Heart To Heart
Written November 25th, 2007.
I had the supreme pleasure of spending a few hours today with two wonderful dogs - Nanuck, a border collie, and Buddy, a tawny mutt. Nanuck, I've been told, usually takes a few weeks of semi-regular visits before he warms up to somebody, but this was my second time seeing him and, like the first, he stuck by my side the entire visit. (Buddy's gregarious by nature, and he also stuck by me.)
I don't care what term I use for myself - therian, animal-person, lioness-woman, shapeshifter, transspecies - it doesn't matter. Those are just words that we use to try to express what's real.
What's real is the sheer, simple companionship I felt in those dogs. What's real is how my heart synched with theirs and, for the time I spent in that house, I knew them as well as I do my own furkids. What's real is the pure, unfiltered love between animal hearts when an understanding is reached and nothing needs explaining or defining or disclaiming. No hesitations, no questions. Just communication from a place in oneself that doesn't need words or pretenses or masks or defenses.
I'm not a dog person any more than I'm a cat person - speaking of the domestic animals, that is. I have two cats and a small dog, and I crave the companionship of a big dog because I've grown up with them, and you can bet anything I'll get one as soon as I have the room to support it. I'm not a dog or cat person any more or less than I'm a snake person, or a hedgehog person, or even a bird or fish person. I may never own a bird or a fish again, and I may not get the chance to own a hedgie or a snake for years yet, but I regard them all with the same respect, wonder, and love.
These are animals. These are living creatures who, by their sheer existence, are miraculous and beautiful. I love them. My heart sings when I am allowed to be with animals of any kind.
Humans are animals, too. When we strip away all the social pretenses, all the courtesy and automated call-and-response, all the hesitancy and fear and worry and anxiety-- if you can get past that layer to access a person's self, their core-- they're beautiful. Intensely varied, diverse, unique, complex, endlessly individualized-- and beautiful. Wonderful, amazing creatures.
That's what I seek. That's what I crave. That ability to dig past the layers to find the animal in the human skin. Humans are animals - I'm not looking to find a wolf or jaguar or grizzly inside a human, though it's always a treat when I do find animalfolk. I want the human-animal. I want the deeper self. Give that to me - bare it, reveal it, let me reach out and touch it, because you know what, that's real. That's living. That's breathing and existing alongside another beating, passionate heart.
When you can see that - when you can get past the layers and connect with who someone really is - that's miraculous and dazzling. The mere ability to witness someone else's existence at its truest level fills me with overwhelming awe and admiration and love.
That's all I want out of life. That touch, that connection, that visceral and spiritual truth. Give me my family, my friends, my loved ones, random people who pass me by and smile and for a moment, I feel them--
Give me that, and all obstacles I may ever face will pale in comparison to that depth of connection.