by a rag in a field.

Raven justice?

In his book Mind of the Raven, biologist and raven expert Bernd Heinrich observed that ravens remember an individual who consistently raids their caches if they catch them in the act. Sometimes a raven will join in an attack on an intruder even if he didn’t see the cache being raided.

Is this moral? Heinrich seems to think it is. He says of this behavior, “It was a moral raven seeking the human equivalent of justice, because it defended the group’s interest at a potential cost to itself.”

In subsequent experiments, Heinrich confirmed that group interests could drive what an individual raven decides to do. Ravens and many other animals live by social norms that favor fairness and justice.

from:    https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-animals-save-us/the-emotional-lives-of-animals-20190117

Connecting with Animals

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How to Connect Telepathically with Animals: A Practical Guide

Linda Bender DVM

Join Dr. Linda Bender for the Evolver Learning Lab course, “Connecting with Animal Wisdom: Awaken Your Heart and Intuition,” to deepen your relationship with animals and learn how animals can connect you more profoundly to all of life, and expand your consciousness. This live, 5-part interactive video course starts on September 23. For this series, Linda has gathered five leading animal experts, advocates, and healers: Andrew Harvey, Ellie Laks, Sandra Da Feo, Rick Kaplan, and Michael J. Tamura. To find out more, click here.

This article is taken from Animal Wisdom: Learning from the Spiritual Lives of Animals, recently published by North Atlantic Books. It presents the first seven of 18 practices. 

When we love and spend a lot of time with any being—whether an animal or another person—we usually have a pretty good idea of what that person is feeling, and why. I do not believe that people who call themselves “animal communicators” are significantly more gifted in this regard than regular people. I personally do not like the term animal communicator, because it infers that someone who is labeled “animal communicator” has a special talent or gift that you do not have. We all come into this world wired to connect with all life.

When I need to know what ’s going on with an animal who seems troubled, I first rely on my veterinary training, what the animal’s human guardian reports, and what my physical senses tell me, as well as my “sixth sense” that all living beings are born with. An intuitive ex- change with an animal starts like any other—with physical cues—body language and gestures. From there we reach out from the silent language of our hearts; love creates alignment with human and nonhuman beings.

All life responds to offerings of respect, gentleness, admiration, and reverence. To do psychic or telepathic readings of individual animals is not my intention here and is something I’ve never seen as necessary or desirable. It is not what I will be teaching you to do in this chapter.

Whereas a psychic reading is an attempt to discover otherwise undisclosed information about its subject, my intuitive exchanges with animals are exchanges between equals, companions, about matters of mutual spiritual concern. Say, for example, I have an inner encounter with a dog in a rescue shelter. I probably won’t find out how the dog came to be a stray or who his previous people were. Instead I may learn the sort of thing a human survivor of a traumatic experience would share during a deep and searching conversation about the meaning of adversity. Or say that I myself am going through a difficult time. The spirit of an animal may come to comfort me and offer me some wisdom. The inner encounters I have with animals—and will be teaching you to have—are exchanges of meaning.

I’ve been able to connect with animals in this way ever since I was a small child. Nobody taught me how, and there was no particular technique to it. I was just doing what came naturally to me, exercising what I believe to be an ability all of us are born with. Because the ability is seldom recognized or affirmed in our society, most children lose touch with it at a very young age, and forget that they ever possessed it. So why didn’t that happen to me? As I mentioned earlier in the book, I felt somehow imprinted in my early years by the animals. My experiences with them in nature are deeply embedded in my core. Animals offered me the validation and interpretive help that children more usually receive from human adults. When they noticed I was open to connect with them, they taught me how to connect more. Also mentioned earlier in the book, scientific research shows that emotional need acts like a magnet in the intuitive process. Emotional needs are expressions of the heart.

Even if you can’t remember any instances of it in your own child- hood, I encourage you to think of intuitive, telepathic communication with animals as a natural ability that you once had and have temporarily misplaced, rather than as a supernatural power that you are trying to acquire. There is nothing supernatural or paranormal about it. An animal communicator does not possess a gift that you lack.

Now that I am trying to help others to reawaken this capacity, I’ve had to reflect more about how it works. So let me begin with my thoughts about that. It seems to me that the way in to the mind of any other being is through the mind of the Source. We all exist in the one mind of the Source.  Everything in the created world carries a spark of the Source, divine consciousness. It is what all creatures have in common. Though I appear drastically different from an elephant in out- ward form, insofar as we are both manifestations of the divine mind, we are made of exactly the same stuff. What makes an elephant alive is the very same thing that makes me alive. So when I want to experience a spiritual connection with an elephant, I start by connecting to the Source within me. It is the voice of the heart that takes over. As I said earlier, love creates alignment with all creation. Once I connect with that, the corresponding part of another being lies open to me. I don’t have to go looking for it. I simply recognize it, as one recognizes that which is perfectly self-evident. To be truly recognized is what the Source in every living creature most longs for. Every living creature just eats that up. When you are able to recognize the divine nature of other beings, you become transcendentally charming. Many beings are eager to confide in you.

So the first step in learning to connect with the spirits of animals is to connect to the divine within yourself. To do so, you need to quiet the mundane chatter of your mind and bring your attention into the present moment. I’m going to offer you a variety of practices that might help you to achieve that. You might already do some meditation or other practice that reliably gets you to an inwardly quiet and receptive place. If so, feel free to substitute that for my suggestions.

Practice #1: The Wildlife Photographer

Imagine that you are a wildlife photographer in quest of a close-up. You need to be very quiet and still so as not to frighten away the creature you wish to photograph. At the same time, you need to remain alert so that you will be ready to act as soon as that creature comes near. In a quiet place where you will be protected from interruption, settle yourself in a position that feels both relaxed and alert. Imagine that your thoughts are audible. The more long-winded and complicated a thought, the louder it is. If you become totally carried away with your thoughts, you will scare away the animals for sure. At the same time, imagine that when you exhale, you are creating a blanket of silence. Whenever you notice that your thoughts are becoming noisy, bring your attention to your out-breath to cancel the sound of them. The object here is to quiet the mind rather than to empty it entirely. Thoughts will continue to arise, but you can reduce the noise level by letting go of each thought and bringing your attention back to the out-breath.

Variation: Try this practice in an outdoor setting: your backyard, a park, or a nature preserve. See if you can become so inwardly quiet and outwardly still that the creatures around you are undisturbed by your presence and emboldened to come closer to you than they normally would come to a human being.

Practice #2: Bringing Your Attention into the Present

A quality all animals have in common is that their attention is completely focused on whatever they are doing in the present. Animals don’t multitask. They don’t make plans for the future or dwell on what happened in the past. In order to connect with an animal mind, your mind needs to be focused on the present moment as well. Here are some simple exercises for focusing your attention:

  1. Eat a meal the way an animal does, concentrating on the act of eating without doing anything else. Don’t read, watch TV, listen to music, or converse. Experience the meal with all of your senses. Whenever you notice your mind starting to wander, gently bring it back to your food and to the activity of eating.
  2. Often when we are driving, we experience the roads as an entirely manmade environment, constructed for our own convenience. But even in big cities, our roads cut through the habitats of other creatures—often to their peril. (Over a million squirrels are killed each year by vehicles.) Try driving as slowly as the law allows, remaining conscious that there are other creatures all around you, whether you are able to see them or not, and that you are passing through their territories. Be alert to the possibility that an animal may suddenly dart across the road, unaware of the potential danger because animals don’t interpret the road the way you do. Considering the road from an animal standpoint will make you a safer driver.
  3. Animals experience the world directly through their physical senses, and many of them are gifted with senses that are more acute than ours. Choose one of your physical senses and spend five minutes experiencing your environment with that sense alone. For example, if you choose the sense of smell, focus entirely on the odors and scents around you, noticing those that seldom come to your full awareness. Next time you do the exercise, choose a different sense. Try this practice both indoors and outdoors.
  4. If you have a dog, go for a walk together, letting the dog set the pace and choose the direction. Focus your attention entirely on whatever interests your dog from moment to moment. Try to keep the leash loose, so that neither you nor your dog experience any tugging or jerking. In order to do this, you will need to fall into a rapport, anticipating each other’s movements. Think of the leash as a symbol of your connection with your dog rather than as the physical means of staying connected. This is a terrific way of learning to concentrate your attention, and of discovering what the world is like from your dog’s point of view.

Practice #3: A Day of Silence

Silence is often practiced in the context of a spiritual retreat, but I find the practice even more powerful when it is incorporated into my ordinary life at home. What keeping silent means is to refrain entirely from the use of words—neither speaking, hearing, reading, nor writing them. (By this definition, animals live their whole lives in silence, even though they make sounds.) As you settle into silence, you will probably find that your attention gradually shifts away from verbal thoughts and toward sense impressions, emotions, and mental images. In this way, your consciousness becomes more like that of an animal. This is a wonderful practice to share with an animal companion, if you have one. If you normally use words to communicate with your animal, refrain from doing so on this day.

