Billie Dean -- Articles

Billie Dean

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Articles by Billie Dean

Food for Thought
By Billie Dean
Originally Published in Conscious Living

There’s an old saying: “You are what you eat.” And the same applies to our animal companions. Many animals, during the course of our consultation, will thrust a picture at me of a gooey-looking mess -- canned animal food.

Invariably this is followed with “I want GREEN”.

The “green” is the need for high quality chlorophyll like barley, wheat grass or spirulina. This builds and cleanses the blood and provides a host of nutrients in an easily accessible form.

No dog or cat I have ever communicated with has ever requested canned or dried food. Instead they tell their people it is addictive and unhealthy.

All the animals here at the Ballyoncree Animal Sanctuary are highly supplemented with a range of products, including “green”, to keep them as healthy and long-lived as possible. As with humans, its difficult to get all the
nutrients the body requires from today’s food.

You can buy a prepared nutritional supplement or make sure you have things like flaxseed oil, kelp (seaweed meal), lecithin, slippery elm powder, yoghurt and other food products on hand. And if you feed meat, make it raw.

Our dogs enjoy a varied diet including fruit, and pulped raw vegetables. They smell as sweet as Mother Earth and I love burying my face into their soft, silky fur and taking a deep breath.

I can always tell a commercial food fed animal – their coats are often dry and harsh, they smell anything but sweet and their stools are chalky. But by introducing fresh, raw foods, this can be quickly changed.

When we found Louie our German Short Haired Pointer, he smelt awful, was riddled with eczema and growled all the time. Abandoned and unwanted, he hung around outside his former unoccupied home, living on scraps from the neighbours. When I first met him, he jumped through my car window, ate an apple pie, and jumped out again, hoping I would take him in. I did. I knew Louie wouldn’t be re-homed if he went to the pound.

We immediately introduced him to regular raw food meals. In two weeks he looked fabulous. In a month people stopped us in the street to admire him. He looked sleek, shiny and very regal. And still is today.

Cats also need a natural diet.

One cat client listed off food he wanted which included fresh chicken and fish, soft white cheese, and omelettes with chives.

His person revealed that when he received my transcript, he thought I was making it up. His cat had never eaten omelette with chives. But when he told his flat mate later that night, the flat mate blanched. He had shared many a chive omelette with this cat.

Personally I am a vegan and was a vegetarian for nearly 30 years. As an animal communicator, I won’t eat the beings I talk with. I’m even careful with the plants I grow in our garden. I’ll ask permission to pick them and request that they withdraw their energy before I do.

In my 30 adult years of caring for animals, I have never fed canned food to my four-legged friends. I look at a can and see degenerative diseases and skin conditions. I see sick cattle and sheep. I see horses milling around an abattoir, terrified by the smell of death – and wondering if this is their fate when they are still so young, and tried so hard. I see older horses, heads bowed. Resigned.

In the USA, there are rendering plants producing the “by-products” found in commercial pet food. This is where the pounds send their dead puppies, kittens, dogs and cats – filled with the sodium pentobarbital used for euthanasia. There are dead bodies from vets, complete with body bags and flea collars, diseased livestock, and all kinds of plastics and wastes. The list continues. All this is boiled up together to make a toxic cocktail for our four-legged companions.

These rendering plants are in Australia as well.

Ethoxyquin, originally a rubber stabilizer, is a synthetic antioxidant found in so-called high quality imported dog and cat food, and reportedly produces an alarming array of health problems. And when it goes back into the rendering vat or slaughter house, it enters the pet food chain unlisted.

I could list all the degenerative diseases and health issues caused by the ingestion of these substances. Instead I’d ask you to be aware of what it is you are feeding your beloved.

And I’ll end with a quote I found on a vegan web site that sums up my personal views – and shapes my vision for the future.

“The demand for vegetarian food will increase our production of the right kind of plant foods. We shall cease to breed pigs and other animals for food, thereby ceasing to be responsible for the horror of the slaughter houses where millions of creatures cry in agony and in vain because of man’s selfishness. If such concentration camps for slaughtering continue, can peace ever come to earth? Peace cannot come where peace is not given.”
-- Rukmini Devi Arundale

© Billie Dean, 2004. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any format without prior written permission.

