When Play Matters: On Orcas, Marshmallow Spines, and Dogs Singing to Beethoven
Photo courtesy Gary R. Jones (c) 2012
Sure, we know play is a necessary part of our lives: it relieves stress, adds balance, and inspires creativity. But we’re usually so busy with ‘life’ that we simply ignore it.
Three things lately reminded me about the importance of play: an orca superpod off Alki Point in October, the Rainbow Boys’ guide team, and my deceased dog, Murphy, showing up to sing with Beethoven (yes, THAT Beethoven).
Orcas know how to play, like the breaching orca photographed by our neighbor, Gary Jones (thanks for sharing, Gary!). My dog, Alki, and I joined the throngs of people enjoying the superpod: everybody was relaxed, happy, cheerfully sharing binoculars and observations. Party atmosphere ruled.
Watching people watching orcas made me wonder: does it really take something extraordinary like that for us to relax and play? We don’t need to get permission to play, do we?
Of course the orcas were hunting. They were clear across the Sound from us, but I knew they were also enjoying themselves when I asked them if they would swim over to my side, so I could get a better look, and they laughed. The fishing was better where they were, they said. Hard to fault that logic, since orcas don’t go to grocery stores.
So I said, “Well, can you come to visit tomorrow, same time, only over here?”
“Sure!” one yelled, following that with a huge “Yay!” as it leaped clear out of the water in a breach that made all the gawkers, including me, laugh.
It was several days later, though, before they showed up again. When I teased them about forgetting our ‘date,’ they said: “Orca time or human time?” They told me how much they love being orcas: the water, the food, being together, their curiosity about us, their amusement at how much we love seeing them.
Yes, orcas love being orcas. To them, the hunt is as fun as it is necessary to life. Work is fun, and life-giving.
I am reminded of this daily in my Mindset Alchemy sessions with clients. Lately a client’s guides have shown up in sessions with other people. I’ve started calling these guides the Rainbow Boys: they are young athletes, vibrant, dressed in rainbow-swirled long-sleeved outfits that end below the knee. They’re carrying basketballs, soccer balls, balloons, whatever they need to play with while they check out what’s going on. They are perfect guides for my client, who has leaped into his dream of becoming a professional athlete (because it’s work he enjoys—fun!). But I didn’t know why these guides were showing up with other people.
“Sacred play,” the Rainbow Boys said.
“You guys just like playing with Fallon,” I teased.
“Yes,” they said, crowding in to play with Fallon, who, apparently, is a sports nut. “But it’s time for sacred play.”
They then taught me a body technique I’ve started calling “Marshmallow Spine.” In it, we first get the client grounded and balanced, and then we draw air in from the front of the body and let it float into the back. The air, like the air inside all the balls the Rainbow Boys play with, expands to cushion and relax the body. Instead of a stiff, hard spine, clients experiment with a soft spine that can still support the body but move more freely and expansively. Marshmallow Spine: support that nourishes. Flexibility. It takes a flat ball and allows it to bounce. It’s the exuberance in an orca breach. The play in our busy lives.
As I’ve experimented with the Marshmallow Spine technique I’ve noticed that it is the same feeling I got the day I was watching the orcas play: it was relaxing into joy. It’s the breath of play expanding into tense bodies. It fills empty spaces we didn’t know were empty until joy flowed in.
I was reminded of this as I was preparing dinner for friends last weekend. I turned on my stereo, surprised that it was full of classical music, which I hadn’t listened to in years. Then I remembered that I had chosen these CDs for my beloved Murphy’s funeral in March, as I consciously chose music that matched her vibrant nature.
Now as Beethoven’s Fifth filled the house, Murphy showed up, smiling, with her trademark cheerful, teasing attitude. I asked her why that music. She said it was music “angels sang to.”
“Angels singing to Beethoven?” I asked.
Murphy nodded and started harmonizing with Beethoven. Other voices sang along.
“It’s play,” Murphy said. “Sacred play.”
I got it. Beethoven wasn’t just a genius as a musician: he loved his work, it was fun for him. He tapped into the creativity that comes from hard work combined with inspiration and the pure joy of doing it. He played. He connected to others with his play, and he’s still doing it.