Opening the Heart

Once your mind is quiet and attentive, the next step in connecting to the divine within you is to open your heart. We are most likely to feel that our hearts are open when we feel warm, expansive, and loving. But if you are not already in that place, trying to get there on purpose doesn’t always work, and your effort can backfire into a sense of personal inadequacy. So when you work with the heart-opening practices, start from the premise that your heart can do no wrong. Whatever it is feeling—or not feeling—is true, sincere, and of value. Let your heart decide which of the practices it feels like doing at any given moment, and let it decide when to quit. Don’t try to force a result, and don’t evaluate. Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) is fine.

Practice #4: The Keepsake Box

Picture a beautiful box in which you store mementos of love, compassion, and kindness that you have received over the years. Search your memory for items to place in this box. For example, recall a time when:

  • someone made you feel completely understood  and accepted
  • someone really knocked him- or herself out to help you
  • you received a gift that was far more generous than you expected, and exactly what you had been wanting
  • you did something hurtful and the other person fully forgave you
  • you were feeling worthless  and received a sincere and glowing compliment
  • you couldn’t meet some obligation and another person let you off easy

As each memory comes to mind, picture holding it at heart level and notice what happens. If you feel a stirring of warmth or joy or genuine gratitude, place the memory reverently in your imaginary keepsake box. If you’re not feeling it, set that memory aside. (Don’t tell yourself that you should be feeling something that you don’t truly feel.) Each time you return to this practice, begin by taking out and appreciating the items that you have previously placed in the box. Then add any new mementos that might come to mind.

We are most easily moved to gratitude when we have received a gift or a favor that we have done nothing to earn or deserve. Having awakened gratitude by recalling specific incidents like those listed above, see if you can extend the feeling to the blessings all of us receive every day—blessings that no one has to earn or deserve. We are blessed by the sun and the rain, the moon and the stars, the trees, and the flowers. We are blessed by the firm earth under our feet, the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, and the warmth of our own blood. Even when nothing in your life is going the way you want it to go, you wake up every day to find yourself in this miraculously beautiful and supportive environment, and you get to live in it for free! Bring all of this to mind, and bask in the awareness of your good fortune.

Practice #5: Receiving an Animal’s Appreciation

If you have a companion animal, do something that makes that animal demonstrably happy. Get your cat to purr or your dog to jump up and down with joy. Bring the whole of your attention to the gratitude your animal is expressing. Think: “This is the God within me being praised.” Learning to fully take in the appreciation your animal bestows is particularly helpful if you’re the sort of person who has trouble accepting compliments or thanks that come from other people.

Practice #6: The Noah’s Ark of Emotions

Animals have a unique ability to touch the human heart. In fact, sometimes animals move us when nothing else will.

Imagine you have built an ark and need to populate it with all the different ways of feeling moved by an animal. Think of a story, a picture, a film clip, or a memory of an animal that moves you in a particular way: an animal who makes you laugh; one for whom you feel compassion;  one who inspires awe and admiration;  one who makes you go all mushy with affection. For the purpose of this practice you might want to create a physical collection: a file of pictures, anecdotes, and/or video clips. Return to your ark periodically, either singling out a particular item that evokes an emotion you want to feel at that moment, or just browsing to reexperience the various feelings you’ve had in the past. This practice can be especially helpful at times when you’re caught up in thoughts and out of touch with your heart.

Practice #7: The Heart on a Bad-Hair Day

Mystics and seers who are able to connect with spiritual beings usually advise detaching somewhat from the physical senses and the emotions. Since the spiritual beings don’t have bodies and aren’t very emotional, putting oneself in a neutral and somewhat disembodied state helps one to establish a rapport with them. Some people find that they can’t do this at all, and a great many people find that they are unable to do it at the very times when hearing from them, or perhaps a guide or an angel (or from God), would be most welcome. When we ’re sick or exhausted or in the grip of some powerful and painful emotion, input from above might really help, yet we feel we are in no fit state to present ourselves at the gates of heaven.

This is what ’s so great about animals as spiritual helpers. They’re incarnate just like us. They know what it ’s like to feel needy or threatened or sad. When you’re having a bad-hair day, spiritually speaking, you don’t need to tidy yourself up to connect with an animal. On the contrary, the strong emotion that makes it impossible for you to quiet your mind or fill your heart with love and light can become the very means of connection.

The next time you are in the grip of some strong emotion that makes it impossible for you to do any of the previous exercises, don’t fight it. Instead, bring the whole of your attention to what you are feeling. What you want to experience is the texture and sensation of the emotion itself, as opposed to the many thoughts you are probably having about the emotion. You want to experience the emotion through the body more than the head. For example, if you are anxious, your mind is probably full of worries and problem-solving schemes. If you are angry, your mind is probably busy replaying the incident that set you off or engaged in self- righteous diatribes. Instead, you want to focus on what anger or anxiety feels like on a physical level. Notice what part of your body feels it the most, and what the sensation is like. Instead of trying to get rid of that sensation, say “hello” to it and keep it company for a few minutes. Whenever your mind starts to veer off into anxious or angry thoughts, gently bring it back to what is happening in your body.

As you are simply sitting with the difficult feeling, invite an image of an animal to come. This may or may not happen. Don’t try to force it. Simply invite it and see what happens. Should an animal image appear, recognize the emotion you are feeling as your connection to it. This animal knows how you feel, and you know how she feels, because all living creatures experience emotion. You are not isolated in your distress. On the contrary: it connects you to something universal. All feelings are an expression of our aliveness, and a manifestation of the God within.

from:    http://realitysandwich.com/318695/how-to-connect-telepathically-with-animals-a-practical-guide/

Pets & Health

Posted on by
Courtney Perry

Director of Student Services at Living Arts Institute

How a Dog Saved My Life: From Anxiety to Hope

Posted: 08/24/2013 10:02 am

Owning a dog seemed impossible to a girl with severe asthma, allergies, eczema — and not just a little anxiety. After all, I’d almost died several times from asthma attacks and anaphylaxis from food allergies. Doctors joked that I should live in a bubble or on a sterile boat in the middle of the ocean, only ingesting water and gluten-free crackers. I would laugh at their comments, but inside I ached at the thought of a future without pets. I spent years testing out an array of “hypoallergenic” animals, each one ending in a wheezing, hive-filled heartbreak. The food and environmental allergies I could handle, but a life without animals? No way.

In 2007, I found a loophole in my animal intolerance. I interviewed for a dolphin care and training internship in the Florida Keys and six weeks later packed my bags to move to an island 800 miles from my North Carolina home. Working with bottlenose dolphins was living my dream. I worked 40 grueling unpaid hours a week and was enthralled by every aspect of the job, even spending several hours a day elbow-deep in dead fish. Isn’t that what all girls’ dreams are made of? I was happy, my chronic anxiety was at an all-time low, and I felt like my life had purpose and meaning. I enjoyed the psychological aspect of animal training almost as much as I loved kissing those big gray faces and giving belly rubs to baby dolphin calves.

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Unfortunately, after one year of working with dolphins, I developed an anaphylactic allergy to all types of fish. As my throat swelled and my breathing labored, all I could think was, “I can’t touch fish, I can’t work with dolphins. My life here is over.”

Since there is no such thing as a vegetarian dolphin, I was correct. I moved back to North Carolina and tried to let go of the job of animal training. With the realization that my new-found passion and purpose was no longer an option, I went into mourning. If I had never experienced the satisfaction that a deep connection with an animal can bring, maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so deeply. I suddenly felt unmotivated to do anything with my life, because the one thing I knew I wanted to do was impossible.

My downward unhappiness spiral continued and eventually took the form of debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. I enlisted the help of a therapist and eventually conquered my anxiety attacks, transforming into a “silver linings” person with a new perspective on life. I even helped a few friends and family members with their anxiety struggles. I felt happy, but I still knew something was truly missing.

Then one afternoon, I came home to find my husband cradling a fluffy, wet-nosed, chocolate brown puppy. In spite of my allergies, we decided to take a chance on adopting a hypoallergenic Labradoodle, with a backup plan if my allergies decided to betray me again. Several of our family members assured us that they would adopt and raise our puppy if allergies became an issue. One look at Henri’s eerily human-like hazel eyes and thumping tail brought me to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Both my husband and I cried as we embraced our new puppy, our Henri.

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I expected that having my own dog would be both fun and a lot of work. What I didn’t expect was the impact that a six-pound, miniature Australian Labradoodle would have on overall well-being. For the first time since leaving the dolphins, the something that was missing in my life has arrived and is sleeping on my feet as I write this.

While we assumed a dog might worsen my allergies, the exact opposite has happened. There is a scientific connection between emotions and health, and much research that shows how living with pets makes us healthier. I firmly believe that my dog has allowed me to experience healing, both inner and outer. I know that Henri is no magical canine who has healed my chronic ailments, but she has created the most perfect distraction from them. Where my focus and energy used to constantly gravitate towards my medical issues and what was wrong with me, it now centers on my dog and her needs. I’m now using my dolphin training knowledge to engage, entertain, and train Henri.

