In the larger expanse of human history, communicating with animals is nothing new. Our ancestors did it. Though, of course, the world was different then. Humans had not yet forgotten. We were still consciously connected to all — land and sky and water, wolf and buffalo, raven and sea turtle and spider and all other living things, which was everything because everything was alive. There was a single language of being, in which all aspects of life freely conversed and knew one another.
Some say we were all one peoples then. A Netsilik Eskimo song puts it thusly:
In the very earliest time,
when both people and animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
It is not exactly clear how it happened that we moved away from our natural ability to communicate with animals and the whole of nature. Perhaps we humans wanted to experience what it would be like to forget our connection so that we might remember ourselves in a new way. T. S. Eliot wrote that although we might never stop with our explorations,
the end of all of our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
Many people who open to animal communication and a deepened connection with nature say that it is like this: a sense of coming home, of suddenly knowing ourselves, and all our relations, in a more expansive way — in a way we always knew but somehow forgot. As we allow ourselves to sense with our bodies, hear with our heart, and see with our inner vision, we begin to experience the world in a very different way.
Have you ever wondered what would it mean for humans to understand the world from another animal's perspective? What information could animals share from their own unique perceptions and ways of life? What might we learn from those animals we herald as bright and spiritual — such as dolphins and whales? What might the faithful, domesticated animals with whom we share our homes and lives — dogs, cats and birds — have to tell us? And what could we learn from the "shadow animals" that we so often have troubles with, whether from fear, learned hatred, or ignorance — rats, sharks, flies and mosquitoes?
In every instance, opening to animals is ultimately an opening to our own inner mystery. In a mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart connection with an animal, we expand our personal being. We experience another facet of the universe and recover another part of ourselves.
Let the journey begin!