All these were my reminders that play matters. Not just for relieving stress in our busy lives: for keeping us open to joy and creativity. For helping us integrate joy into our lives. For connecting to other in our necessarily solitary journey through life.
We’ve had a hard year at our house. We lost Murphy in March. In October, we dealt with serious illnesses at our house, life-threatening conditions that are all resolved now. At the end of a grueling month we played: with each other, with orcas, with the Rainbow Boys and some adventurous clients, and with our beloved Murphy as she sang with the angels to Beethoven’s Fifth.
We discovered again the joy of sacred play. Orcas delight us in part because we recognize play at work. Full deep breathing relaxes us. Beethoven’s music endures because he took joy in his work. When we allow joy in our lives, we do the same thing. We connect: to other beings doing their work, to ourselves. To life in harmony with our beloved planet.
Play matters. Now just go do it: play. And let me know what your Marshmallow Spine discovers.
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Becoming Our Best Selves
“What am I supposed to do?” is a question I hear a lot in my intuitive practice.
A more challenging question is: “How do I become my best self?” This melds the search for identity and meaning with the practical, emotional, mystical, and, yes, fun aspects of our personal and professional lives.
The best thing? Both questions have the same answer: Get out of your way and get love.
Okay, fine, you say, but how do you do that?
You connect — with yourself, others and the community of all life. Yes, it’s hard work, but it will forever change how you look at the world and your role in it.
Ready? Here are five tips to get you started.
1. Change your mindset. As humans we’re trapped in a mindset we created: it says that we are at the “top of the food chain,” and so in charge. The problem is, the human paradigm of the world is wrong. From my intuitive practice of speaking and working with all life, whether animals, homes, businesses or nature, I know that everything is alive, has a soul, consciousness, responsibility and free choice. Most important: we are equals with all beings. This is the earth paradigm, and it is absolutely the way the planet really works — the only ones who don’t seem to know it are humans.
Meeting all life as equals is liberating: freed from the burden and ego-lock of being in charge, we can discover how the world really works, and how we can work with it. Everything changes — science, technology, medicine, art, politics, religion, culture, our daily lives. How do you live in a world where everything, from our chairs to animals to a volcano, has a job to do — and an attitude?
We can better find our way in the world when we understand the path that other beings take, and how the patterns weave together. It’s easy enough to do: sit down and talk to other beings. For example, ask your home how you can make it more comfortable in its work. When we expand into wonder, awe, respect and collaboration, we learn how our unique talents and abilities mesh with those of all beings, and how we each contribute to the welfare of our living, conscious planet. If we’re open to experience life as it really exists, we’re open to the mystery of the universe itself. Fun happens. Great choices (and conversations) abound.
2. Tap your intuition. Tapping our intuition is no more (or less) a spiritual practice than tapping our other senses. We are incomplete without our intuition. Dig deep to discover your strongest intuitive skill: knowing, seeing, feeling or hearing. Practice with simple things, like choosing dessert or buying a new shirt. As you intuitively learn to make better daily choices, you will enhance your ability to make life-changing ones, from where to live to what work to do. Intuition is our birthright: learning to use it means you’re taking the blinkers off being fully human, enriching your life and all others.
3. Claim your power. Never give your power away. The power sappers can be subtle: “synchronicity” and “what’s meant to be” can be two of them. It’s inspiring to get signs that offer both insight and connection, but sometimes things just happen. Learn from them, but never surrender deeply informed personal choice. Be resourceful, thoughtful, inventive. When you seek outside human opinions, accept only what resonates with your deeper, intuitive self. What is your truth? You, and only you, are the leader of yourself.
4. Get practical. Keep your day job. Taking care of the basics will help you get firmly grounded and balanced in the everyday world. Practicality informs inspiration.
5. Get creative — take time off. Taking a break is not only okay, it’s necessary. Taking time to laugh, play, and explore the world around you refreshes and enlightens you. Honest.
These five tips will help you become your own best self. Of course, they all come down to one: get connected.