I have heard over and over again that training dogs gives them a sense of purpose and security, but I have found that the same is true for the owner. While Henri is not yet an official therapy dog, she is my therapy dog.

from:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-perry/dealing-with-anxiety_b_3762533.html?ir=GPS+for+the+Soul&ref=topbar

Kryon on The Three Winds

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The Three Winds

Lee Carroll
a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll
Saturday, 23 February, 2013  at Canada

Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service. So the time between when I last spoke to you and now doesn’t even exist for me. It is difficult to explain to a linear Human Being what it is like not to have time. All things occur at once, so it’s an odd thing to talk about, for in your minds your future to you is not known and your past cannot be revisited. So to you, your existence is always in the present. However on my side we are in all three realities, but we call it the now. These concepts are only energies, but you assign a 3D time location to each of them.

For instance, THE PAST: Past actions in 3D cannot be changed, but the memories of them can. So, therefore, if you rewrite your reaction to something that happened in the past and it changes YOU in the present, then what have you done? You just visited the past and have rewritten it!

THE FUTURE: You say your future is not known to you, yet the potentials of what you might do are indeed known. As you change your mind today, in a certain way you are then changing the potentials of what you may do tomorrow. Therefore, rewriting the future is doable today. When you make an appointment to go somewhere tomorrow, does that make you a fortune teller when you arrive at the scheduled event? If you cancel the appointment at the last moment, did you change your future? “Wait a minute, Kryon. These are things we have control over, so it’s not the same as a future that is a mystery to us.” What If I told you that to us, there is no difference. “Appointments” are scheduled and unscheduled in a reality that you can’t easily see in 3D, but they are still potentials you create for yourself. We see it all as one thing, and it helps us to give you the kind of channel we’re going to give you in this transcription. We’re going to call the channel The Three Winds.

Much of this information has been given in pieces and parts over many years. However, now we put it together. You’ve heard some of the terminology and we have alluded to it before, and now we wish to lay it all out as a carpet that will contain many answers and perhaps some controversies. Some of these things may not agree with what you might have heard from others, and this is where your divine discernment comes into play, for your intuitive sense should now be used to see if these things I’m going to tell you make sense or not. You can start to use what I would now call spiritual logic.

The Human Soul

First of all, the Human Being and the Human Being’s soul are seen as one item to us. It is never split up in our reality and is in many places at once. But for your understanding and for this lesson, we have the soul in only four places at once. The three winds are three of the four, and the other place your soul resides is home. That’s where I am, dear ones, and we don’t call it a wind because there is no wind when you’re at home. There is no action for or against, and there is nothing pushing or pulling. It is so difficult, if not impossible, to describe something to you that is so close to you, yet so hidden. Home is not one of the winds, for it is where you always are.

A piece of God is in you, yet what it is like to be on my side of the veil will remain hidden as long as you are a Human. It has to, for the test of energy that you are working on as a Human must remain in a certain kind of reality and consciousness for you to exist on the planet and work the puzzle. But there’s no wind when you’re home. Home is the place you are when you are not in one of the winds. Home is your natural “God state”.

How Humans “See” God

You’re a piece of the soup of God, which is measured in innumerable parts, yet all is one. The very essence of entanglement [a physics term describing a quantum attribute where things are locked into one reality regardless of distance] are the attributes of God. When you are in touch with your Higher-Self, you are in touch with all the parts of you. Sometimes Humans think that they’re getting messages from angels, and these angels are given messages from other angels, and so on and so forth. Humans see a hierarchy of authority in everything, since it exists in their own reality. But with God, there’s no such thing, for the wisdom of God is a singular wisdom, which is always the same wisdom and is fully present all the time, everywhere. The truth is the truth, and because you have a piece of God in you, you become aware of an absolute truth as you awaken spiritually. This is why you can take an awakened Human Being from another part of the world that is foreign to you, speaking another language that is not yours, and find the same truth. The God inside you is the same as the one inside them.

So as we give this lesson, honor your intuition, that part of your mind that discerns using spiritual logic. Some of you may actually have a revelation of what we are speaking of as we discuss the Three Winds.

The Three Winds

Human Being, there is nothing more honored within the Human life scenario than the Three Winds. They represent one of the three states that Humans are always in. Two of them are brief and one of them is long. There is the Wind of Birth, the Wind of Existence, and the Wind of Transition. In your words, you would say birth, life, and death. We don’t use those words since they are biased to a 3D reality, which often is your only view of the truth.

The Wind of Birth

The Wind of Birth is different from the actual physical event that you call birth. For us, the Wind of Birth is you right before you enter (taking your first breath).  In each “wind”, we’re going to start by dismissing the fallacies and giving you the truth. So let us discuss as much as we are able and start with the energy at the Wind of Birth.

Imagine yourself as a piece of the whole, a part of the love element of the Universe, and a part of the wisdom of God. You’re ready to go back to your planet, but you do not have the mind of a Human. What is involved? What energies spin around it that get you to this place? Who is able to be in the Wind of Birth and is there a system?

These things are difficult to describe, for they are not linear. Understand that you are aware of only linear things, since it is your reality. Your 3D reality as you sit there reading is only aware of one solitary life on Earth. But in this quantum Wind of Birth, we are seeing you standing at the precipice of another reality, returning to the planet after many lifetimes [speaking to old souls now]. So as you stand there, you are about to reconnect as a Human Being into the planet’s energy in a certain way. The “wind” of the 3D reality you are about to step into blows against you with great force. You seem to “lean into it” as we make our final love words to you. You are about to disconnect from the reality of Spirit, willingly give away your memory of all that is, and return to Earth yet again. What a beautiful time!

What are the attributes or “rules” of this as you connect again to humanity? First, let me tell you what they’re not, for so much of this is misunderstood. The first thing you should know is that the Human Being is absolutely unique. On this planet of the coming and going of sacred souls, Humans all have a divine part that we call the Higher-Self. All 3D Human DNA structure and the potentials within are identical. The only thing that differentiates one from the other are within the quantum DNA portions – the energy of the Akashic Record.

The Power of the Akash

The Akashic Record holds within it the ability and potential for enormous energy, depending upon what the Human has done in past lives. If the Human has awakened to spiritual potential before, then there is more energy than if they had not. Therefore, the potential creation of an enlightened old soul is literally available at the Wind of Birth, for it’s about prior knowledge and experience and what you’ve done before on the planet. It’s about who you were, what you have accomplished, and if you ever awakened to the workings of the light puzzle before or not, if you are returning or if it’s the first time.

So the Akashic Record is not just a record of how many times you’ve been here, but rather how much spiritual knowledge and life experience you have awakened to through all your planetary experience. The Akash is a sacred library that you pick up and hold through each lifetime and then into the next. You add to it every time you come and go on the planet, and it helps to develop and alter what your next life may be about. Remember the axiom we have given in the past: You will never have to return to a less-aware state. Once you open the metaphor of the “spiritual Akashic jar”, all spiritual learning is available from all lifetimes, all accomplished learning.

Your Biology is Not All From the Earth

The Human Being’s soul is a piece of God and is unique on the planet. However, biologically, the Human is not an animal of Earth. In fact, your unique Human chemistry proves it, since you have “fused DNA” that creates the 23 chromosome separation from the rest of Earth biology. You did NOT evolve from Earth!

The Human species as you see it today is not the Human species of 200,000 years ago. So the first realization for you is that your entire corporeal existence is not as “an animal of your planet”, despite what biologists will tell you. There was help along the way with an “awakening to light and dark” within your DNA. Even the most basic of religions tell you about this event as the divine “creation story” common to all humanity. The Human you are today is unique to the Universe and has amazing creative powers, just as the masters of the earth all told you.

The Animals System

Animals have their own kinds of energies, and even some of them have their own kinds of animal soul-groups. Animals are on the planet for several reasons, and we’ve told you all this before. However, all of them are on the planet as part of the balance of Gaia, and many as friends to Humans. They hold the energy of life for Earth, and sometimes they are here to love.

Certain kinds of animals have animal souls and incarnate within their own groups, but always in service to humanity. Their own soul groups come back as animals – only animals. They do not cross the soul barrier into a Higher-Self being. Animals do not graduate into Human Beings. But it is very easy for Humans to think they do, because this is the way Human thought has always worked for you. In your opinion, you graduate into higher levels and then you become better. Therefore, those who would look at the scheme of life would probably say, “A soul starts as an animal and then works its way up to become Human.” However, this is not the case and never was, dear one. A Human Being has a beautiful Higher-Self, which is the core soul of God energy.

The Human Spiritual System

The puzzle during your life is about how much of this truth of being part of the creator you can accept. How far can you open the quantum door to see this truth when you are alive? This single attribute determines how enlightened you become during life. Listen: It’s not how much knowledge and experience in is your Akash, but how much you allow yourself to believe it. There are many old souls on this planet who have an amazing amount of spiritual learning, yet they don’t want to touch that “spiritual jar” within them at this point in their lives. This is the free choice of the Human Being we speak about.

There is immense planning that puts you at the Wind of Birth. What did you accomplish during the last lives, if anything? Who were you and what did you do? What energies did you start that were not complete that you wish to continue? What soul group were you in? Who were your parents? Are you in certain soul agreements to become their grandchildren? That is more common than you think! There are so many things that go into the planning of the “entry energy” of your life, and each life potential is different and unique. The planning is done by you when you have “the mind of God” on my side of the veil.

