I like standing here with a stick in my mouth, not knowing why I picked it up, or what I’m going to do with it. I like just standing here. If I sense a craft overhead, it doesn’t bother me. I know what it is. I’ve seen lots of them. I am perfectly happy with this stick in my mouth, doing nothing. In another minute I may start to chew on it, but if I do the stick will be perfectly fine with my need to chew it. It isn’t afraid of me. I know it isn’t afraid of me because I can feel its energy, and its energy doesn’t know anything about fear. Everything and everyone is energy. So why should anything be afraid? We should just be attentive.

  My MM watches me carry the stick under a tree that gives me shade on this sunny, magical Easter weekend. She’s looking around because she doesn’t know what to think about anything. I wish she’d just play with me, but my MM is too busy thinking and wondering.

  I know that to her our animal play looks like fighting sometimes, but we know the difference through the sound of our growls, and we make sure to bite each other on the neck, where loose skin and lots of fur make it safe. Yes, we have a pecking order, and yes, we have squabbles, but we settle them without killing. When we fight to establish dominance or chase off another male trying for our female’s attention, we don’t fight to the death, we just fight until one dog turns over and exposes his throat. We have no equivalent to the war that my MM worries about. So what is war to us dogs? It’s stupid and it kills living beings. We don’t like that at all because if it goes too far we won’t have anyone to play with.

  Shirley

  As I stand looking out at God’s country, I try to remember a time when I was perfectly at peace. There are not many moments when I seemed to disappear into what I saw, when I had no concerns, no thought of the past or future, when I was only aware of now. Once as a child I was walking past a garden of colorful pansies when suddenly I seemed to become the pansies, with their color, their scent, and their essence. In those moments I found total bliss, and I’ve never forgotten it. I see Terry doing this all day long. Right now she’s sticking her little nose into a desert flower and breathing in the white of it. In a while she will nibble on the herbs in my garden.

  When we speak of our pets giving us love, what do we mean? Are they always in a spiritual state, a state beyond judgment?

  I have a friend whose son was murdered. She not only forgave the murderer, but she became his keeper. When he was released from prison, she took responsibility for him and brought him into her own home. Knowing that she and I both shared a belief in the law of karma, the Buddhist principle of cause and effect, I asked her, “Do you believe that on some level you played a part in the death of your son?” It was very hard for her to admit, and almost as hard for me to hear, but she said, yes, the lesson learned from the death of her son was something she needed in order to learn forgiveness. Our own karma always plays a role.

  My friend had cut herself off from God before her son was murdered. Then she reconnected to Spirit, and all of the laws of cause and effect in her life became clear. She knew that what we put out returns to us. She said it was not a punitive concept, but a law of nature, the Law of One. Because of her experience, and the understanding she gained from it, my friend became a beacon of hope and insight for others. She is peaceful and happy despite the terrible tragedy she suffered.

  I look at Terry and wonder if my love for her is some sort of overcompensation for not having been there for my own daughter. Is Terry my new daughter? Could I have taken more pleasure in the rearing of my own child if I had realized sooner what I know now? Perhaps. I didn’t know how to be present with myself then, let alone with someone else.

  It seems almost ridiculous to say it, but a dog is so much easier to raise, in part because I accept that her identity has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t require me to do anything right. Terry is so obviously and completely herself. She barks, she licks, she plays, and she loves. It’s that simple, and it’s that foolproof. Although her identity is infinite, she is teaching me that now is everything. With children we constantly worry about the future.

  So I look at my peaceful, meaningful landscape and I try to figure out how to be a part of the other, “real,” world. Knowing it’s an illusion, why do I want to go back into it? It all seems so crazy to me right now. Is that just because of the way I perceive it? If so, then to change the world I have to change my own perceptions. I don’t want to live in a world that is enslaved by ambition, by technology, by power, by terror, by competition, by anxiety, and greed. I don’t want to give those dark forces substance by thinking they’re real. In little ways I’ve seen the world around me change by the way I perceive it. Could it possibly be that there is no world at all outside of our collective and individual dream?

  When my mother was dying she saw all the people in the world as hearts beating in unison, connected to each other by a golden thread. Right before her passing, she said she wished that we could see that thread connecting us all, because if we could, we would never be unhappy again. That moment reminded me of a vision she had had years before, when she saw that trees and the earth and even people were filled with inner light, and there was a gentle wind moving within that light. She said there was also light within the earth, radiating up and out to those of us who walked upon it.

  For all her amazing visions, as she approached the time of her passing, my mother told the doctors she could no longer see. After a full battery of tests, the doctors could find no physical reason for it. I think she just didn’t want to see anything beyond her inner vision any more. She wanted to be free of life’s conflicts. Making decisions had always been difficult for my mother, but at the end everything was simple. There were no complications, just love. Sometimes she only wanted her cat, Gypsy, in the room with her. I think the aloof mysteriousness of that cat was a comfort to my mother as she prepared to enter the great mystery herself, especially by contrast to our hovering, worried family love.