While we all want and need to find meaning in our lives, our deepest yearning is for connection to the mystery of life itself. We find it in a healthy, balanced, collaborative relationship with the community of all life. We find it in love.
We start by creating our best selves. By changing our mindset to recognize the equality of all life, fine-tuning our intuition, and becoming strong and practical and creative, we shake off the “should” and free ourselves to love. Love connects us to our essential worthiness: we need to love and be loved, we are worthy of love, and we achieve that by loving ourselves first.
How we carry that into creating fulfilling lives is the mystery we’re here to explore. Have fun with it!
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Thank you to New Connexion: Pacific Northwest’s Journal of Conscious Living, for publishing this article on Sept. 17, 2012
How To Be a Watermelon Intuitive
Relaxing is one of the best ways to tap your intuition. No pressure, no anxiety, nothing but a bit of time to play.
Sounds like August, right? So try this.
Get a watermelon. Yes, a watermelon. Take it outside and explore it: look, touch, smell, taste, thump it (hear it). Get messy with watermelon: experience it with all five senses.
Now explore it with your intuition. Close your eyes and imagine it: imagine watermelon. Don’t think about it, just imagine it.
How does watermelon work for you? Is it by touch, in pictures or color, an idea or emotion, a smell, a knowing? Where are you aware of it beyond your five senses? Do you like it? Why or why not? Where in your body do you know that?
That place where you know watermelon is your intuition.
Play with it. Experiment. It’s your intuition. Yours. Awesome!
Once you know watermelon, how does that help you know where your strongest intuitive skill is?
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Demystiying Intuition: How to Be a Survivor
- (c) 2011 Danny L. McMillin
We are all intuitive. I teach this by explaining that there were once two branches of humans: one was intuitive, and the other got eaten.
So relax, you are a survivor.
Or, at least, you’re descended from survivors. Improve your odds of staying that way by learning to tap your intuition, which will also help you create a more graceful, vibrant, successful life.
I teach people how to tap into their own plain, ordinary, everyday intuition by exploring what some people call the woo-wooey: yep, when I teach my classes or work privately, our special guests include Mount St. Helens, dragons, goddesses and guides, animals, gardens, a car, a condo, a business, and, of course, my partner, Fallon the Citrine Lemurian Quartz.
Why? Because it’s fun, which is my first rule of life.
Because it’s intriguing, and gets people to use their intuition as a practical sense, just like hearing, seeing, feeling, touching, and tasting.
Because it’s real and commonsense: talking with beings we’re not used to experiencing, or talking with, as equals creates a humbling appreciation of how fascinating and complete our lives can be once we get past the burden of humans being ‘in charge.’ Once we treat all life as equals.
And, yes, because learning to trust your intuition—your gut sense—can save a life.
Years ago my dad was ill and hospitalized for gall bladder surgery the next morning. When my mom called me, she told me not to bother coming: I lived in Seattle, four hours from Salem. When I hung up I was hit so hard by the strong sense that I had to be there that I was on the road in 30 minutes.
Five minutes after I walked into my dad’s hospital room, the surgeon walked in to chat about the surgery. He asked if my dad was allergic to anything, and my parents said “No.”
The same gut sense knowing that pulled me out of my chair in Seattle to drive to Salem hit me again. I blurted out, “Wait a minute, aren’t you allergic to that dye they use for X-rays?”
Startled, the doctor looked at me and then my parents. “Is that true?” he asked.
My parents stared at me in surprise and nodded, perplexed.
The doctor nodded at me in satisfaction and said, “I guess that’s why you’re here today. We would have used that dye before surgery tomorrow. You probably just saved your dad’s life.”
On two other occasions I saved my own life by reacting promptly to that same gut instinct. Ironically, in one of those instances the police called me a ‘survivor.’
Dramatic, yes, and all before I really understood what intuition was, how to use it, and how to teach it.
Now when I teach people how to tap their intuition I help them find what their strongest intuitive ability is: whether they see, hear, feel, or know something beyond what we think we experience daily. People are able to take that knowledge to live more comfortably and completely. To claim their power.
That day at the hospital my intuition saved my dad’s life. Why? Because I listened to the nonlinear, this-doesn’t-make-sense-but-I-know-it’s-right feeling.