Humans don’t like the fact that there is no generic spiritual instruction manual that states, “Here is what happens and here is what to do.” Listen, dear ones, humanity is honored way above that! Are all your children the same? Do books on how to raise children always work for your child? The answer is no, because each soul is totally unique. But Humans still wish to have a list of things to do and not to do, as though each soul somehow came out of a spiritual machine that made them all the same. No. Instead, Spirit honors each soul with unique choice and a tremendous variety of energy selections.

The Great Artists

There are certain attributes that Humans receive on the planet, and we’ll call them creative attributes. These are almost quantum attributes that may take several lifetimes to complete. What often happens to these creatives is that they go through a series of lifetimes as though it were one in order to have completion of their creative cycle. Famous artists will come back, and the first thing they want to do is pick up a brush and continue what they did before. Famous composers, famous poets and sculptors will come back and simply keep going! It’s so obvious, yet you deny this in your scientific way.

So the creatives are different from the others, and their puzzle is to bring the planet the greatest treasures of art through a unified series of lives, yet personally they try to sort out the puzzle of “what they carry inside is valuable, but nobody knows it”. If you’ve noticed, most of the great artists who have even lived and are here today carry a burden that is easily identified as “lack of self-worth”. Do you see the set-up? It’s ripe for personal discovery, isn’t it? So can you see the Human standing in the Wind of Birth, ready to continue what they only began last time? With the “mind of God”, there is a smile on their face as they hear the music that they will compose, for it’s with them when they arrive.

As you stand at the Wind of Birth, you are completely and totally a unique creature with incomplete energies. It takes more than one short earthly life to create Human attributes that grow into maturity. Even non-creatives (most of you) have a lineage of starting something that never got fully completed. Sometimes it’s within relationships. Sometimes it’s learning or teachings. Old souls are good at this coming and going and often pick up where they leave off as they slowly change the planet by their very presence upon it. The old soul is, “Sewing the seeds of light on the carpet of linear time, not even knowing that he will also be harvesting those exact mature plants of wisdom as he returns in a subsequent life.”

Therefore, dear one, you don’t arrive with a blank slate, but you have to know that, don’t you? The old soul feels it. The only ones who arrive with a completely blank slate are the newbies [first timers] and we’ll talk about that in the next wind. But this is a room of old souls who are hearing and reading right now. Each of you is here with a spiritual jar that is filled with the experience of living on Earth, and sometimes even the attribute of “awakening to your own mastery”.

Akashic Readers

There are those who can read your Akash. But unlike a linear file cabinet, they can’t read the lifetime in some linear way. Instead, they’ll be the energetic lives that stick out, the ones that have a profundity about them for you. These are the lives where you accomplished things, or perhaps even worse, you didn’t. There are the lives where dramatic things happened such as early death, loss of children, or battlefield experiences. It’s all based on energy and potentials. You’ll hear that again, since it’s important.

You are standing at the Wind of Birth and you’re about to come back to the planet. Laid upon you are all the potentials and possibilities based on your past experience and the imprint of “who you are.” You’re coming back as part of the spiritual family of Earth, which is what your soul group does. Where will you be? What gender? The most difficult thing for me to describe to you is that the planning is not linear and it is not something that you would see on a logical financial spreadsheet. It’s energy based and very often influenced by others. It’s, therefore, also family based.

If you have awakened to spiritual truth in a past life, there is strong potential it will greatly change the next life. So an old soul will go to another place that perhaps a young soul would not go. All of this is in the planning before the Wind of Birth, and you’re ready for it. You really are. Listen: No Human soul comes to the planet unwillingly or as punishment. Perhaps you should memorize that statement!

The Biggest Change…

Old soul, right before you come back into the planet, the energy is completely different at the Wind of Birth because of what has happened in the last 20 years. In this new energy past 2013, the old soul who is coming back with that spiritual library filled with spiritual purpose is comfortable with this process. He intuitively remembers very fully what he has been through. Did you hear that? This is different than the last time! This is a result of everything that has happened in these last years. You have changed the rules!

The old soul is not going to be subject to some of the energies that push and pull a younger soul. The old soul has made up his or her mind as part of the planning about what they are going to do that they could not do before within an older energy. This is only possible since they can now plan on having the spiritual jar intuitively open early in the new life. The old soul may even know this now and plan for this before the end of his/her current life, intuitively knowing about the next life during the current life. This is the difference, dear ones. It’s the beginning of “intuitive spiritual logic”.

We’ve told you in previous channels about some of the interesting differences between new Humans and ones like you, who have been born into an older energy. We’ve told you that the quantum DNA alterations that you have created by living many lifetimes of awakening to enlightenment and knowledge will now allow you to be a very different child in your next life. It will be a child who remembers how to read instead of one who is taught how to read; a child who can walk earlier and talk earlier, because he remembers how. This is because the bridge in the DNA is starting to be complete between what was and what is. What this means is that the DNA is starting to quantumly change into its original state of being, which is that of being far more efficient. You will see it first in the children and, dear ones, don’t expect to see it in a microscope. Instead, you will have to eventually ask a sociologist to prove any of this, for it will be seen first as a change in Human behavior.

Therefore, old souls will come in as Humans who will not need to start over and be taught everything from scratch, but instead will arrive with a full load of intuitive past-life experience. As their brains develop, they may even remember who they are [old souls who have been here before]. This is the promise of the new energy, especially after 2013. You’re going to see changes in some of your children and grandchildren as they arrive and grow up. The stigma of a planet that is going to be destroyed by war or by God will not be among the energies of the new ones. The promise of a planet going into new, unchartered areas of quantum discovery will be upon them. They’ll need a whole new set of tools.

Who Has Gone Through This?

Oh, you have all participated in this wind. Everyone in the room has participated in this. You stood there knowing what the life lessons were and the potentials of what was next due to what had happened in previous lives. These were not mistakes, dear ones. These were the results of potentials and plans you made for your own soul.

There is no newbie here in this room [to be explained]. Not all of you listening and reading, however, are old souls in the classic sense – souls who have been here hundreds of times. But you have been here before, so this counts as one who has walked through the process many times. It’s what makes you interested in this material. Did you think of that? There is great variety, however, in the understanding of this knowledge among you. It is absorbed very differently between you. Some will sleep through it and others will be spiritually awakened by it [Kryon smile]. It depends on where you are on the path you planned. Again, each path is unique.

The Wind of Existence

We arrive now at the Wind of Existence. This is what you call life. Let us give you the attributes. First, no matter what you have been told by spiritual authority, you are not here as punishment. You’re not here to be tested. Sometimes we call your life a test, but it’s a test of energy, not of you! Gaia then measures the energy of the planet and passes the results to the very fabric of time and existence – to the Great Central Sun. It’s the measurement of the vibration of the earth via the Crystalline Grid, which plays a part in a much larger scenario that we have not discussed much.

Therefore, the test is whether Humans can change that earth measurement by their consciousness. That’s the test. Again, Humans are not here to be tested, but rather you’re here as family. The bridge between the Wind of Birth and the Wind of Existence is not subtle. It’s where you remove everything you know about the truth and come in with it blocked out. When you step into that Wind of Birth, you’re no longer aware that you are a piece of the Universe. There is no longer the connection to the consciousness of God itself. You don’t remember where you came from or what you’ve been through.

The newer energy now has you awaken to intuitive potentials of remembering these truths. They are in your Akash, but available only through intent. As we have indicated, some old souls don’t necessarily awaken at all! Sometimes an old soul who has had a very difficult and profound previous lifetime will soar through this current life as a vacation from spiritual things and never claim they are interested. But, dear ones, you know who they are when you meet them and you can see it in their eyes. Some of you have even married them! They may not be here at a meeting like this either, but it’s the energy of this very thing that attracted you originally.

The Old Soul’s Purpose

Dear ones, you have to understand the uniqueness of life. It’s why we say there are no rules that state that you somehow must awaken to help the planet or that you have to send light while you are here. There simply are no have tos because the system is complex with variety. This time around, some are simply here to hold the energy of who they are and where they are. The next time around they will do the work, but for now they just hold a place. Some of you have had these very attributes and it’s necessary and needed on the planet. Like a spiritual relay race, some carry the baton swiftly and some sit and watch, but all are part of the event.

Some old souls are simply holding the energy, unaware of any metaphysical journey at all. So this would be like old soul recalibration or rejuvenation. However, some of you might say, “I’m not certain I like that. It seems like a waste of an old soul’s life – of 80 years or more!” Dear ones, is it a waste of three weeks when you go on vacation? No. You often come back rested and ready to work! It’s complex and you look at things in the light of “a lifetime”. But for us, it’s simply a passing day. It’s all about timing. So don’t make up your mind what is working and what is not based on your “lifetime clock”.

Old souls will have the greatest impact on the planet in the new energy. The ones who have been here the most often will know better what to do than ever before about the conditions they find when they arrive.