Woman of Twin Tongues
By Billie Dean
Originally Published in Conscious Living

It is my belief that everybody has the ability to speak the silent language. Telepathy was used by tribes and shamans the world over to communicate with animals, nature and each other. It is that forgotten language of inner knowing, of fleeting thoughts, of images, feelings and words. Today we often “know” who’s on the phone, mothers have a connection with their children, and babies use it instinctively. But we forget how to use our telepathy. It is a part of us that is neither encouraged nor acknowledged. And we are no longer used to being still enough to listen to the voices in the silence – the whispers on the wind.

The Beginning

Nowhere in my life plan did it say – “Get Chronic Fatigue, talk to a tribe of Native Americans in your head, and then become a professional animal communicator." I was a highly motivated stand-up comic with dreams of becoming a comic film writer/director. But Chronic Fatigue to me was an “initiation into stillness”. Instead of bouncing around the city doing a million things at a million miles an hour, I was hanging out with a tribe of Native Americans who just happened to be in spirit. They called me Woman of Twin Tongues and I often wondered what that meant. Did I need to learn Apache? But at the end of our intense time together I was instructed to become a professional animal communicator. The tribal elders meant the silent language of telepathy, something I was already proficient in with my own animal companions and all of nature.

Like most people I forgot my telepathy as soon as I became verbal. However, as a sensitive child I often felt the pain of plants as other children hit them with sticks or pulled their leaves and branches off for a cubby house. In those days, sobbing that a tree was crying, was considered the result of an over-active imagination. Imagine what they would have thought if they knew I apologised to stones as I tripped over them.

During my school years I just accepted strange channellings, intuitive knowings, past life flash backs, and the joy of animals being attracted to me. The psychic side of my nature was something I’d sort out later -- after boys. Sure enough when animal companions came to me as a young adult, I saw the images they sent me. At first it was strongest from my horse, Sollie, who would discuss with me in pictures where we would ride. Finally, I read a book called Kinship with All Life, by J. Allen Boone and everything fell into place. I realised I was communicating through feelings, pictures and words.

After that there was no stopping me. I was a journalist studying natural therapies, and communicating with everything from crystals to trees, creeks to birds, the wind to animals. It was what I did. Even during my crazy life as a comedienne, I had guides who would help me with my performance, and wildlife who gave me signposts.

After my flirtation with Chronic Fatigue, I became a children’s book author, encouraging children, through the world of fantasy, to understand that it was possible to talk with animals. I put the word out that I could interspecies communicate, and people found me through word of mouth until I had an international clientele including many animal sanctuaries. Today I teach telepathy to others and work to raise awareness about the truth of animals as spiritual and psychic beings. It’s time to accept the reins of interspecies responsibility and also further our own spiritual journey, through conversations with the souls who have come in the shape of animals.

Communications with Animals

My first client was a dog with terrible eczema who showed me images of himself being thrown out of the front of a truck cab. He said he feared the eczema was so horrible he would suffer the same fate with his new people. His people confirmed they had found him wandering the road and that he was terrified whenever they tried to take him out in the car. Finn healed after we cleared his fears, gave him a bottle of herbs and instructed his people to lovingly stroke the eczema-affected area.

Another racehorse had the gift of Sight and knew she was going to die on the rails during a race. She played up terribly whenever she got near the racetrack – even for training. She told me she would rather be an ‘eventer’, and was terrified of ending up as dog meat – an ending which her trainer threatened her with constantly.

I always counsel my students to keep an exceptionally open mind when discoursing with animals because you never know what sort of evolved soul they may be, or where they have come from. One of my clients was a dog who was frightened by ghosts. He was an extreme escape artist, which led to some very frustrating and expensive events for his human guardian. When counselled, I found the real reason for his behaviour was to encourage her to learn the language of telepathy herself. He had come to her purely to help her evolve spiritually.