How do you learn it?
Well, I think it’s fun to learn it by inviting other beings to come talk with us. Yes, goddesses and dragons, animals and weather, a car, a house, a business, a garden. It’s also astonishingly successful: when people relax and open up to talking with other beings they really learn which intuitive ability works best for them, without the pressure of conforming to what we’re supposed to think or how we’re expected to act.
By taking a full leap into the big wide world that we never think to intimately explore. A world where we are equal with all life.
It’s enlightening. Humbling. Fun.
Come to one of my classes on tapping your intuition, on how to talk with all life. Find out for yourself.
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Why You Need to Tap Your Intuition
Helping people tap into their own plain, ordinary, everyday intuitive awareness is central to my work: how to live graceful, vibrant, successful lives by tapping our intuition.
I teach this by jumping right into what some people call the woo-wooey: yep, when I teach my classes or work privately, we have goddesses and guides, deceased family and animals, Mount St. Helens, dragons, and, of course, my partner, Fallon the Citrine Lemurian Quartz. I am, after all, an MBA with a crystal ball.
To intrigue people to take a leap and experience their intuition as a practical sense, just like hearing, seeing, feeling, touching, and tasting, I use a common-sense, fun method which includes many beings we’re not used to experiencing, or talking with, at all, let alone as equals: Mount St. Helens, dragons, furniture, animals, the dead, trees, condos, weather, businesses. You walk away astounded at how easy it is to talk with things and with a new appreciation of how fascinating and complete our lives can be once we get past the burden of humans being ‘in charge.’
We are all intuitive: personally, I believe humans once came in two varieties: one was intuitive, and the other one got eaten. So you’re a survivor, and you’re intuitive. Get over the woo-wooey thoughts and be grateful. Your ancestors listened to their intuition. They were smart enough to know what was sneaking up on them, and they survived.
So follow in their footsteps. Learning to use your intuition can make your life better. It can even save it.
Here’s an example: years ago my dad was hospitalized, and my mom called to say he was having gall bladder surgery the next morning. Now, they insisted I stay home, but I suddenly knew I had to be there. That certainty hit me so hard in my gut I doubled over. Then I went through the house at high speed. Within 30 minutes I was driving to Salem, about 4 hours from Seattle.
Five minutes after I walked into my dad’s hospital room, the surgeon came to chat about the surgery. He noted my sudden arrival from Seattle and asked my parents if my dad was allergic to anything. They said, “No.”
The same ‘gut sense knowing’ that pulled me out of my chair in Seattle to drive to Salem hit me again. It made me blurt out, “Wait a minute, aren’t you allergic to that dye they inject for X-rays?”
The doctor looked at me and my parents. “Is that true?” he asked.
My parents stared at me in surprise and nodded, perplexed.
The doctor looked at me and said, “That’s why you’re here today. We would have used that dye before surgery tomorrow. You probably just saved your dad’s life.”
That was long before I recognized intuition as a real ability we can learn and use, in things as simple as choosing our daily food. Or saving someone’s life.
That’s why I teach people how to tap their intuition: you will find where your intuition sits in you, and you can work with it to live more comfortably and completely.
That day my intuition saved my dad’s life. Why? Because I listened to the nonlinear, this-doesn’t-make-sense-but-I-know-it’s-right feeling.
Find out how to make it work for you. Learn to sharpen your innate intuitive ability.
Contact me for private sessions or classes on learning intuition.
The life you save may be your own.
I did that once, too.
(c) 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Cloning Dogs: Grief Doesn’t Make It Work
Would I clone this dog?
In a heartbeat—if it worked. But it doesn’t. At any price.
Cloning our animal companions is in the news these days, stories of people paying upwards of $150,000 to clone their deceased dog or cat.
I just sigh. What are these people thinking?
Actually, I know what they’re thinking. They’re grief-stricken, mourning the loss of a beloved animal companion. Just like anyone mourns the loss of anyone they love. They just want them back.