  My father’s transition was longer. Each day my father would tell his nurses and doctors about his spirit travels the night before, when he visited his father, his mother, and his other relatives that had crossed over. They told him things. They told him about his life before he was born, and about the history of the Earth and the human race. Every morning doctors and nurses at Johns Hopkins would come by for an informal seminar at the foot of my father’s bed. It was remarkable because these were conventional medical doctors, yet they all seemed to understand that when someone is in the process of passing, they gain access to privileged information and higher knowledge.

  One of the finest surgeons at Johns Hopkins told me later that often when he was operating he felt guided, as if his hands were being held and moved by an invisible master. He said he had learned to let go and trust this force to direct his movements, and in doing so had become uncommonly skilled, saving hundreds of lives.

  Terry

  There are many angels guiding the human race but they are having a difficult time because the humans don’t think it’s possible. It doesn’t matter though, because everything is happening just as it should. It was determined a long time ago. I just wish people would be more open to the guidance. Then they wouldn’t suffer so much. What the people in the world have created is insane. What I am living is sane. I rest in spirit so I am balanced. I close my eyes and I sink into a stillness that is perfect.

  Shirley

  The rains have passed and the dogs and I are setting out for a walk along a path which will be peppered with piñon and juniper trees. Once this was the land of towering ponderosa pines and tall grasses, until the white man leveled the trees and turned his cattle and sheep loose to graze. Millions of years before that, this was a vast savannah where dinosaurs roamed. I sometimes wonder if their spirits are still here, bearing silent witness to the endless flow of change. If so, they will make themselves known to Spooky, my alpha spirit dog, who, as always, is in the lead.

  I move with Terry, Sheba, and the rest of the pack, and the sun is part of me. When the dogs are at my side I am more alert to the world around me. I take notice of a spring blossom that has come out overnight, and I imagine the snows from the higher mountains melting to create the stream that runs alongside us. I lie face-down in the stream with my clothes on, remembering that this water purifies itself every hundred yards. The dogs stand quietly watching me. I am part of their pack yet their leader. They don’t wade in splashing or barking or shaking themselves in delight. It’s as if they know I don’t want the water muddied, that I am savoring its purity. I’m different from them yet one of them.

  It’s difficult to explain the freedom I feel as I drink the icy water flowing under my nose and mouth. I am primitive, availing myself of the sacred gifts of nature.

  Terry

  While MM had her face in the stream I saw two rabbits chasing each other. Then they stopped and one got on top of the other. At first I didn’t know what they were doing. Then I walked away to give them some privacy, which I thought they would enjoy, but I really wanted to go back and ask them some questions about rabbit sex. I see that human sex certainly has a lot of people confused!

  I think people make too much of sex. It’s certainly not an issue for me, since I’ve been neutered, and it’s not much of an issue for MM, who went through menopause some time ago. I do wonder why people let sex run so much of their lives. Sex is something to be enjoyed when everything else works.

  Sex for its own sake was never that interesting to MM, even though it is for lots of humans. Emotional intimacy was always what made sex fun for MM, and intimacy is all about trust. Looking down on her life I saw that when she was younger, sex certainly had more intensity because her hormones were raging, but as she got older her hormones stopped running her love life. And what a relief it is for her to be free of that.

  Now MM finds a man “erotic” who reveals his vulnerabilities and values to the world. I, of course, don’t find it erotic, but I like men who act like that. Human attraction is often a matter of art, I think, and since so many people are artists I wonder how they can be faithful to one partner for a lifetime. Why does this society feel that “monogamy” is necessary? If a partner is a possession that might make sense, but owning someone never really seems to work.

  When MM talks to me about sex I tell her I would be turned on by someone who likes to play. She likes that too. She is also turned on by mischief, as am I. Cuddling is good too—feeling deep contentment curling up with someone who truly understands you is something we both love. Happily, we give that to each other.

  Sometimes when we’re channel surfing we will come across a show on television with naked people having sex, and we always get bored by all the grunting and moaning. Maybe it’s because we know they’re acting. Maybe MM acted a little bit in such moments too, thinking sex required a performance from her, but she doesn’t feel that way anymore, to my great relief. Performance was certainly never an issue for me. In fact, in this lifetime I’ve never experienced sex, and I couldn’t care less.

  Sometimes my MM feels guilty about having had me neutered because she’d love to know what my babies would be like. But she’s really my child, as anyone can see. When I first met Spooky, the alpha male, he tried to make me his Barbie possession by peeing on me to stake out his turf. That was not smart. I tolerated this for a while, and then one day I flirted with him until he rolled over on his back. Then I straddled him, squatted, and peed on his face! He never approached me again.

  I flirt with everybody really. I do it by jumping up on them and nipping their noses. If humans flirt with each other and it leads to something more I don’t see anything wrong with it. Neither does God. In fact, God likes people to enjoy each other’s bodies, as long as they don’t hurt each other.