Our animal friends are often here to teach us something important, whether it is the simple message of unconditional love, joy from living in the moment, exercising daily as a walking meditation or even to learn some kind of healing modality.

Beginning to Hear the Silent Language

To begin reawakening your telepathic facility:

Use the phone. Practice guessing who is on the phone when it rings. When someone enters your consciousness, find out if they were thinking of you.
Meditate. Learning to still the mind is essential. It’s difficult to “hear” the silent language when you are stressed or emotional. Learning techniques that help you relax, enter a light trance or just push away the chatter, is excellent groundwork.
Be creative. Open up the right hemisphere of the brain through the creative outlet of your choice. Play drama games. Paint. Sculpt. Enjoy!
Create a ‘communication journal’. You might think it is your own voice you are hearing, until you read back what you have written and realise there are words there that you never use.

The Magic of Listening
By Billie Dean
Originally Published in Conscious Living

The secret to talking with animals and nature is to always pay attention. The language of silence is subtle and needs our radar alert to the fleeting moments that could enrich our lives so much, if only we were aware of them. This is especially important now, when time appears so short and every moment filled with busyness. It’s now, more than ever, that we need to listen.

Not only do animals need us to listen, but they can be very helpful. One tiny brown sparrow saved me hours of work in our front paddock where I shovelled horse manure in an effort to make it pristine for a potential house buyer.

“They’re not coming,” said the sparrow, as she hopped around on the ground beside me.

Suki, our black border collie/kelpie, was a terrific pair of ears for us when we were selling. “One couple thought the house was charming,” she told me when I tuned in on the way home one afternoon. “And there are people looking over the front gate now.” I met them at our gate and was able to show them around.

Suki also helped me find a broken water pipe on our property by very subtly suggesting I follow her. She guided me more than told me, and let me find it on my own. But without her, I would never have come across it.

The voices of the animals can come in the form of this subtle niggling, or the thoughts of that animal constantly in your mind. Other times it’s as clear as human conversation.

Suki came to be with us by mentally yelling “Save me!” as I walked into the vet surgery where she was. I looked around to see who had spoken to find a tiny black puppy in a cage with a sign that read: “2 days to go.”

Recently I came home from a conference to find Twylah, my German Shepherd/retriever with a huge hunk of hair missing from her rump.

“What happened?” I asked her in the silent language.

“I have a hurt,” she replied.

“I see that. How did you get it?”

“I’m not telling you,” she said, embarrassed.

I let it go for a few minutes, and then received an image of one of our bay horses taking a bite out of her for barking at him. No wonder she was embarrassed.

Often when an animal has met me – either physically or psychically – I will get messages from them involuntarily. I start thinking about them a lot. But I’m not thinking about them – they’re trying to contact me.

Jaffah, a red Arab mare troubled my thoughts with distress from the moment her person responded to my tentative search for a new pony mate for my 44-year-old pony. I knew Jaffah was wrong for Sebastian, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. We were deep in drought, had no water and little feed, but I had to say “yes”. The distress in my mind stopped. Three days after the arrival of Jaffah and her paddock mate Maverick, the Canberra fires erupted and their paddock was burnt to a crisp.

Like people, some animals can be very chatty and others aren’t. Sebastian, my very elderly pony, has always been very talkative and has a great sense of humour. When I was learning Parelli Natural Horsemanship, Bastie asked me what I was doing. I wriggled the rope I was training him with and explained that I was teaching him a new language.

“How primitive”, he mused.

I found Bastie lying down one night, something he never does. As soon as I wondered if his time had come, I heard “I am quite well.” And to my relief, in 24 hours, he was.

To practice your telepathic facility with your animal companions:

Mentally call them to you. When you call an animal by their name, it gets their attention. A cat or dog might appear asleep when you are communicating with them, but they still can converse in the silent language.
Practice sending one question with your intent. It might be as simple as “hello, how are you?” Or “what would you like for dinner?”
Write the answers you receive in your communication journal. The secret is not to think about it, just write the first thing that comes into your mind.
Understand your strengths. Telepathy can be received in the form of images, feelings, words and intuitive knowing. So don’t be alarmed if you don’t receive words at first.