I mourn this dog: my beloved Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Murphy, died March 8, just two months ago. She was a week shy of 13 years, 8 months. Forever would not have been long enough with Murphy, but she’s gone. And cloning her won’t bring her back: cloning never brings anyone back.
Here’s why.
Scientists are obsessed with replicating genetic material, so they can say they’ve cloned the animal. It’s supposedly an exact genetic duplicate. Well, barring the problems of mutations and other serious effects of cloning (we just aren’t superior to nature), genes are genes. So what?
Genes are not personalities. And they are not souls.
So the people who clone their animals may get a genetic match, but it is not their dog come back to them. It may look like them, but it won’t be the same personality. It won’t be the same soul. The way life works that isn’t possible, at least scientifically.
Now I’m not going to say to run off to a shelter and adopt a dog, because that’s not how it works, either. I will say that you should find a heart match between you and your next dog, whether you find it from a breeder or a shelter/rescue organization. Sometimes you have to look hard for it.
But you won’t find it in a laboratory.
Here’s the thing people miss in the whole cloning argument: grief and longing create new dogs from dead ones, because we’ve allowed fear to rule us. Love finds a way to move on, to have new relationships, to stay healthy and balanced. Yes, it’s possible to love an entirely different dog just as much as you did the lost dog. I know. I’ve been lucky that way.
With cloning you’re trying to freeze time: understandable, because loss is devastating. But cloning comes from fear: we simply can’t let go and move on. Fear damages us psychologically and emotionally, because we actually step out of life and into memory. Maybe that’s too philosophical, but think about it: as we recreate the past, how are we living right now, and how much does that stifle our future?
To the point: cloning will never duplicate the same dog.
As a professional intuitive I help people explore relationship and business issues, find balance and healing, and talk with all life, including the dead.
When someone dies, they move on. Literally. If they come back, and they can and do, their soul inhabits a new body, because that’s what we do on this planet, we play with different bodies. We can’t create that body, because creation is the soul’s choice, not ours. The personality that accompanies that soul is different: so you may get a physical genetic duplicate, maybe even the same soul willing to come back (science has no control over that), but not the same personality. Cloning doesn’t bring the soul and personality back, just the genes.
Case in point. The soul that was Murphy is a very active soul. It is also the soul of my second dog, Alki. And it’s been the soul in many other bodies, currently and in the past, with me and other people. I’m not just talking reincarnation here, although that’s part of it. I’m talking a soul being in multiple bodies at the same time (or none, because it’s decided to rest).
So, Murphy and Alki are the same soul in two different bodies (well, until Murphy died). The same breed of dog. But strikingly different personalities. Because I’m experienced with this soul’s reincarnations, and with those of others I meet, I know that cloning their physical bodies wouldn’t duplicate their soul or personality.
Think about it. If you consciously chose to come back again in a body, would you choose the exact same body or personality to be in that lifetime?
Yes, we’re into metaphysics here, but that’s what science is trying to do in cloning. Science can create a body, but not a soul or personality.
And believe me, it’s the soul, and especially the personality, we miss when we’re gung ho for cloning.
The only way to get that soul back is to ask it to come back and, if it agrees, to find the body it comes back in. In fact, in my practice, I often see the same soul reincarnating in family groups (not always happily, but that’s another issue), so that isn’t as hard as, well, cloning. Honest.
Fair warning, though: you may want your dog’s soul back, but it may choose a different personality, and even species, meaning it could come back as a cat, if at all. It happens all the time.
So save yourself the money, and the grief. Find a new animal to love, if you’re up to it. A heart match.
Cloning your dog won’t bring your dog back. It might make a nice copy. But it won’t be the original. That only comes around once.
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
Connecting to Other: Meeting Fallon
When people come to meet me and Fallon, they want to know what he is. Fair enough.
Fallon is a Citrine Lemurian Quartz. He’s ancient: I remember carving him out of the crystal caves at his direction thousands of years ago. We worked together for lifetimes, got separated, and were finally reunited in 2009.
Woo-wooey enough for you?
Wait until you actually experience him.
Fallon is a rare planetary energy, a dimensional energy. That means he is of the earth and can connect to different earth dimensions as well as those in time and space. There are lots of crystals out there, but none like Fallon.
