People sometimes ask me, “Do animals know that you can do this, and do they come up to you out of the blue wanting to talk?”

Yes, they know. They recognize an awakened quality in me. An openness to them, and a receptivity.

Whether it is a black lab passing me on a hiking trail with his person trailing behind, a horse at a barn, or a koala bear at a zoo, they often give me a knowing look, or feel comfortable coming closer to me for a friendly hello.

They sense a light in my heart, and an availability not only to care, but to fully understand what they are experiencing and what they are consciously, purposefully telling me.

But they generally don’t accost me with requests to translate for them and their person.

Or come up to me and start pouring out their hearts to me.

But there have been a few exceptions.

One of these exceptions happened when I was on a road trip a few years ago, passing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. I came upon a very sad, upset horse. Or I guess she came upon me.

I was driving from Northern California back home to Arizona, on my way back from a meditation retreat. I always find a way to drive down Highway 395. Mono Lake and the Inyo National Forest are sacred territory to me. I feel so alive weaving my way through mountain passes with the windows down, the road curving along the edge of post-card-picturesque rocky streams, and then into stretches of open, arid, hilly land. And then back again into the tall pine forests. So beautiful.

But it’s a total food desert. There are no decent places to eat along the way, only gas stations and sometimes-open diners in tiny, empty towns.

So I pack a lunch from a grocery store in Reno, Nevada, and plan to pull over on the side of the road somewhere interesting and sit there in my red pickup truck and eat.

On one of these trips, I chose to have my lunch along a lovely stretch of highway where there were gorgeous mountains on one side, and fields with cows and a few horses on both sides of the road.

As I was sitting in the driver’s seat, taking the first bites of my vegetarian sushi, I felt that eerie feeling we all know. Someone was staring at me.

It was a horse, from way over there! Across the two-lane highway and across a huge field. She was a tiny dot in my line of sight from where I was on the side of the road.

I turned my attention back to my sushi. Maybe I was just imagining this.

But within one or two minutes, she was up at the edge of the fence, her gaze fixed on me.

Obviously she wanted to talk.

“Really?” I wondered.

A few seconds later I thought to myself, “I can’t ignore this horse. She clearly has something to say.”

So I set my sushi on the passenger seat and got out of my truck, walked across the highway, fumbled through the tall-weed-covered ditch on the opposite side of the road, and walked up to the fence where she was still waiting. Still staring.

I touched her nose, gently petting her. She let me.

By this time, all kinds of cows were gathering around, and another horse, a gelding who had a sweet disposition but was not quite as sharp as this mare, came closer as well.

My mind was still surprised, and I didn’t know what to expect. But in my heart, I could feel this horse had a story she needed to tell.

So I opened my heart and listened, made myself ready to receive her experience.

Right away, she showed me an image of a dark black steer lying on the ground on his side. Obviously sick.

“He takes care of things here. He was my friend. He was a leader and the others looked up to him.”

She showed me an image of a gun, and a man using it to kill the suffering cow.

“I don’t understand this. My cow friend could have gotten better. The man did not understand. He could have gotten better. He was my friend and we all depended on him, he was the smartest and wisest and most noble of the cows.

“I am so mad at our person, he doesn’t appreciate his cows, what they do for him. He thinks they don’t understand anything but they do. They know what they provide for him. They give to him. I want him to respect the cows. Appreciate them for what they give him. They know why they are here.

“And I want my friend back. We were friends, looking out for the herd together. He was sick but he could have healed. Our person did not understand this, and he didn’t give him time to heal. Now he is gone and I am sick with grief.”

I stood there with her, just listening. There was nothing I could do to solve her problem. I couldn’t make her friend come back alive. I couldn’t go and talk to her person. And she wasn’t asking me to talk to her person.

And I can’t imagine that scenario anyway. Not only would it be unethical and incredibly rude, but they might think I am a lunatic and have me arrested for trespassing.

Even communicating with his horse without his permission was questionable in the ethics department, in my opinion.

But there was a higher good needing to happen here. This intelligent and compassionate mare was very upset, and needed someone to listen.

So I continued to listen.

In the next minutes there, standing in the grass up next to the fence, my new horse friend didn’t say much more that was different. I could feel the same feelings and thoughts rumbling around inside her heart and mind.

Around that time, I started to notice the hearts of the other beings who had gathered, the cows and the other horse, together with hers and mine.

They created a little gathering of warmth and curiosity. I could feel each of them having their own experience of the situation.

“Why is this human caring about us?”

“How did our smart horse friend know that this lady could talk to us?”

“What will this lady do? We are sad and we miss our friend.”

I continued to be present with the horse from across the fence. Feeling her grief with her. Just being there. Occasionally petting her nose.

After a few more minutes of this, it was clear I had done all I could do. And by this time the chestnut mare seemed a bit relieved. Someone understood. A human being understood.

“Thank you for sharing your story with me, Beautiful Mare. I am sorry this happened. You are a special being.” I sent these feeling-thoughts to her, and then told her it was time for me to leave, showing her an image of me getting back in my red truck.

Then I turned around and slowly walked back across the ditch and then onto the street and got into my truck.