Sebastian's Last Gift
By Billie Dean
Originally Published in Conscious Living

I can’t believe he’s gone. That funny guy on four legs with the snowy white coat that glistened in the sun. The guy who filled so much of our life with his curious nature and chatty conversation, who was a complete pleasure to serve – even if it meant changing his coat in the middle of a thunderstorm, feeding him a midnight snack before we went to bed, and leaving the outside lights on all night to make sure he could see. The guy who helped himself to feeds waiting in the laundry and who, to make me a better horsewoman, bolted and reared when he first came to us. And then took me for my first joy-filled, bareback and bridleless jump and canter. Sebastian, our 44 year-old pony, our friend for 17 years, went to the spirit world yesterday.

One moment he was cantering around with the other ponies. The next he had colic. I’d never seen a horse so bad. He was sweating with pain and I quickly knew this wasn’t a case for homeopathy, tummy lifts and abdominal massage. No, something was very wrong. I could feel it inside myself. He was impacted. His gut was at a standstill. I called the vet. Bastie’s gum colour and heart rate were good. A pain killer and a dose of oil got us a bit of gut noise and allowed him to sleep. We stayed up with him, standing vigil, hopeful.

But the next morning he was still inside himself, hadn’t eaten and still hadn’t passed any manure. His gum colour and heart rate were bad. I felt the all too familiar cold numbness of grief and panic rising inside me. I called the vet out again. He was gentle. He didn’t have to tell me what I already knew.

I never let an animal go unless it is their own decision. If they want to battle on, I will help them. I don’t believe in euthanasia for expedience. I have had to counsel too many unhappy souls who haven’t completed their earthly business. Like we have our journey, they have theirs. Some animals “feel’ like they are dying, but once comfortable and counselled they recover. Some animals know when it is their time and ask for help. Other animals know it is their time – and don’t want help. For me, it’s about respecting the individual.

I tried ringing my animal communicator friends for guidance. But for the first time ever, nobody was available. Divine providence. And I’m grateful for it. I had to suck it up, get centred and do it myself. I sent the vet into the kitchen for tea, while Andrew and I spent time with Bastie under the Hawthorn tree in the back yard. Bastie, relaxed from painkillers, was enjoying the relief.

“If this is heaven, I’m there,” he grinned.

We talked for some time. The spirits of his old equine friends Sollie and Saraid stood beside us, their eyes radiating love and welcome. If I had had any doubt before, I now knew that Bastie’s end had come. They were here to escort him Home. Bastie said he looked forward to his next adventure. He showed me himself as a handsome young man with blonde hair and assured me I would see him again.

There was an old joke between us. Bastie would say every Spring that he wouldn’t last another winter. But he always did.

“Love’s a funny thing,” he told me finally, as he shifted his weight in the shade, looking at me with keen, intelligent eyes. “It keeps you on Earth. I’m fading child – I know I’d never last another winter. It’s time. Say goodbye. Set me free. Now.”

The world is a duller, lonelier, emptier place without Bastie.

As I sat on the hill this morning, watching the ponies run and the sun illuminate a blade of grass, I thought about the gift each animal brings. We are all beings of Light and Love, but the animals express that so much more fully than we do. Each spark of consciousness vibrates with a unique personality. And when one leaves, the tapestry of life is less rich. There’s a hole, a void. I’m lucky I can still see and hear them. But it’s the sense of touch that feels the loss the deepest.

And I thought about it in terms of human beings who can’t understand that when we allow ourselves to vibrate as brightly as the animals, the world is indeed a shinier place. And how important it is to make every day a jewel, and to live life with passion, love and joy.