The Wind of Existence Categories: New and Learning

NEW: The newbies are always arriving. They have to, because the planet has a geometric expansion [population growth] rate. So logically, do you understand that there are new souls arriving all the time? It’s obvious. But you can recognize a newbie in a minute when you start talking to them. You say A and they hear B. You’ll ask them to go left and they’ll walk right. They’ll have no idea about anything, how anything works between Humans. They don’t really understand if a thing is good or bad. Appropriateness of behavior is a mystery – and it often shows.

They don’t know how life works in general. You will slap your head in amazement because you can’t believe anybody could be that way! They’re new. They don’t know about Human nature. They’re the ones who can be easily tricked by another Human Being who wants to trick them. Again, you will slap your head and think, “Did they just arrive?” Yes, they did.

They are naïve to the max in all directions and you’ve seen them. Each of them will have to come back a number of times before they start understanding the whole process of how life works, so there’s always quite a number of them. They are not about to be in a meeting like this and are better off being in a meeting that teaches “how Humans work”. Many of them wind up on the psychologist’s couch to discover more about themselves and, oddly enough, many even end up being psychologists themselves! This is because Human nature is such a vast mystery to be solved by them that they are fully aware how much they needed help, so they become the helpers of other newbies.

LEARNING: Within a few lifetimes, many arrive at a certain state where there is an intuitive awareness of how things work on the planet. There is a better emotional balance and then that Human is a learner. Spiritual knowledge can start to be collected.

Learners are an obvious category. These are the ones who are the potential awakeners, for these are the ones who have the potential to come to a place like this, hear the truth, recognize it or not, and leave. If they don’t feel it’s something they relate to, it just means the timing isn’t right. Again, remember the axiom about returning to a less-aware state? You can’t. So even if you don’t agree with something or act on something today, it doesn’t mean you forget it. Today’s foolishness can become tomorrow’s wisdom. It just depends on your perception.

Timing is everything. My partner has asked many times, “Kryon, why did I have to awaken to the truth in the middle of my 40s? It would have been so much more efficient if it had been in my 30s!” The answer I have given is all about timing. It’s about placing him at the age he needs to be in order to do what he does now, and also what he’s going to do next. I’ll get to that.

And so, dear ones, those who sit in the chairs in front of me and who are reading are all in the learning category. These are often the older souls and the ones who have awakened to spiritual questions. They sense what is happening on the planet and want to know more. They have a new awareness that the energy is changing and that the earth needs them. They also know that each path is different, so they are sitting in this room now or reading this transcription with that in mind.

This is the way it works, old soul. Some of you have awakened to the spiritual truth of the “Creator inside” many times. Your library is thick with spiritual purpose. Some of you have just awakened in this lifetime and realized you’re an old soul. So since you are all here listening and reading, I give you a diversion. It’s a complexity you didn’t expect and one for the new energy.

An Advanced Complex Quantum Attribute

This may be complex, but some of you are ready for it. This idea is intuitive to some here, for it’s spiritual logic. I mention this only briefly, since I have given it before and it needs to be included to make the winds explanation as complete as possible.

As I have told you, inside of you there is a library of the Akash. That is to say that there is a truth that you can pull from that is universal. But in a very linear way, you also understand that you can only have in your Akashic library what you have gleaned from your lives on Earth. True or false? We have spoken of this before in this new year of 2013. The answer is, it depends on how quantum you become.

Now, this is very difficult, but now I broach a subject that is completely nonlinear, so listen carefully. If it is true, dear Human Being, that you were seeded by an ascended race from another part of the galaxy [The Pleiadians], that means that you have a piece of their DNA! Everything that they know is in your DNA – and you know where I’m going with this, don’t you? That means that you can awaken to great amounts of truth, but truth that is not based on Earth experience. Instead, it’s there from what they gave you. This goes way beyond what we have taught you about your Akash, and takes it into a spiritual quantum Akash.

There will be some who ask, “Well then, we come in with that, right? Even the newbie has that? So why don’t we remember it as well?” The answer is this: In the new energy [past 2013], there will be those who will start to use what we will call “quantum Akashic tools”. Included in these will be the idea of “mining the Akash” [an attribute we have given before] and also the idea of “quantum Akashic inheritance”, which will be the beginning of remembering original galactic ancestor knowledge. This will eventually lead to quantum invention on the planet. As Humans become more quantum in their evolution, they will start to pick up these new tools. It’s DNA related, and we have spoken of it many times. It’s “remembering”. But these things will only begin happening to the oldest souls among you, for it happens only after full realization of “God inside”.

Karma

How does karma play into all this? The learner, who is the one who gets past the state of just “arriving on Earth”, now has something called karma, and it’s a big energy to work with. So let’s explain what it is.

Karma is “unfinished family group energy” that continues from one lifetime to another. It pushes and pulls you around life, and it has nothing to do with predestination. Instead, it has everything to do with predisposition. If you have a lot of karmic energy around you, then you are predisposed to move left or right when certain conditions happen. This is based upon the energies of the past and mostly from Human interaction.

We gave you information back in 1993 when Kryon Book One, The End Times, was published. We told you that old souls now have permission to drop the energy of karma and steer their own way through life, co-creating the energy of what they want instead of having to battle the past. We continue to tell you that karma is an old system of learning and that you are now beyond it.

Karmic energy is still needed for the learners who are not ready to drop it and need to walk through lessons based upon it. Karma is not available to the newbie [first-timer], since the new soul coming in has no past energy to pull from. By the way, that’s why they are clueless! But by the second or third time around, they start creating their own karma from the energy of ordinary life that then pushes them to do things in the next.

Once the old soul has dropped karma, it means that he has severed it completely and the next time around, it won’t be there either. Again, here is a quantum attribute that states that, “what you create within the patterning of your spiritual DNA today stays forever. It does not have to be done again in the next life.” Again, this is not predestination, but know that what you do in this life shapes the next, and in this new energy it is profound, old soul!

Contracts

I want to talk to you about contracts. The very word is misunderstood. Do you feel you have a spiritual contract to do something on Earth? Some of you will arrive on the planet and will think, “I am here doing what I’m supposed to be doing in this city because it is my contract.” So while you are seemingly fulfilling your contract, what do you do when another person comes along with a better offer but you have to move to another city? It might be a spiritual offer, placing you in a far better place to help people. Oh no! Here is a big puzzle. What happens with your spiritual contract?

Part of you pulls in the direction of, “I must stay here and do what I came for.” The other part of you is torn with indecision. Finally, you bolster yourself and say, “My contract is that I must stay here and do my work. No matter what, I will fulfill my contract with God.”

Let me give you a word to remember – nonsense! Your contract is in invisible ink! Listen, old soul: Every single day of your life has a rewritable spiritual path. Did you know that? This is the essence of co-creation. The only contract you have is to be here, and it is being fulfilled as you read this. So pick up the spiritual pen and write what you need every day. If synchronicity comes along and sweeps you into another area, view it for what it is – it’s what you asked for! Feel the truth of it as it occurs. Go with your intuitive feeling and write a new contract for the day, which can disappear tomorrow as you rewrite it into something even better.

Old soul, you’ve never had an opportunity like this before. In this new energy, you can change the Wind of Existence to match what you need. In these next few years, you’ll decide a number of things collectively on this planet. Through very slow attrition of the old energy dying out, you will gain the upper hand.

There will be greater integrity and old souls will create it. Sometimes the old souls will be represented in young bodies that are awakening quickly. The very plan of what the earth is about will start to take shape. New alliances of nations will take place. More borders will drop, and governments will start to understand a new principle of unity that has never been seen before on the planet. It will eventually create the seeds for real peace on Earth. Even the Middle East will shift.

I’ve said it before: There will be future generations who will look back and identify everything before 2012 as, “The Barbaric Era”. You will see civilization as you know it start in 2013. That is the promise of a real demarcation point coming within three generations. Think about it. Human history has always been about war and conquering. However, you are beginning to turn a corner. As the old energy slowly dies away, survival will be seen as unity and cooperation. It’s already happening on the planet, did you notice?

The Wind of Existence is you, working the puzzle, old soul, and you’re not in karma and you’re not in a contract. Instead, you’re in manifestation mode. It may not seem like it, but give it a chance. We’ve said this before: When you start getting out of survival mode and stop worrying about every single thing, you eventually arrive into manifestation mode. The worry mode is what your parents were taught. You inherited it, but it’s not what enlightened beings do. Instead, they manifest what they need and they don’t worry about what they don’t have, for it comes to them when they need it through the process of synchronicity – an enlightened concept that gives credibility to divine wisdom inside.

The Wind of Transition

The last wind is the Wind of Transition. You call it death. What can I tell you about this that you don’t already know? Well, I think I can tell you a lot. First of all, the rules: You don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know when it’s going to happen. Did you know that we need to keep some of you here for a very long time? It’s because you are not done with what you started. For others of you, we need you to transition sooner than later in order to follow your own plan. We need you at a new place on the planet soon, when you’re young. We need your Akashic knowledge to awaken early and keep developing what you’re developing now, because you’ll have the energy of youth.

