"Past the Five Senses"

The world we experience around us is not limited by the five senses. We as human beings have the capability to have some amazing experiences with the animals and world around us if we take just a little time to allow ourselves to connect. This is not a magic trick but being who we were created to be in living in harmony on the earth with the creatures, nature and each other.  There is so much more to us and our lives on this earth then we realize. Through my own experiences I have found that even the animals know our intentions and what we are about even if we don't.

 When I was growing up, my parents had a working ranch in Presidio, TX with horses and cattle. My mom likes to tell a story about the time that she was in the kitchen and I was two years old and was playing with some toys around her feet. She says she was busy with what she was doing and lost sight of me for a few minutes which was enough time for me to toddle out the door. Instead of hanging out in the yard, I had headed for the pasture where we kept the horses. At the time my father had bought a palomino mare that he was breaking in to ride. He was still working on taming her as she was high spirited. When I got to her she was rolling in the dirt on her back. By the time my mom found me I had already crawled through the fence and walked up to the horse climbing on her belly.

My mom first said she was horrified of what she saw but then she realized that the horse had stopped moving and was laying perfectly still as I sat on top of her. The other horses had gathered around me and were nosing the mare and nibbling on me.  Instead of running out in panic mom said she carefully went out and called my name softly coaxing me out of the pasture. I did eventually slide off the mare and crawl back through the fence into my mother's arms.  The mare then stood up shaking the dust off then ran off nipping at the other horses playfully.

Years later when I was needing time to myself I would walk out into the pasture and climb up on my big black horse whose name was Jupiter. He was a 16 hands registered quarter horse and the love of my life. All I would do was drape myself around him, as he grazed in the pasture, enjoying the calmness of his energy as he walked around.

When I was ten I would spend the summers with my father in Taos, New Mexico. He would go there to paint and to sell his art at his gallery there. Instead of renting or buying a house, he would set up his tepees and camp out on his friend's land. He always brought his horses, dogs, goats and sheep with him to keep him company. So, it wasn't unusual when we returned to camp late one afternoon after being in town all day to find our camp had been ravaged by a pack of wild dogs. After checking to see if all of our animals were okay and seeing that they were fine we headed into the tepees which had been heavily investigated. That evening was dedicated to cleaning up. As I was cleaning I got it into my head to tame one of the dogs to take care of.

The next day I didn't go into town to work at the gallery but stayed at camp. My father always took his dogs to the gallery with him so I was alone with the other animals that were there. Not sure how to go about it, I sat down outside and started to try to telepathically move into the field of the dogs. For the first few tries that day I didn't have any results, until late in the evening when I was trying again and heard a whimper behind me, then a low growl. Excited I didn't respond but continued to concentrate on sending out unconditional love to this animal. I had my eyes closed and then felt something come up to me and sniff around.

I wasn't able to see the dog as it kept hidden but the next day I tried it again and then again the next day. Finally on the third day when I heard the whimpering I reached out my closed hand out and was licked.  I opened my eyes and there sitting in front of me was a very scruffy medium sized dog looking at me wagging it's tail. That day was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and I soon had my own dog that I called Fritz.

Looking back I see that we all share the ability in remembering in not limiting our own awareness of the world around us but to live and experience past the five senses as there is so much that life has to offer us as multi-dimensional beings.

Note on pictures: 1st picture of Ana age 5.  2nd picture of father, A. Kelly Pruitt.  3rd picture Ana on father's horse.

"Fears and Phobias"

The lesson that kept showing up again and again this week was about fears and phobias. It seemed that every time I looked around I ran into some sort of fear with a phobia attached to it with myself and others. Even my son's golden Labrador who is a rescue displayed a sense of phobia when we took him for a check up at the vet. He seemed to think we were going to abandon him there and kept trying to climb into our laps to hide. He even started to shake as we held him and coxed him to finish his check up.

My daughter on the other hand had an incident with a spider in the bathtub and clearly had to have her father help her out with removing it to the outside. Even my cat who found a bug outside and finally ended up catching it with her paw had a conniption fit when she finally touched it. All we heard was this loud wail and complaining in cat language. Looking out the window we saw her shaking her paw profusely complaining that it had wiggled. She is an indoor cat. When checking in with myself, my fear of losing a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer in stage 3 reared it's head, even
though I know she has a good chance of surviving the cancer.