In my feature film Finding Joy, Raffi the dog heals Joy of her low self esteem with his unconditional love. I wrote the screenplay because it bothered me that so many people didn’t understand the truth about animals. For all kinds of reasons we have unhappy animals being passed on from person to pound or abattoir. How could you give up on a being, no matter how apparently troublesome, who was trying to give you a gift? How can people fail to understand that an animal is not a commodity, but a healer –- of our hearts, minds, emotions and even our physical body. They give us meaning and purpose, and push us along our own path of spiritual growth--if we take the time to listen and have the humility to accept them as our teachers.

Sebastian’s spirit stands relaxing under the Hawthorn tree. He’s also leaning against the gate where the ponies sleep. And standing under the apricot tree, eating his dinner from the trough. The whole valley is infused with a gentle healing energy, soothing our raw and ruffled emotions, enveloping us with love. It’s his parting gift to help us through the transition of his absence. I smile gratefully at his shade and tell him I miss him. And tears stream down my face as I drink in his presence and break the habit of a decade by not preparing his daily feeds.

Sollie
By Billie Dean

It’s Samhain in the southern hemisphere – All Hallow’s Eve -- a time for remembering and honouring those beloveds who have left us for other realms. A time when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. While my daughter paints a cardboard pumpkin, I’m aware that Sollie has come to visit and silently acknowledge his presence.

He’s standing there at the stable in which he died, his round chestnut form filling the doorway. His soul-filled eyes follow me as I take hay to the ponies standing in the yards. He’s grazing in the yard near where he is buried and looks up as I enter the gate, sending me a silent whinny. He already knows that tonight I will conduct a ceremony to honour the first anniversary of his death. That I will light a candle and shed a tear and try to put aside the awful grief I feel at the loss of him in my life. He’s looking forward to that. He never wanted to give me grief.

Sollie is a horse. He arrived one day, twenty three years ago on a visit -- a bonny chestnut Australian stock horse with a thick white blaze down his nose and big round soul-filled eyes, that made his first people call him Sorry. My partner and I both fell in love and soon he was ours to love and care for. I didn’t want him to be sorry all his life so I changed his name to Sollie, after the brightness and strength of the sun.

Sollie quickly settled in to life on our farm, and there was an immediate bond between him and me. When we rode he would send me pictures, communicating to me that he would like to run faster or to visit a special place by the creek or even someone’s house. It was the first time I was aware of animals sending me pictures, even though I felt their communications in my body and wondered at their perfect understanding of mine. All the animal companions in my family were doing their best to wake me up to what would become my life’s work. But it was Sollie who got through. Words came quickly after.

When my relationship broke up three years later, I left Sollie on the farm, underestimating the enormity of the bond between us, only knowing that I had to get away. I would visit on weekends and he would seek me out, trotting over to me and telling me that he just wanted to be in my presence. We’d ride the trails as we had before, accompanied only by my dog Reka, but it wasn’t the same. Sollie was playing up. Gone was our spiritual rapport. Sollie would bolt and pigroot and dance all over the place making it hard to mount. He’d take the bit in his mouth and zig zag to try and dislodge me. He’d go underneath tree branches and wipe me against fences. He’d bite. And when I asked him what was wrong, he was silent, looking at me innocently. He wanted to be with me, but riding had become a nightmare.

He didn’t tell me he was being ridden behind my back, how angry he was that I had left, and how much physical pain he was in until much, much later.

My former partner tried to sell Sollie. After all, we were both headed back to the city. Where would either of us keep a horse? But when a man came to test him out, Sollie looked at me with pain in his eyes. “No,” I said, surprising my partner and angering the prospective buyer. “He’s not for sale. Not now. Not ever.”

Sollie and I both felt a sense of huge relief. I fell in love a short time later with a wonderful man who was as sensitive as I was to the world of animals and nature. We sold the farm and bought another. Sollie and the horses came with us.

Sollie and I entered part two of our life together. He’d become a problem horse and I knew why but lacked the horsemanship skills to deal with it. Telepathy wasn’t working because Sol was in denial. According to him, he loved me, he was happy. Nothing was wrong. But I knew there was.
I knew I needed to learn horsemanship, instead of the bush riding I’d been doing since I was six. I was instinctively natural. Not for me was the solution of bigger bits, or anything designed to control a horse through fear and pain. I felt their pain. It was not an option. And so I discovered Parelli Natural Horsemanship and began a path to freedom that was to last Sollie all of the rest of his life.