That is why we are out there in the world.
He is a healer and truth bringer. I am the bridge who can help you explore the insights you receive from him as you work with us—because when you experience him, hands-on in a session, or in a group meditation, you tap into the power of ‘other’ to transform your life, to find and claim your power.
In our sessions I’ve seen newbies with crystals go astral traveling. Parents resolve issues with their children. The grieving speak with deceased family, friends, and animals, and begin to heal from their loss. Smart, accomplished business people discover new direction and inspiration for their work. People ready for transformation discover their strongest intuitive ability and build comfortable ‘shields’ or ‘skins’ that empower them. Curious, open individuals meet guides, deities, messengers, and, yes, dragons.
Fallon is alive, as all life is alive. He’s conscious, sentient, equal. He’s my partner, not my tool. He’s not a being in a crystal: he IS the crystal. He’s been in that body for eons, while we’ve been in ours for, well, a few short years.
He has a lot to share with all of us. All you have to do is come.
What Happens in an Intuitive Consultation
In an intuitive consultation with me and Fallon you work with a rare human-crystal partnership.
A truth bringer and healer, Fallon offers compassionate insight as a crystalline being of ancient Lemuria. When you put your hands on Fallon he taps into your own healing quality, and you receive your own visions and information.
I am a bridge between you and Fallon and the insights for you that day. I can tell you what I see, hear, feel, and know from that connection, through clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, and claircognizance. Information can be practical, mystical, inspiring, and fun, but it’s always yours in that moment.
People explore their mysteries with us as we help them:
- Tap individual intuitive abilities to access personal truth
- Achieve balance and healing
- Gain clarity on personal, home, and business issues
- Talk with animals, homes, businesses, and land
- Meet guides, deities, and messengers, including deceased family and animals
- Clear homes or businesses with our unique Space CooperatingSM service
- Explore alchemical energy
We offer a unique opportunity to tap your personal truth and claim your power. Come see us!
(c) 2012 Robyn M Fritz
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 18
As my beloved dog, Murphy, and I walked the mystery together—her dying and her death—I marveled at how much my life had changed in the nearly 14 years we shared.
I used to think people like I am today were impossibly woo-wooey. Were crystal-loving, freakily dressed hippies who believed in weird mystical things, like reincarnation and talking to dead people and being psychic.
Then I became one of those people.
Thank goodness.
In the years Murphy and I were together I stumbled upon animal communication and experimented on Murphy. I learned that there was more going on in an animal’s mind than I ever realized. And I put that knowledge to good use: I learned to talk with other beings, and now I do that for a living.
And when push comes to shove, I hire other people to talk to other beings for me. I call those people intuitives. They call themselves animal communicators, or intuitives, or psychics, or mediums.
The real ones are worth more than their weight in gold.
The one I know the best, and trust from long years of working with her, is Debrae FireHawk.
When you work as an intuitive you’re always dealing with people looking at you the way I used to look at people like me: like they just don’t get us and find us weird, out-of-touch, and maybe just a bit scary. So it’s great to hire an intuitive and find out what they say is going on with you, or around you. To be accepted for who and what you are and tap into their unique strength—because just like doctors or carpenters, each intuitive has a special way of doing their work.
Which is a long way of saying I’m comfortable with Debrae. I trust her. She’s excellent at her work. She has a loving, open heart. And she’s funny.
It was a no-brainer for me to turn to her for support as Murphy journeyed toward death.
Here’s why you should trust an intuitive when you’re on that journey (if not before).
By choice, determination, and innate talent, intuitives can help us get outside the trappings of modern civilization and into our hearts and souls. Then can help us see and understand things we don’t see as well on our own—because they’ve developed their skill, like we’ve developed our own, whatever our skill is.
They can help us see the living world around us on its own level—without the arrogant bullshit of modern science, with the humility of knowing our place as equals with all life, whatever that life is. As humans in a world that is bigger and stranger than anything we could imagine or want.
It’s wonderful to work with an intuitive for any life event, from personal to business situations.
When your soul mate is dying, it’s not just wonderful: it’s necessary.