We need you to be a certain age so you can run for office, just as you planned it. We need to have you young for other reasons that should be very obvious to you as you think about it from our standpoint. So, you don’t know when you are leaving. Cast away the fear of this transition, so you understand the reasons that are profound and the ones you helped create when you were on my side. The very awakening process helps to decide when you’re going to transfer the energy and move through transition yet again.

I want to give you an attribute you probably haven’t thought of: Death is fearful. In the corporeal sense, you have an incredible will to survive. The last thing anyone wants, even bacteria, is to die. Survival then pushes you to live and nobody simply walks into death without fear. This will remain, and it’s the way it should be. But there is a gift for you that we give you, and you don’t even know about it.

At the moment of transition, when your heart stops and you take your last breath, we are there. All the angels from the Great Central Sun are there, too, and they kindle a light that puts you at peace. It’s a peace so great that fear cannot exist. In a fraction of a second, you know it’s OK. You might call it a spiritual anesthetic, but we call it the gift from the Creator.

So the Wind of Transition from our standpoint, a quantum standpoint, is beautiful. It represents that instant where you realize you’re finished with this life. It’s only for a second, and then it’s gone. Then you move into the process of a three-day remembrance of who you are. Part of you is still on the planet and part of you is with us. All of it is beautiful.

Some Humans have gone through a near-death experience and explained it the best they could, but they all say they came back different. Oh, Human Being, they saw a piece of it; they saw a piece of the creator and when they came back, they exclaimed to you, “You won’t believe it! I was dead for a moment and I heard singing and saw light.” Just ask them and they’ll tell you. So this is the gift of transition that we have never talked about before. There is no sting in death, Human Being. The only sting is for the ones who remain and don’t know where you are. They feel you are gone forever, but you are not. Neither are the souls of those you have lost over the years, dear listener and reader. Did you know that the parents you may have lost will be with you till your last breath? They are holding your hand the whole time. This is complex, but it’s part of a beautiful, multidimensional system of soul grouping. Some of you know I’m right, since you have sensed them.

Human Beings, you have to know that your soul group can be in several places at the same time. We’ve given you that information before. Souls can be reincarnated somewhere else on the planet as a corporeal Human, and also be with you at the same time as what you perceive as a guide. Don’t ask the question about “how”, because it won’t make any sense in your reality. It’s a beautiful system. Death has no sting!

If you lose somebody you love, I want you to remember this: They may appear still and cold and gone forever, but that’s just in 3D and it’s not the truth. They are alive and well and looking at you, pleading with you to see the energy of love that they represent. They are not gone.

Those are the Three Winds for today. I love to talk about these things for they are near to me all the time. I work with all three, and I’m working with them right now. The energy that is Kryon is a group. It’s just like all of you are, since you have these attributes also. I’m part of a group right now who are working with those at the Wind of Birth. I am also welcoming those going through the transition – right now. This is the role of Spirit through the Higher-Self that is yours. Discover God inside. When you do, you will also see that the plan is beautiful, dear ones.

And so it is.

Kryon

The information is free and available for you to print out, copy and distribute as you wish. Its Copyright, however, prohibits its sale in any form except by the publisher.

Lee Carroll

from:    http://spiritlibrary.com/kryon/channelings/the-three-winds

Do Dogs Read Emotions

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Canine Comfort: Do Dogs Know When You’re Sad?

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 07 June 2012
A dog comforting his owner.

Do dogs understand when their owners are sad?
CREDIT: Igor Normann, Shutterstock

Plenty of pet owners are comforted by a pair of puppy-dog eyes or a swipe of the tongue when their dog catches them crying. Now, new research suggests that dogs really do respond uniquely to tears. But whether pets have empathy for human pain is less clear.

In a study published online May 30 in the journal Animal Cognition, University of London researchers found that dogs were more likely to approach a crying person than someone who was humming or talking, and that they normally responded to weeping with submissive behaviors. The results are what you might expect if dogs understand our pain, the researchers wrote, but it’s not proof that they do.

“The humming was designed to be a relatively novel behavior, which might be likely to pique the dogs’ curiosity,” study researcher and psychologist Deborah Custance said in a statement. “The fact that the dogs differentiated between crying and humming indicates that their response to crying was not purely driven by curiosity. Rather, the crying carried greater emotional meaning for the dogs and provoked a stronger overall response than either humming or talking.”

Humans domesticated dogs at least 15,000 years ago, and many a pet owner has a tale of their canine offering comfort in tough times. Studies have shown that dogs are experts at human communication, but scientists haven’t been able to show conclusively that dogs feel empathy or truly understand the pain of others. In one 2006 study, researchers had owners fake heart attacks or pretend to be pinned beneath furniture, and learned that pet dogs failed to go for help (so much for Lassie saving Timmy from the well).

But seeking out assistance is a complex task, and Custance and her colleague Jennifer Mayer wanted to keep it simple. They recruited 18 pet dogs and their owners to test whether dogs would respond to crying with empathetic behaviors. The dogs included a mix of mutts, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and a few other common breeds. [What Your Dog’s Breed Says About You]

The experiment took place in the owners’ living rooms. Mayer would arrive and ignore the dog so that it would have little interest in her. Then she and the owner would take turns talking, fake-crying and humming.

Of the 18 dogs in the study, 15 approached their owner or Mayer during crying fits, while only six approached during humming. That suggests that it’s emotional content, not curiosity, that brings the dogs running. Likewise, the dogs always approached the crying person, never the quiet person, as one might expect if the dog was seeking (rather than trying to provide) comfort.

“The dogs approached whoever was crying regardless of their identity. Thus they were responding to the person’s emotion, not their own needs, which is suggestive of empathic-like comfort-offering behavior,” Mayer said in a statement.

Of the 15 dogs that approached a crying owner or stranger, 13 did so with submissive body language, such as tucked tails and bowed heads, another behavior consistent with empathy (the other two were alert or playful). Still, the researchers aren’t dog whisperers, and they can’t prove conclusively what the dogs were thinking. It’s possible that dogs learn to approach crying people because their owners give them affection when they do, the researchers wrote.

“We in no way claim that the present study provides definitive answers to the question of empathy in dogs,” Mayer and Custance wrote. Nevertheless, they said, their experiment opens the door for more study of dogs’ emotional lives, from whether different breeds respond to emotional owners differently to whether dogs understand the difference between laughter and tears.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/20823-canine-comfort-dogs-understand-emotion.html

Psychic Pooches???

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Are Pets Psychic? A Cambridge Scientist Believes So

20th February 2012

By Dr Rupert Sheldrake – dailymail.co.uk

One of my former neighbours in my home town of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, was a widow whose son was a sailor in the merchant navy.

He did not like to tell his mother when he would be coming home on leave because he was afraid she would worry if he was delayed on the way. But his mother always knew anyway — thanks to the family cat.

This pet was very attached to this young man and, an hour or two before he arrived, it sat on the front door mat and began miaowing loudly as if equipped with some sixth sense which told it that he was on the way.

The cat was never wrong and this early-warning system gave our neighbour time to get her son’s room ready and prepare him a meal in the certainty that he would turn up soon afterwards.

This is just one of many examples of animals displaying the apparently psychic tendencies more normally associated with some of their human counterprts.

Many cats seem to know, for example, when they are going to  the vet’s —  hiding away in the hope that their owners might get bored  of looking for them and give up on the idea.

More dramatically, some animals seem to sense when their owners have had accidents or have died in distant places — as documented on my database of more than 5,000 case histories involving psychic phenomena in animals.

This includes 177 cases of dogs apparently responding to the death or suffering of their absent masters or mistresses, mostly by howling, whining or whimpering, and 62 accounts of cats showing similar signs of distress.

Conversely, in 32 instances people knew when their pet had died or was in dire need, even when they were many miles away at the time.

As we will see, these paranormal powers are of potentially huge value to human beings in the prediction of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

And yet, as someone who has spent his entire adult life working as a biologist, holding senior academic posts both here (UK) and in the U.S.,  I am constantly surprised and frustrated by the refusal of my colleagues in the scientific world to take them seriously.

Without acknowledging such phenomena, it’s difficult to see how we can fully understand the behaviour of not just cats and dogs, but wild animals such as wolves.

The latter were studied by naturalist William Long who, in 1919, wrote a book that described the behaviour of a pack he had followed in Canada. He found separated members of wolf packs remained in contact with each other and responded to each other’s activities while many miles apart.

On one occasion, a limping female became separated from the pack Long was tracking and lay recovering in a den while the rest of the wolves moved on. Days passed, then suddenly the female reappeared among the pack.

The wolves’ responsiveness appeared to involve far more than simply following habitual paths, tracking scent trails, or hearing howling or other sounds, and Long wondered whether the same abilities might be found in pets.

He described some simple experiments with a friend’s dog which showed a knack for predicting its master’s return home. The dog would go to stand at the door soon after its owner had started his journey from work.

No one followed Long’s lead in researching this because, among scientists, the subject of telepathy has always been taboo. But in the Nineties I began asking friends and neighbours if they had ever noticed that their animals could anticipate when someone was coming home. I soon received dozens of reports, and by 2011 my database included more than 1,000 accounts of dogs and more than 600 of cats behaving in this way.