My first instructor sussed Sollie out. “This guy is a major problem horse. We deal with them in Level 4. You’re just a beginner. I wouldn’t take him on. Start with an easier horse.”

He didn’t realise that I was as stubborn as my horse. I didn’t just want to learn horsemanship, I wanted to be with Sollie. It wasn’t about how good I could get with horses. It was about my relationship with one horse and how I could make that the best it could be. And so we began. And on top of the lessons that taught him and me a new language of mutual respect there was a pathway of the horse that is one of self discovery and leadership skills.
There was also a round of chiropractors and acupuncturists trying to deal with the pain he felt but wouldn’t admit to. For all these treatments he was a perfect gentleman.

Sollie loved it. He loved the clinics and study groups we held at our place, the riding, the games, and all the other horses. Best of all he was home with me where he belonged and he was never alone.

Over the years other instructors told me to get another horse, as Sollie wasn’t going to be physically able to take me on the journey to excellence I’d embarked on. I knew that. But the only horse I wanted to spend time with was Sollie. It was about our love. Our relationship. However when Sollie broke down again with his sore back and hips, I found and rescued Montana, a half starved Appaloosa mare. She was willing and eager to please. A very different ride to Sollie. But after my first session with her, I watched as Sollie warned her off. “She’s mine,” he said.

And later, when he was recuperating in a stable, I saw him telling her to “look after her.” Montana understood and respected our relationship. She agreed.

We moved again to a larger property and our herd of rescued horses had grown to 20. Our place was a sanctuary, a horse heaven where horses roamed freely in huge paddocks and all gentled to our handling. Sollie had a girl friend too, a tiny Shetland called Sam who adored him and was always by his side.

Sollie was no longer a problem horse. He was a saint. Still stubborn and single minded, I’d often have to convince him it was a good idea to go somewhere. He revelled in it. “You need to be more assertive in life,” Sollie told me. “I’m teaching you to be more assertive.”

Every afternoon after work, I’d slip on his bare back and let him graze around the house paddock while I read to him. I’d take him for walks with the dogs and jump on his back to ride home, bareback and bridle-less. I did beautiful bending games with him when I was eight months pregnant and when my daughter was born, he was the first horse she sat on. He adored her and as she grew, it was Sollie who gave her riding lessons. I trusted him completely.

My life still revolved around thinking about Sollie – because he was thinking about me. He was always in my consciousness. We’d go on picnics with Sollie and the other horses and dogs. I’d think of interesting rides we could take and people we could visit. Sollie dominated my world. And we both loved it. He was my stress relief, my joy. He was my down time. He held my heart.

I first noticed something was wrong with Sol when I was in the middle of making my first feature film. We were shooting on our place and the pace was intense. He whinnied at me as I rushed past the pony paddock one afternoon.

“It’s only for three weeks Sol. And we’ve only another week. I’ll be with you soon.”

I kept my promise and before the camera crew left, I had him hanging out with me in the yard. His coat looked off.

That winter he looked like a shaggy sheep dog.

“What’s wrong Sol? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I am well and happy,” he would say.

I got out the acupuncturist vet. “Cushings Syndrome.” she said. “He’ll live two years, probably – there’s no cure and the cost to keep him on allopathic drugs is just prohibitive.”

I’d never heard of Cushings Syndrome but I was sure there was something I could do with alternative therapies. I researched on the net and there was a lot of Cushings horses living happy productive lives.

He went on a strict regime of natural therapies and next time the vet came out she was very impressed. “He’s maintaining very well,” she said. Except for a coat that didn’t shed quite as easily as it had done the year before, there was no sign at all that he was anything but healthy.

But I knew he wasn’t. Sollie was constantly in my head. He wanted his special treats, his meals, attention. He wanted me. Sam was dumped. The herd was dumped. Sollie had become a loner.

