Finding Our Way Back Home
Can Animals Really Talk To Us?
Written by Tera Thomas
As a young child, I talked to animals all the time. It didn’t seem weird or strange to me; it was as much a part of my life as breathing. When I was a little older, I was told that animals didn’t talk, and I had a vivid imagination. When that didn’t stop me, I was told that lying was wrong and I got my mouth washed out with soap. From that point until I was in my thirties, I didn’t claim to hear animals anymore.
Much later I discovered there was an actual thing called animal communication. I was elated. But since it had a name and since there were classes to learn how, I developed these fears that I might not be able to do it. I also developed expectations of what that communication would look like.
When I took those first classes, the animals pointed out so many things to me. A horse named Belle told me that I never sit still long enough to feel anything. She made me sit down and shut up and spend five minutes in silence. It seemed like a lifetime, but I managed to do it. Belle told me that I should practice this every day to get my mind clear and what I said to her was, “Okay. Do you have a message for me?” I really thought back then that talking to animals meant receiving profound messages that were vast and difficult to understand, that would lead to an evolved place of being. It didn’t occur to me that the time I spent with Belle in meditation instruction was really profound.
At an advanced class I was feeling insecure and unsure of myself. I was sitting on a big rock in a pasture near Gulliver, a llama, who was calmly eating grass. “It’s so egotistical to doubt,” I heard in my head. Shocked, I looked up to see Gulliver staring at me. “I’m not an egotistical person! I’m just feeling unsure and self-conscious,” I exclaimed. “Hmmm,” Gulliver chewed, “focused on yourself. That’s egotistical.”
He was right! Here I was at a farm full of amazing animal teachers and I was worried about how I looked, whether I would do it right, whether I was good enough. That is so egotistical! How often do we get in our own way by judging and comparing ourselves, by our expectations of how things should occur, what things should look like?
Now, years later, after living in close connection with land and animals, I realize how self-focused most of us humans are. We are taught at a very young age that we are better and smarter than any animal, and that we are the rulers of this Earth, ordained by God. We have forgotten that we are all connected, that we are not the rulers of this planet, but we are a part of all that lives here. I have learned, often the hard way, that mine is not always the best plan, that if I connect, listen, and move with the flow of energy, a balance will emerge, without me controlling it.
The word “communication” implies that we are discussing something with the animal world. I’ve been looking for a new way to describe this relationship. When we are connected, energy and information are constantly flowing through us. Sometimes our logical mind is involved, and sometimes it’s not. But when we are in that space of connection, we feel subtle impulses all of the time that move and shape our lives and the lives of all living beings.
Sometimes I do have actual conversations with animals, or with plants or rocks, but mostly it’s this natural flow that moves me one way or another. Here’s an example: Several years ago, not long after I moved onto this property I was working at my desk. For no reason that I could perceive, or even think of, I got up, walked to the back door and opened it. There was my llama, Inka, standing right outside the door waiting for me. I was shocked. How did he get out of the fence? What was he doing here at my door? He turned and started walking towards the barn. I followed him and saw that the other llamas were standing at the back barn door waiting for me to arrive to open it up. I could put words to this interaction: “We want the barn door opened.” “How did you get out of the fence?” “You think I can’t jump over the fence?” It was not that I actually heard the words, it was silent. It was following impulses that led me to find Inka and discover what the llamas wanted.
I am always finding my way back to the time when connection was second nature to me. We are born connected, communicating with every living thing in the universe. We are taught separation. We don’t have to learn a new form of communication; we need to unlearn all the things that have kept us separate. For most of us humans, this is a lifelong process. There are still so many beliefs in the human stream of consciousness about how we can or can’t feel, who is or isn’t intelligent, what success means, what failure means, what individuality means, what trust and faith mean, and even what connection means. Our true home is a place of wholeness, connection, and communication. Step after step, as we bring it more into our consciousness, we can find our way back home, to the place where all things are possible, and all things are connected, and we are always communicating.