Animal Voices

Chapter 40

Contemplating in the Calm

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I’m resting, he tells me. 

 

I’ve made a temporary camp here with my tent.  I’m inside, having the equivalent of dreams. Maybe they are memories or pieces of other lives. I watch these scenes with many emotions present. I can step into them and feel them — see them, experience them — from an observing position. They feel all-inclusive, full and alive, as if I'm actually there when I step in, and when I leave they evaporate. I don’t have much recall, but I feel they’ve been helpful in some way, working on parts of me I'm not fully aware of. 

 

Is it like that for you? Do dreams try to bring parts of us we’re not aware of to awareness? 

 

That’s a good question! I think some dreams do that. It seems like that’s what’s happening for you. Do you think it’s part of how you’re integrating your journey?

 

I do. Mainly since that’s what’s happening — one step after another, right? 

 

Yes. Some parts of this journey seem to be about letting things settle. Because we're walking into something so new, we don’t know what it is. And maybe that’s good — so we don’t project our ideas or plans, but simply allow. 

 

Mmm. I feel more of what you meant when you spoke to me in life of being in the flow. It really is a flow — a movement that moves through you. If you’re open to it and allow it in, then you move with it. That’s present here too. Maybe a different kind of flow, but same idea, same movement. And we do this together sometimes, like when we are thinking or feeling together. We are in that greater flow.

 

It’s a powerful thing, but sometimes subtle, not always obvious on the surface. It’s so exquisite, isn’t it? When you’re in that flow, it all feels right. 

 

Oh! The tide just turned in some way, didn’t it?  I’m crying — which is odd because I don’t feel particularly sad. So why am I crying? 

 

Still stuff to release?  It’s like me — why am I still climbing the mountain? Still things to explore. I think we’re right where we need to be — forging ahead, being curious, still on this journey together. 

 

You’re so insightful now. You had good insights when you were alive, but you also had ‘compressed’ — as you say — ways of seeing things. So I couldn’t always count on you to share your insights clearly and consistently. I'm not complaining, just observing. And I’m happy we’re where we are now. 

 

We’re all changing, aren’t we? All the time. It’s a dance, as you liked to say, and sometimes the dance is about resting — being slow, silent, and calm. I feel that's where we are right now: an inner time, a good time to let go of things that are ready to leave, to be observant and curious. We're thinking together now — these are more your words.

 

I’m with you, in our house. I appreciate the soft glow you’ve created — the gentle lights, the quiet, calm space. I didn’t always recognize that when I was alive, but I see now your sensitivity to mood and atmosphere. I had that at times, my own way of arranging things. Sometimes I remembered how you liked lights a certain way, and I was always happy when I remembered and knew I could make you happy. 

 

I’m missing that part of you especially right now. I don't want to get lost there, to be  overwhelmed by that tsunami of sadness and loss. But if it needs to be felt, then it's important to feel it. Do you know what I'm saying? 

 

I do. I think it’s like what I told you about my dreams — how those memories and recalled events of this life or other lives come to me and ask me to step into them and feel them. Maybe that is why they come — for us to step into them and do whatever is needed. Maybe just to observe. Maybe to clear them somehow, to release our hold on them. 

 

Maybe it's a special kind of letting go — to feel that event fully in our heart, to recall the joy and love present in those memories. So I wonder if it's not so much a letting go as an absorption? Just taking it in and allowing it to dissipate within us, to give us that love energy. We may still have the memory, but it doesn’t make us sad or needy anymore. Maybe that is the clearing. 

 

That sounds right. I feel that’s what I was doing with those dreams. They came, I stepped into them, something happened — and then they were gone. But not in a sad or lost sort of way. I like your idea — they were absorbed in some way, taken in at a deeper being-space. That feels right. 

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I think that's what I'm doing too. I don't know how exactly, but there's a softening around my memories and thoughts of you. A gentling of sorts — like how we were gentling Shock. I feel pretty calm right now, deep and spacious inside. 

 

I’m imagining myself sitting with you in your tent, up on the snowy mountain. You have it quite cozy — the lantern, the soft sleeping bag. You just imagined this and it’s there? 

 

It's like the hunt in my early days of the afterlife. I imagined the tent — though this here is a smaller one, for mountains. I think I'm still in an afterlife that’s connected to my life on Earth. And that’s fine. I feel I’m doing this in a more conscious way than before. 

 

So this is a new experience, even though I know I've been to the afterlife before. We all have. Some of us remember and some don’t — and that’s where each of us is. There's no race, no contest. There’s just who we are, living our lives and afterlives. 

 

Part of me would like to stay with you. But I'm here, in the physical, and I know we planned that. I know part of my work — besides doing this book with you — is to help bring the afterlife into this life in a more conscious way. Which is what our talks are all about. 

 

So once again, we’re doing the same thing, though from different perspectives. I can focus my energy on our bridge and the connection between our worlds, rather than feeling sad and depressed. And if I feel sad or depressed, I can also see what’s behind that, what’s fueling those emotions. I can discern where best to put my focus — maybe to absorb those feelings and use that energy to become clearer and brighter. 

 

Once again, if I were alive as Bob I would not fully know what you are saying. But I hear you here, I feel the brightness behind your words — to draw on your idea. And yes, I think that is what we are both learning and doing: to go beyond the words, the feelings, the thoughts. To flow with that deeper level.

 

And maybe flowing through the core energy of those things. Hard to say with words, but it’s a deepening, isn’t it? A sinking and settling into a deeper flow. 

 

We’re flowing together.

 

In your tent. In our house.

 

In our heart.

 

Right, always here, in our heart. Me and you. 

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