One day there was a massive thunderstorm and after it was over I could see all the horses – except Sollie. Heart in my mouth, I called to my husband Andrew to help me find him. I ran for the top paddocks where I knew he liked to go. And the shock of not finding him sent waves of panic through my body.

“There he is,” Andrew said calmly. And I burst into tears of relief. He was grazing quietly by a Hawthorn tree. Alone.

“What are you doing here big buddy?” I asked him.

“Having a snack,” he said.

I slipped on his bare back and headed him home.

Some friends came over for a trail ride and it was suggested that for a ride this long, I should take Montana. But again I felt compelled to ride Sollie. I wanted to be with him and Sollie was telling me he wanted to go. When my daughter wanted to come too, the decision was made. Without anyone calling him, Sollie trotted over, his ears forward. Tamsin was put behind me and the three of us had a joy filled ride on a sunny autumn afternoon. Soul food. Pure bliss. Sollie had a ball and he handled it easily.

It was his last ride.

Soon after he developed a number of health problems. He got laminitis and an abscess in his mouth. It seemed easy to treat but things kept going wrong. Vets couldn’t make it out to our place when they said they would, and when one of my healer friends told me of her dog who had died from an abscess, I felt the chill of premonition.

Sollie was not going to die if I had anything to do with it. I rang every healer I knew and some I didn’t. Every morning I drained his abscess and it was healing beautifully. I tended his feet. He was on a range of alternative therapies to protect and heal him. He was getting more and more demanding and wandered in to the laundry every night, making his presence felt, sticking his head through the door. I loved his presence and didn’t care if he psychically and physically woke me up with a whinny every morning because he wanted breakfast. I didn’t care if caring for him dominated my world. This was Sollie. My special friend.

Later I realised he knew he was going, as I did on one level. And we both wanted to cling to each other in what little time we had left.

I had an animal communication client and when I sat down in a light trance to connect to the animal in question, Sollie barged in. “What’s up Sol?”

“I am not your friend,” he said. “I am your soul mate.”

Frantically I emailed my animal communication friends. “It’s just a health hiccup,” they told me. “He said he’s not going to die.”

But Sollie and I both knew better. Neither of us were willing to admit it.
I had a long chat to him one night. He told me he wanted to be in a book, and to be a movie star. I laughed. Of course you will be, I assured him.
I felt a lightened sense of heart. Sollie would live. Nothing would ever separate us.

The next morning he wasn’t in the yard. I had students arriving from all over NSW for an advanced, two day animal communication clinic. I found Sollie in a stable where he had gone on his own. He looked at me with his large soul-filled eyes. We both knew the lies and games were over.

“Sollie’s dying”, I screamed to the wind. “He’s dying and I’ve got people coming in two hours and I can’t cancel .”

The people came and took one look at me with my horse at the back door of my place and lent me their healing gifts and energies. Perhaps they were supposed to be there. The vet came and told me he would be gone in 24 hours. She wanted me to agree to “put him down” now. Sollie threw me an anguished look. “No,” he screamed at me.

“No,” I said. “That’s not what he wants.”

I’d read about all kinds of miracles happening to people and animals. If love could heal this horse, I would heal him. He didn’t want to go. But he knew he was going. On one level I guess it was his time, but in the moment I couldn’t see that. All I knew is that my best friend – my soul mate – was leaving me. And I was going to do everything in my power to make sure I had done everything I could.

I worked frantically all day. My partner took over the class. We cancelled the rest. Sollie had homoeopath ics every few minutes. He had Reiki and I appealed to my healing spirit guides. But the miracle didn’t happen. He responded to nothing.

Tears streamed as I begged him to respond, to stay with me, ignoring all the rules of healing and of spiritual truth which is to honour the being’s decision.

“I am holding you back,” he said, simply. Calmly.

“Nooo,” I cried. ‘Look at how much I’ve learnt because of you. Look how far I’ve come.”