Losing a loved one, whether human or animal, is painful and confusing and exhausting. You can and must be rational, and organized, and sometimes shut off from your feelings so you can function. You can and must grieve your dying loved one.
It helps if you can talk with them. And share your feelings. And hear theirs.
With an intuitive, you can.
Debrae helped me talk with Murphy, in the weeks before she died and in the days afterwards. It allowed me to step back and be not just the client but the grieving soul mate who needed to understand and share this last journey, to make careful decisions, to explore the mystery of death. To cry.
It allowed me and Murphy to hear each other, to share our deepest fears and secret thoughts, to wrap love around us more securely and deeply than would have ever been possible if we could not hear each other.
I have lost many loved ones over the years. This is the first one I lost that I could talk to about the process mind to mind, heart to heart. And have another human there to hear it correctly, clearly. With compassion, warmth, and humility.
To be there for me, and for Murphy, as we decided how we would make this last journey together. As we said goodbye.
Yes, you can say goodbye to a dying animal companion without an intuitive by your side.
But don’t.
You’ll miss the opportunity to learn what your animal wants in its last days: how it wants it to look, and why.
You’ll miss the chance to tell it what is going on, and why.
You’ll miss the chance to grieve together, to say the things we would say to a human who could hear and understand and tell us what they’re feeling.
You’ll miss the chance to say goodbye on a level so intensely personal it will brighten all the days of your life, and your family’s.
You’ll miss some of the mystery of life, some of the grace and glory of being fully present in your life, and in the life of those you love.
And your animals will miss that with you.
When we love animals, we know that our life with them will probably end much sooner than it does with other humans. It makes us wonder why we continue to open ourselves to the pain of loss by bringing other animals into our lives. To lose.
When you work with an intuitive, you’ll know why you do it—because love is worth it.
And you’ll be able to hear your animal tell you the same thing.
Love is worth it.
Hear it for yourself.
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 16
How do we walk that last mystery of life with our beloved animal companions? How does the human-animal bond end?
I write this as our mystery is over: I lost my dying dog, my beloved Murphy, on March 8, 2012. I continue with our diary because her life ran out before our story did, and our story matters. We lived it passionately and clearly: it is helping others deal with their own impending mysteries.
Murphy had splenic cancer: at least we’re pretty sure she did. On Dec. 26, 2011, I took her to the vet for a slight cough: that led to a diagnosis of bronchitis and anemia and infection, and finally to splenic cancer. A radiologist confirmed it on ultrasound, and on January 12, 2012, a surgical specialist in Seattle told me she was pretty certain it was cancer.
Splenic cancer. You don’t beat this cancer. Ever. You can only delay it. The specialist figured it had only been there a month (about the time I noticed a subtle difference in what I thought was progressing arthritis). It is unusual to find it before a crisis develops, but the end result is the same.
If it was cancer, Murphy would live six months with surgery and chemo, three months without.
If it wasn’t cancer (and three vets were now sure it was), it was still growing and would kill her if it wasn’t removed. The surgery itself might kill her.
How do you make these choices?
What in hell do you do?
Get the Facts
Some people say they don’t want to know if their beloved animal is dying.
I say my definition of a multi-species family is you’re lucky if you get to know what you’re dealing with. In Murphy’s case, the vets were pretty sure it was cancer, an aggressive cancer you never beat.
Our best advice here: sit down, write a list of questions, and fill in the blanks. Take it all to a trusted vet and go over it in detail.
I looked at the X-ray, read the report, participated in the actual ultrasound, had Murphy examined by a surgical specialist who had a lot of experience with it.
We looked hard at Murphy: at 13-1/2 she was old and arthritic, although mostly comfortable on Rimadyl. She had bronchitis, heart arrhythmia, and a mild heart murmur.
Surgery was possible but risky. She’d need several days in intensive care and about 10 days recovering before she could walk comfortably. We had stairs to negotiate and I am handicapped: I would simply not be able to provide her the level of care she’d need, so we’d have to hire help.
All possible, but was it necessary? Should we do it? Why or why not?