In telephone surveys in Britain and the U.S., I found that in about 50% of dog-owning households and about 30% of those with cats, the animals were said to anticipate the arrival of a member of the family. And it was not just dogs and cats that were involved. More than 20 other species showed similar behaviour, especially parrots and horses, but also a ferret, several bottle-fed lambs raised as pets, and pet geese.

Many of those I spoke to made it clear that the animals’ responses were not simply reactions to the sounds of familiar cars or footsteps in the street. They happened too long in advance of the person’s arrival, and often even when they came home by bus or train. It wasn’t just routine. Some people were plumbers, lawyers and taxi drivers who worked irregular hours, but still their pets were ready to welcome them when they got home.

Intrigued by this, I carried out experiments. The most extensive were with a terrier called Jaytee, who lived near Manchester with his owner Pam Smart. Initial observations showed that he was at the window on 85% of the occasions when Pam returned home.

I wanted to be sure that this was not down to Jaytee learning Pam’s routine, or picking up on other clues, so in a series of more formal tests, we arranged for Pam to be at least five miles away from home during each test.

I then set up a camera to film Jaytee’s behaviour and each day selected a random time for Pam to return home, asking her to travel by taxi so as to avoid any cues which might have come from the engine noise of a familiar car. She did not know in advance when she would go home, but was informed when to do so by a pager.

On average, Jaytee was at the window only 4% of the time during the main period of Pam’s absence, and 55% of the time when she was on the way back.

I did similar experiments with other dogs, including a Rhodesian Ridgeback from Manchester called Kane.

He looked out of the window, with his paws on a front table, when his owner came home — but whereas Jaytee’s vigil began shortly before his owner set off, Kane took up his post only when his mistress was already homeward bound.  Both these and the many other cases I have investigated suggest that these animals have some kind of telepathic bond with their owners.

Alongside telepathy, animals also seem to have a sense of impending doom. Since classical times, people have reported unusual animal behaviour before earthquakes, and I have collected much modern evidence.

In all these cases there were descriptions of wild and domesticated animals acting in fearful, anxious or unusual ways. Some possible explanations are that they pick up vibrations in the earth’s surface, or detect subterranean gases.

Or perhaps, as I am suggesting, animals rely on something which defies current scientific understanding. In the case of the Asian tsunami on December 26, 2004, they appeared to be aware that something was happening half an hour beforehand.

According to villagers in Bang Koey, Thailand, a herd of buffalo were grazing by the beach when they suddenly lifted their heads and looked out to sea, ears standing upright. They turned and stampeded up the hill, followed by bewildered villagers, whose lives were thereby saved.

Some animals anticipate other kinds of natural disaster such as avalanches, and even man-made catastrophes. During World War II, many families relied on their pets’ behaviour to warn them of air raids before official warnings were given.

The animal reactions occurred when enemy planes were still hundreds of miles away, long before the animals could have heard them coming, and some dogs in London anticipated the explosion of German V-2 rockets, even though these missiles were supersonic and could not have been heard in advance.

With very few exceptions, the ability of animals to anticipate disasters has been ignored by Western scientists, but things are very different elsewhere.

Since the Seventies, in earthquake-prone areas of China, the authorities have encouraged people to report unusual animal behaviour. In several cases they have issued warnings that enabled cities to be evacuated hours before earthquakes struck, saving tens of thousands of lives.

By paying attention to unusual animal behaviour, earthquake and tsunami warning systems might be feasible in parts of the world that are at risk from these disasters. Millions of people could be asked to take part in this project.

They could be told what kinds of behaviour animals might show if a disaster were imminent. If people noticed such behaviour, they would telephone a hotline. A computer system would analyse the places of origin of the messages. If there was an unusually large number, it would signal an alarm, and display on a map the places from which the calls were coming.

Exploring the potential for animal-based warning systems would cost relatively little. If it turns out that they are indeed reacting to subtle, physical changes, then seismologists should be able to use instruments to detect these and to make better predictions themselves.

If, on the other hand, it turns out that what we call ‘presentiment’ plays a part, we should embrace it, regardless of whether or not we understand it. Ignoring it, or trying to explain it away, will leave us less protected against the unexpected ravages of nature.

About the Author

Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world’s most innovative biologists and writers, is best known for his theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance, which leads to a vision of a living, developing universe with its own inherent memory. He is the autor of The Science Delusion, published  in January 2012 in the UK, where it is a bestseller, and due to be published in the US in September under the title Science Set Free. He worked in developmental biology at Cambridge University, where he was a Fellow of Clare College. He was then Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Hyderabad, India. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project.

from:   akeup-world.com/2012/02/20/are-pets-psychic-a-cambridge-scientist-believes-so/

Vaccinations and Pets

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Vaccinating Unhealthy Pets: Beware Reactions & Vaccine Failure

by JAN RASMUSEN on JANUARY 16, 2012 · 0 COMMENTS

Despite the huge tumor on his mouth, this sweet dog was given 7 shots 4 weeks before this photo was taken. The tumor grew 10-15% after the shots.”

All vaccine labels and inserts state that vaccines are for use in “healthy dogs only.” Unfortunately, no one defines “healthy.”

Most knowledgeable vets agree that certain animals should NOT be vaccinated (absent proven, urgent need such as inevitable exposure to a life-threatening disease). These  include, but aren’t limited to, pets with autoimmune disease … pets undergoing chemo, radiation or surgery (even dental cleaning or neutering) … pets with autoimmune disease, cancer, severe allergies and skin diseases … pets fighting an illness or parasites … pets stressed from shipment or a move to a new home … malnourished pets … and dying housebound pets.  Assaulting the immune systems  of these animals with vaccination has been likened to throwing gas on a raging fire.

Vaccination is big business and an old habit.  Dogs and cats need an advocate with common sense (and a strong backbone) to stand up for their pets. That means you!

So why shouldn’t you vaccinate a sick, stressed or geriatric pet? For one thing, the pet may develop adverse reactions ranging from fever to seizures to autoimmune disease to anaphylactic shock  and even death. Furthermore,shots administered to an unhealthy animal may fail to provide immunity while giving you the false security that your dog is protected.  On top of that, the animal’s immune system, which should be fighting illness, may be diverted to handle the shot.

Vaccine manufacturer Pfizer states, regarding precautions when using their rabies vaccine:  “A protective immune response may not be elicited if animals are incubating an infectious disease, are malnourished or parasitized, are stressed due to shipment or environmental conditions, are otherwise immunocompromised….”

According to the University of Nebraska’s  “Understanding Vaccines”: “While it is common to vaccinate stressed animals, these animals are more susceptible to adverse vaccine reactions and frequently do not develop an adequate immune response. Immune stressed animals develop limited protection from vaccination.”

Drugs.com states, re the Rabies Vaccine Precautions:  ”… level of performance may be affected by conditions of use such as stress, weather, nutrition, disease, parasitism, other treatments, individual idiosyncrasies or impaired immunological competency.  These factors should be considered by the user when evaluating product performance or freedom from reactions.”

Even humans are at risk if a rabies shot fails and the animal becomes infected with rabies. So great is the danger of vaccinating sick and chronically-ill pets that many, if not most, state and local health authorities allow a temporary or permanent exemption from rabies vaccination for these pets. Click to learn how to apply for a rabies vaccination exemption.

I asked some veterinarian friends to share their opinions on this issue. (Note: bold blue type was done by me to emphasize important points.) Special thanks to over-vaccination activist Dr. Patricia Jordan for her help in rounding up responses and references.

From Tamara Hebbler, DVM, holistic consulting vet (San Diego):

The most disturbing, relatively routine, veterinary practice is vaccinating ill or compromised animals.  I am appalled that this is still happening yet I hear from my clients that it is more the norm than the exception.

Vaccinating a stressed or ill dog violates our Hippocratic Oath: Above All Do No Harm.  When an animal is going in for surgery or chemo, or has an autoimmune disease or neoplastic condition [a tumor], or even a chronic immune challenge such as allergies or endocrine/metabolic diseases, they are at a high increased risk to an adverse reaction to any vaccine. I liken such vaccination to playing Russian Roulette with an animal’s immune system — with 5 of the 6 barrels loaded, not just 1.

If negative reactions are severe enough, and immediate, most people will connect the reaction to the shot.  However, if the reaction develops over a few weeks or months, you may not tie it to the shot – and your vet probably won’t either. In standard veterinary practice, we have brief appointments and are very busy, I regret to say, treating many of the dis-ease states that we as a profession, with the help of the pet food industry, have created.  It is only through laborious record review that I made the connection.

Be bold and stand up for your pet especially when he or she is not feeling well. Just say NO to vaccinations and start researching and titer testing.