  Bodies are wonderfully expressive human machinery. But it’s a waste of machinery if they only use them to make babies. There are too many babies in the world anyway. I enjoy looking at human bodies. They are so beautiful, and sometimes funny, and really nice to cuddle up to. Those times when I see people on TV with no clothes on their bodies doing their sex stuff, they do it too fast. They go so fast when they move together that I don’t know how they can enjoy their beautiful machinery. They should slow down. We were much slower in Egypt when we built all those majestic monuments. People and gods were living up to the bigness of their spirits back then.

  But now humans are delusional. They think they have to be thin to be attractive, yet that must feel very bony in bed. They are obsessed with not being fat. They should be healthy, of course, but that’s more about loving themselves than it is about what other people think. Humans seem to care an awful lot about “keeping up with the Boneses,” and with buying expensive clothes at discount prices.

  People have such strange ideas about what’s attractive. They don’t seem to go for the heart as much as they go for the “sexy” body. And of course they don’t really know how to play. If they ever have a problem they should just roll over on their back. People haven’t learned to roll over yet. They keep on arguing. Exposed tummies are very good problem solvers, and thankfully I have been seeing more of those lately.

  One thing I don’t like to see is male humans in middle age going for younger women just to prove that they can still perform in bed. What is this performance business? Why don’t they just enjoy themselves? And the younger women seem to go for those older men because they have money. To me they are both ridiculous. And the funny thing about it is that everyone else knows what’s really going on.

  As for MM and me, we don’t have much time for sex anyway. If it came along, fine, but I think we’d rather be in bed with each other. There are fewer problem—no backtalk, no orders—and we can live our lives the way we want to. We are both more interested in, shall we say, social intercourse. What interests us is how people walk, talk, think, play, and how much of themselves they are willing to share.

  I’m watching humans as they grapple with the subject of what they call “gay” sex. I don’t understand the problem. Neither does God. America’s president recently said, “We are all sinners.” Well, he couldn’t be more wrong. He just thinks that people are sinners, which of course leads to all kinds of problems. Souls live in bodies, and every soul has its own taste.

  It’s fun for me to see a hu-man man dressed up like a woman, because that means he enjoys looking good, just like my MM. What people do with their bodies is their business. I think most people get their opinions about sex from religion. It seems like very religious people don’t usually have a very free attitude about sex. I think it may have to do with their confusion about whether God or Jesus or Mary had sex.

  I think religion confuses people about many things. It can make them afraid of God, of each other, and even of dying, since the Bible says that they’re not coming around again, except for Jesus on Easter, and the Second Coming. But there are other good books that say they are. I think it would be better if people were taught that they were going to be reborn—then they’d realize they couldn’t get away with anything because they’d just carry that old baggage into their new life. They’d realize they might as well take responsibility now and get it over with.

  I hear my MM and her friends having long talks about the difference between religion and what they call spirituality. I’d like to say a few things about that too. Religion happened a long time ago when people stopped being able to read each other’s thoughts. If you can’t read people’s thoughts you have to depend on words, and that can lead to manipulation, which can lead to religion. For humans maybe religion began when beings came down from the sky and were mistaken for God. Maybe the sky visitors saw that humans were cruel to each other so they decided to give them rules to establish control. When they told people all the things they couldn’t do instead of all the things they were capable of doing, that’s how religion was born. Humans became “God-fearing” people, and sex-fearing people, and full-of-guilt people.

  In my time in Egypt with MM we had lots of gods. We had gods of thunder and gods of lightning and gods of water and gods of sun and gods of moon and gods of plants and gods of dogs and gods of cats. As Anubis I was one of the most important because I spoke to people about no-death. Maybe weshouldhave lots of gods since everything around us is part of God. Nobody put it all together into one thing called religion back then. But whether it’s one god or many, I certainly don’t believe it’s right to kill people over whoever they think their god is. I don’t know any gods who would like that either. When people kill they build up negative karma, regardless of their reasons.

  I know MM thinks religion is a real problem in the world. She’s concerned about a holy war. For some humans nothing is more important than their God, so when different fundamentalist groups of people like that decide their God is theonlyGod, things can get very nasty. And nasty karma is not good for anyone.

  Humans should understand that down through time they have each experienced being both male and female. That was the way they learned about each other. But I must say from what I’ve observed regarding their “war of the sexes,” they haven’t learned fast enough. Each person should be a reflection of the soul, and each soul is equally balanced between male and female. That has been difficult for humans to understand, which has created a lot of complicated karma relating to the sexes.

  All humans have unresolved karma with each other. In fact, the reason they are alive on earth is to clean up their karmic issues. Families can be the most difficult things to sort out because family members have souls that need the most resolution with each other. If they went within themselves and touched their souls’ past, the world would be a more peaceful place.

  Shirley