Murphy and I had a years-old deal: we’d come together in this lifetime, in a safe place, to heal. We’d done that. I’d promised her I wouldn’t ask her to do any more. This seemed like too much: for her and for us. But I’d go with her decision.
It wasn’t that easy, of course, because her decision was this: she believed her body was gradually breaking down, that she was dying anyway, and she believed she’d have more time if we did not operate.
What did the vets think?
Well, that’s part of the blessing, and the curse, isn’t it?
Get the Vet
We parted ways with our long-time vet because she insisted we do things her way.
“You tell the vet you want as much time with her as possible,” she said. Operate and remove it and do chemo.
What I heard: “Torture your dog to keep her with you a few months longer.”
What was really meant: “We force them to stay for our sake, disregarding the quality of their lives, and I the vet am the boss and you do what I say.”
So, bottom line: make sure you and your vet are on the same page. We hadn’t seen the vet we ended up with in years. He was there for us: calm, precise, balanced. He didn’t tell me what to do. He told me what it would look like, and left the decision to us: to me and Murphy. Where it belonged.
What do you do? Make sure you have a vet whose mindset matches yours. Stay informed. Run from anyone who insists that you should do what they want. It’s not their family: it’s yours.
Paternalism should die before we do.
Grace the Cat guards her sister's dreams
Get Support
Tell your friends and family what’s going on. You will end up making new friends and losing old ones. Both are fine. Death is part of living: if anyone in your circle can’t handle it, they can’t handle life. You don’t need them.
Ask for help. I knew there might be problems if Murphy went into crisis in the middle of the night and we needed help to get to the ER. Asking someone to be available to drive you is a big deal: emotionally and physically. Think about who in your circle could possibly help. Ask, but be clear that it’s strictly up to them, and make no judgments on who agrees, who ignores you, and who says no. And why. It’s a growth process all around.
Backup helps. I wouldn’t leave Murphy for more than a few hours those last 2-1/2 months: with a splenic tumor, a crisis could occur in an hour (ultimately, it did). Some people called and wanted to stay with the kids for a few hours, to give me a break. Excellent.
Remember: people are grieving with you, in their own way. Let them help. Let them bow out. Keep the lines open.
I am grateful for everyone who did or did not show up for us. I found a new level of community in the process.
How will you find yours?
Chart Your Course
I knew what we were facing. I focused on comfort and care. We used acupuncture and herbs (thank you, Darla Rewers, DVM, for greeting Murphy so cheerfully, picking up where we’d dropped off a few years before, and helping us with acupuncture, holistic remedies, and loving advice) and the good food and medications we were already using.
I looked at dying naturally and at euthanasia, and what the cancer would actually do to her.
I looked at hospice alternatives for animals and created my own: after all, I was not a stranger to death.
I was grateful that I’d spent so much time over the years learning about veterinary medicine and thinking about creating families with animals: I knew what I wanted my family life to look like, and I knew what my animals wanted it to be like.
I discussed this all with Murphy. And the rest of the family: Alki, my Cavalier boy, and Grace the Cat.
And then we lived our lives together: we walked the mystery, step by step.
We loved.
So here’s what you do: if you’re lucky enough to know the end is coming, find out as much as you can about what it will look like, and figure out how you can live through it so the only regret you have at the end is that you ran out of time. You’re the only one who knows what that will look like to you.
If you don’t know it’s happening, here’s what you do: you stop right now and make sure each day is one you’re grateful for. Live a full life with your animal family. There is no other way.
Hire an Intuitive
I am an intuitive: people pay me and my crystal partner, Fallon, to talk to things with them.
I was smart enough to hire someone else to talk with us.
That means I had someone talk with Murphy and with me regularly throughout the process. I could sit back and be the client: I could hear what Murphy thought and felt, and she could hear me, and a compassionate, objective, loving intuitive could be the bridge between us.
That intuitive is Debrae FireHawk. In the process she relived the loss of her own dog, which helped her as well.
With that support Murphy and I said goodbye to each other. We grieved losing each other. We cried. We accepted. At some point, she became excited about the new life she was moving towards, a bittersweet moment for me.
And then she died.
© 2012 Robyn M Fritz