When I thought about the feeling of being fearful I remembered being a small child and my father telling me that fear was really a tool to help us navigate through our lives in what may or may not be healthy for us. Our fears were not ever meant to rule us or make us miserable. If we allowed our fears to take over and develop into a phobia then we have the potential for them to shut us down, stopping us from experiencing and seeing the whole picture. What we can learn from this is to take the time to really analyze what makes us fearful, then we are able to decided if it is something we can move through to heal or even step around it.

 As I continued to analysis what fear is all about, I could see that if we continue to feed our fears then in the long run it can make us physically ill or even take over our lives. One of my friends who is a firewalker once told me that, "Fear is about stepping out of our comfort zone." Looking back on my week with my family I saw that even though some of our fears we can laugh at, some of them could become miserable if we let them take over. In the end all I know is that if we live our lives through our fears then we miss out on a big chuck of enjoying our lives and each other to the fullest.

"The Self Saboteur"

I was having lunch with a dear friend the other day and she wanted to know about the archetype of the self saboteur. I had to admit to her that I had seen that energy pattern in some of the people I have known during my lifetime but I was not able to trace the source of the catalyst that perpetuate it. I did however tell her that I would send it out into the universe that I wanted to know the answer and see what came to me.

It didn't take long to get an answer. A few days later I was at the Halfprice bookstore browsing through some titles looking for something to read. I found a book called Riding Between the Worlds, "Expanding our potential though the way of the horse," by Linda Kohanov. This book caught my eye as I had been interested in taking horse back-riding up again and loved the idea of the energy connection with the animal. As a strong animal lover it was just right up my ally.

I have to say I was surprised on how quickly my small prayer was answered. There in the first few pages in the book was the answer to what my friend had wanted to know about the self saboteur.

Just a side note: Even though the author didn't label what she was describing as the Self saboteur it matched up to what I have seen and heard from others who are in this energy pattern. Here are a few quotes from the book that I found on page 5 which were quite informative.

Page 5 (Second paragraph)

"Rigid narcissistic parents still inflict untold suffering on family members who assert their own needs and desires. Those growing up in abusive environments can feel downright terrified by success." 

Kohanov also goes on to say that abused children, "Are wired to expect any rise in self-esteem, personal expression, sexual excitement, love, joy or connection to end in tragedy or shame. They often pass these debilitating behavioral and emotional patterns onto their children, even if, as adults they manage to break the cycle of overt physical abuse."

There was quite a bit more but this is what caught my attention. I was excited the next day to call my friend and share the book with her.  

"A Topic On Healing"

I was having a very nice conversation with someone the other day and the subject that was brought up was about us healing as multidimensional beings. I love the word multidimensional because it really describes us as human beings, as we are all spirit beings living in a physical body. The way the conversations went was really about how we need to take care of ourselves a whole being and not forgetting that we are both.

From my experience of talking to many people about the subject there have seen a lot of controversy of how we should manage our health care. The pendulum swings far in both directions when this discussion is on the table. Different people are very adamant about what they feel is the right way to go when looking at holistic healing compared to the physical medical field. Some of the people I have talked to only want to go the natural way of healing while there are others that think holistic medicine is a bunch of, "Hooie".

What has been brought to my own attention is that together both methods of healing work very well hand-in-hand. They not only seem to compliment each other but have the ability to treat the whole person when both methods are applied appropriately. My own hat goes off to those hospitals like Harris Methodists in Fort Worth, TX who promote the Healing arts program along with the physical way of healing. I have been informed that there are also other hospitals that are using energy healing in different forms to promote the healing process such as the Healing Touch, Reiki or essential oils.

When looking at the big picture it seems really important to remember that we are both, not just flesh and blood, but also spirit. If we stop thinking about the controversy over separating the two, we can see and experience the benefits of both methods of healing working together for the most optimal healing for us as multidimensional beings.