From Jean Hofve, DVM www.littlebigcat.com and www.spiritessence.com
Former Editor-in-Chief of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association Journal :

Vaccination puts a tremendous burden on the immune system to mount a protective response. If the response is to be adequate and provide protection against disease, there shouldn’t be any other immune-compromising stresses present. Clearly, an animal already fighting an infection, injury, or other illness is not going to have adequate resources to devote to the vaccine–and it could take away from its ability to fight what’s already there. Chemotherapy and steroids suppress the immune system and deplete its ability to produce a good vaccine response. Even something as seemingly benign as a bath or an elective surgery or dental procedure will reduce body temperature, a stress which can also inhibit the immune system. These are some of the reasons why the directions on every vial of vaccine say “for use in healthy animals only.”

from more comments, go to the source:   http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vaccinating-unhealthy-pets/

2011’s Odd Animal Tales

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10 Wacky Animal Stories of 2011

Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 28 December 2011 Time: 08:13 AM ET
Cyclops shark caught in Mexico.
The fisherman who caught the shark is keeping his specimen.
CREDIT: Marcela Bejarano

As the year draws to a close, here’s a look back at some of the weirdest animal discoveries of 2011. From transvestite birds to zombie caterpillars and our own set of animal superheroes, it’s been a wacky ride.

#1. A-Flock-Alypse?

This year started with a bang as scores of birds fell from the skies in January. The “aflockalypse” as it became called, harkened back for many to their first time watching Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “The Birds,” but experts agreed that the birds’ and fish’s mass deaths were just coincidental.

It started with the mysterious deaths of thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and Louisiana around New Years’ eve; this was followed by several reports of dead fish washing ashore and many more “massive” animal die-offs. In the end, the bang with which it all started was probably fireworks, which initially killed the blackbirds. Researchers agree the best explanation so far is the fireworks’ noise and lights may have scared or disoriented the birds, causing them to fatally injure themselves flying into buildings, water towers and trees. The wide pickup of the original blackbird story probably set off the media attention later stories received, but these kind of die-offs are normal, researchers and ecologists say.

#2. Zombie Ants

The year was a big one for zombie insects. Reports of mind-controlled ants and caterpillars were enough to creep out even the least squeamish.

In May, in the journal BMC Ecology, researcher David Hughes from Pennsylvania State University reported that a parasitic fungus infects forest ants to fulfill its bidding. The fungus fills the ant’s head with fungal cells and changes its muscles so the ant can grab a leaf in a death grip just when and where the fungus wants it — specifically, the zombie ants all bite down around noon, then all die together around sunset, like some weird fungus-addled ant cult. The fungus then bursts out of the ants’ heads and spreads its spores to its next unwitting victim.

Another report in September found the genetic culprit that sends caterpillars to the treetops, where they liquefy and rain infectious death down on their peers. The virus that zombifies these gypsy moth caterpillars also makes sure they grow as large as possible so they spread infectious viruses far and wide, said study researcher Kelli Hoover, of Pennsylvania State University. They also send the caterpillars crawling up trees in the middle of the day, when they are most vulnerable to bird attacks.

#3. The mouse with two dads

In a wacky feat of genetic engineering and a stem-cell switcheroo, researchers created the first mouse baby from the genes of two male mice — a mouse that literally has two dads. The mousey Dr. Frankensteins, from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, turned cells from Dad No. 1 into X-only stem cells, which they injected into an egg to make a female mouse, which was then fertilized by sperm from Dad No. 2.

The study, published in the journal Biology of Reproduction, is the first step to making human children from two men, though that is a long way away. This mean feat of genetic engineering was also dubbed by LiveScience reporter Stephanie Pappas as “scientific progress at its cutest” when she met the mice in person.

#4. Animals with superhero senses

Scientists aren’t the only ones turning miraculous tricks this year. Mother Nature has a few up her sleeve as well. Animal super senses turned up in dolphins and vampire bats in 2011, and even one possible sixth sense in humans made an appearance.

Researchers at Rostock University in Germany discovered that the common Guiana dolphin has a special sixth sense: It can sense electric fields with a special organ on its snout. While the ability is common in fish, the dolphins are the first placental mammal (as opposed to a marsupial mammal) found to sense electricity, which they probably use to find fish in the shallow, murky waters they call home.

In other odd animal senses, researchers discovered in August that the vampire bat can “see” heat from veins and arteries using a special organ on its nose that is incredibly sensitive to heat. The bat uses this organ to find blood meals and to bite the right part of the skin: A mouthful of hair is unappetizing to these little bloodthirsty critters.

A possible extra human sense also made an appearance this year. A human protein, when expressed in fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. The researchers caution that the protein might not work that way in humans, though. Sorry, Magneto wannabees.

#5. Strange sperm

It may not be super, but strange sperm abounds in the animal kingdom.

Studies in naked mole rat sperm show that these weird little creatures also have weird little sperm. In any other animals their sperm samples wouldn’t pass quality control, but these eusocial underground rodents make do just fine with their mutant sperm, a study published in the December issue of the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows.

Ducks also have special sperm properties, another 2011 study shows. Their sperm contains antibiotics that might protect them and their mates from sexually transmitted infections. The brighter their bill is, the better their sperm is at killing off bacterial invaders, suggests the study published in April in the journal Biology Letters.

#6. More strange sex

Sperm wasn’t the only weird animal-sex finding of 2011. Multiple studies found everything from hermaphroditic bulldogs to sexually confused fish and birds.

The bulldog Bijou is genetically female, but has some physical properties of a male dog, including a prostate gland and testicles. Researchers are stumped as to why this pup, and another bulldog, Tana, had these male characteristics without male genes.

Other animal he-shes are also stumping researchers this year: A cardinal with half-male, half-female coloring seems to be a genetic anomaly, with half-female and half-male cells. Several sex-changing birds also made the news in 2011, including a female chicken that transformed into a rooster in the United Kingdom over a few weeks time. Researchers think that a tumor or cyst may have caused the switch.

Some birds of prey don female plumage, but don’t actually change gender. These transvestite marsh harriers use such sexual mimicry to fool other males into leaving them alone, researchers reported this year.

#7. Cyclops shark

Strange sex-changing animals weren’t the only weirdoes nature threw at us this year. A Photoshop-quality image of a fetal shark with one eye stunned researchers and cybergawkers alike when it made the news in October. The one-eyed fetus was cut from the belly of a shark in the Gulf of California, but would not likely have survived outside of the womb.

“This is extremely rare,” shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog in July. “As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.” [Photos of Cyclops Shark]

Other, less scientifically based reports of Yeti nest sightings and hair samples from Russia splashed the news this year. And scientists reported finding the lair of a ‘Kraken’ sea monster, though the interpretation of the finding has not been substantiated.

#8. Fishy sexual harassment

Several advancements in the field of fishy sexual harassment made the news this year, indicating that Trinidadian guppies seem to have more gossipy drama and sexual tension than an episode of “Sex in the City.”

A study published in October showed that when a harassing male chases down female guppies, they are more likely to get in fights with other females. The sexually charged males stress these females out so much they end up turning on each other, the researchers said.

Another study showed that these same guppies, when harassed, pair up with prettier females, whose presence draws attention away from themselves.

#9. Animals with protective poisons

Scientists have long understood that plants use poison to defend themselves, but traditionally animals are thought to defend themselves with weapons like sharp teeth and claws. In 2011, a number of animals were discovered to wield poisons of their own.

By utilizing the same plants that African tribesmen use to poison their arrows, the furry fury known as the African crested rat can incapacitate and even kill predators many times its size, research published in August found. The rat chews poisonous bark and spits the poison onto its furt coat, which has specialized hairs with pores to absorb the animal’s poisonous spit, which protects them against predators like dogs.

Another odd animal poison discovered in 2011 is the cyanide-sweating millipede discovered in September. When disturbed, the bugs emit a toxic cyanide goo and foul-tasting chemicals that deter predators looking for a snack. Luckily for its predators this odd insect also has a nighttime glow to warn predators of its poisonous secretions

#10. The loudest genitals

One loud little insect makes a big call, from an unorthodox organ. Research published in July indicates that by using its genitals, the water boatman makes the loudest song for its size: At less than one-tenth of an inch (2.3 millimeters) long, it calls out to mates at over 99 decibels, as loud as an orchestra. The odd insect’s song from the depths of a river can even be heard along its banks, the researchers said, and is likely created when the animal rubs its genitals against ridges on its body, though the scientists aren’t sure how the sound gets so loud.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17652-10-wacky-animal-stories-2011.html

November 6-12

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Overall Color for the Week:    Light Grey

Is it at all possible that you are not yet aware of all the shifts and changes that are happening all around you, and at times, even within you? There is so much going on, and that is leading everyone ot feeling a bit unsettled, testy, and not quite with it.  There can be times of intense distraction, when all of a sudden you will snap out of it and wonder where you were and what just happened.  Your sense of what is important is shifting.  Time seems out of whack.  Pay attention to when these things happen, for there is meaning in it.  You will begin to see in others certain patterns and behaviors that can either attract you or turn you off.  People are shifting and changing, just as you are.  This can lead to changes in friendships and relationships.  There are many choices to be made at this time, and one of them is whether or not you wish to remain where you are, when, you are and with whom you are.  This is not a time for precipitate action, .  Slow and steady, in this case, will more than win the day, it will assist you in making the changes you have been wanting to make, and in becoming the WHO you chose to be at this time.  Trust your intuition and do not let go.  There is comfort and assistance if you will call upon it and accept it Continue reading →