Later that night I prepared for a cold, long night vigil with Sollie. Wearing two horse rugs, he took me out of the yard and for a long moon lit walk, saying goodbye to all his old haunts. It was full moon marked by a lunar eclipse. The leaves were falling off the trees. It was silent. It was magical,. It was beautiful. It was a night I will never forget.

He wanted to walk up the hill, to a favourite place by the Hawthorn trees. But he was tiring and I suggested he not over do it. He needed his strength. He nodded and took me back to the open stable where he sank down gratefully and dozed until dawn. I camped with him, curled up in a sleeping bag. At dawn he got up and walked past the ponies, giving a weakened whinny goodbye. Sam responded.

He wanted to go into the other pony paddock, where his long time mate Sebastian resided with his mare Saraid. A communication passed between Sollie and Bastie that I was not allowed to read and then Sollie barged into the stable, ordering Saraid out. He sank down on the fresh, clean straw. He didn’t get up again.

I asked him if he wanted help to leave this world. He was obviously uncomfortable.

“Then I’ll be gone forever,” he told me.

He was dying. He refused all homoeopathics. The only remedy he took was Transition Essence – an Australian Bush Flower Essence to emotionally help with the process of passing over.

“Go Sollie, please go now,” I cried. He didn’t take his eyes off me. But I couldn’t look at him. I sat in the stable holding him, trying to pass soothing energy to him.

Sollie’s spirit slipped from his body at 8.30 am. His body stopped breathing and heaving and I curled up to him, nursing his head on my lap. He was free. I was alone.

Later, after he was buried in the backyard where he loved to graze, his spirit was everywhere and so strong that sometimes I’d look up and do a double take. I thought he’d come back.

My heart froze with his leaving, like a glacier through my body, making me numb. I felt I lived in a grey, cold world and no amount of hugs from my family could thaw me.

“You’ve lost your friend,” said Tala, my dog, understanding.

“Yes,” I said. “And so much more.”

Some people told me he was old. Some people told me to “get over it”. Some people made disparaging remarks about my inability to work. But while a part of me was glad he was free from the pain in his body, the other part of me wanted to join him. I was in a ghost town of despair, an icy wind whistling around the derelict buildings of my mind. I was alone.

His death brought up feelings of grief, guilt, hurt, abandonment. I had been touched by love for 22 years, longer than I had been married. But I was lucky I had Andrew. The horses were lucky too because I couldn’t go in to the feed shed without feeling a shaft of pain that brought tears, swift and vicious.“Why does it hurt so much,” I would say to Andrew. “He was your life,” he would say, giving me the space and permission to be as devastated as I needed to be. It was a year before I could start to feel gratitude for that life with Sollie, instead of pain.

So tonight almost marks the anniversary of his death. A year in which I have travelled on a journey of enormous adjustment. I haven’t ridden. I have planned no picnics. I haven’t read to another horse. But I can be among them again and the colours of life are vibrant. I love their beauty and it doesn’t hurt so much to see the herd without his familiar shape among them.

Sollie told me more horses would come. And they have. And I feel an old stirring of joy as I watch them heal and fly around the huge open paddocks.
And although I might still cry at the loss of him, still mourn the lack of his physical presence in my life, I feel him beside me, urging me to horse play. To find joy with another horse again.

Montana checks every day to see if I am healed. Gypsy too, wanting me to touch her with soft hands and to exchange the breath of life.

Jaffah came, a red mare who barges in psychically to help others when they need help with their horses. And Erin, a lively grey pony, who makes me laugh.

It is only now that I can appreciate the truth that there is no loss. That Sollie and I are still together. He is here on the other side of the veil of illusion we have erected with our mind. I miss his physical presence. I recognise the selfishness within that wants him with me on the physical plane. I recognise the journey the lesson of his death forced upon me.

We can still talk. I can visit him in the spirit world at any time. And I do. I know I can take as long as I want to heal.

It’s Samhain and tonight I will light a candle. I will invite Sollie’s spirit into the house and sit down with him and have a loooong chat. I will bury a crystal holding my sorrow in the soil in his grave site in the back yard.
And tomorrow, I will call Montana. And I will ride.