As I turned on the ignition and headed on down Highway 395, I saw the cows and two horses watch me leave and each slowly start to wander back out into their field.

My grandmother had a saying, “A problem shared is a problem halved.”

We humans think we have to fix everything for another being when they are in pain. It is great if we can, but sometimes deeply-present listening is a precious gift all on its own. It is a kind of grace.

Telepathy, “feeling across a distance,” is really a form of compassion, “feeling with or suffering with another being.”

Telepathy is compassion that is exercised, cultivated, refined, sharpened, made specific.  

In telepathic communication you start by using your heart, your body, your mind, your whole being, to be deeply present to another being’s experience.  

When an animal feels you connecting with them compassionately, they open up to you.  In this open flow of connection between two beings, you can then each consciously send and receive images, feelings, thoughts, and sensory perceptions back and forth to each other.

And by the way it works with humans as well, as we are animals too :-).

This process is nothing short of magic, and profoundly healing.

This is because telepathic connection with another being is a way into the experience of Universal Love—a force that is woven into the very fabric of Life itself.

Universal Love Unites Us All

I feel this thread of Universal Love in all the work I do with people and animals, but it is especially strong with my international clients. 

In the first minutes on Skype with an international client, I can right away get a sense of the cultural layer in each of us.

Recently with a client in Japan, and her interpreter, I noticed the polite and reserved qualities of the Japanese way of being, and then in contrast I noticed my more animated and enthusiastic way, that is so very American.

But as soon as the interpreter began translating what I was sharing on behalf of my lovely client’s two dogs, the animals’ voices, and the experience of their love was the biggest presence in the space.  

And the cultural differences dropped away.

The dogs each shared about their unique personalities (very different) and favorite activities around the house.

With openness, innocence, devotion, and sincerity, they each shared how they love their people and their lives with them.

As I translated for these dogs, I remember feeling very connected to my client and to the interpreter, in contrast to the sense of separateness from cultural differences at the beginning of the call.  There were no divisions there; we were all basking in the individual cuteness and unique beauty of each dog’s presence.

Reawakening Our Telepathic Ability is a Global Phenomenon

I now have clients on all 7 continents (yes, Antarctica too!).

All over the world, the sense of separateness among different beings is falling away, and people are acknowledging the depth and beauty of their friendships with beings of other species. 

And, by doing this, they are opening more and more to this greater principle of Universal Love, a principle that unites all living things.

While animals are not enlightened beings (they have pain too, and are subject to jealousy and cruelty just like human animals), the relative clarity of their minds and purity of their hearts make it easier for them to shine their light, and in this way, shine these principles of Universal Love and the Inherent Beauty of All Life.

We humans can do this too, we have just forgotten! These essential truths are so clear in us when we are children, but they get buried under complicated belief systems and emotional complexities as we age.

Now more than ever, we humans need to connect back to this pure light inside ourselves—the part of us that knows how to open our hearts to love and appreciates the simple and profound joy of being alive.  

Isn’t it so surprising, we can find access to our deepest, truest selves through the presence reflected in the eyes of creatures of other species.

A client named Melissa emailed to ask this question recently after her dog, Banjo, died.

When she came home from the vet, and did not return with Banjo, she told her other two dogs Molly and Big Joe, that Banjo was now in the spirit world.

Melissa said Molly just looked at her, with a direct and loving stare. “It was as if she already knew. How did she know? And how much about his passing did she understand?”

How do animals know?

It can be confusing. Our animal friends seem to understand certain things, like now we are going to the park, or it’s time for the people to go on vacation. But then other things, wow, how do they miss that? Like, how utterly disruptive to your life it is when they wake you up before dawn or how life-threatening it is to be off-leash.

Rupert Sheldrake, a British scientist who has devoted his entire professional life to studying telepathy, wrote a book entitled, “Dogs who know when their owners are coming home.” He set up video cameras, and found that dogs uncannily knew when their people were on their way home, even when their schedule was random.

Like Molly, animals understand so much about our lives—our schedules, our plans, our deepest feelings and desires.

So how is this possible? What is the substance of telepathic communication? And why do they get some things and not others?

I am not a scientist, so I would sound a little ridiculous offering big theories of quantum physics and all that.

But as a professional telepathic translator for more than a decade, I do know something about this. I know that it has to do with love.

Love connects us to others.

When we love someone, when we care, we know things about them. Unexplainably.

Where there is love, there is opening, connection, feeling, caring, and deeper understanding.

And as the saying goes, “Where there is love, there is God.”

When we love another being, we get out of our minds, and we experience life from the bigger parts of ourselves—our hearts, our bodies, our whole being—the parts of us that connect into the beauty and divinity of all of Life.

And from this pure place inside, on any ordinary day, we can know things about others in the world around us that we can’t explain.

Anyone who has loved another being deeply can attest to this.

Molly saw her friend’s health was failing. She saw how her person’s heart was breaking over yet ANOTHER death in a string of losses over the past few years. She saw how this pain was affecting the whole family.

Through her love and caring for her family, Molly naturally understood all of these things. And it was obvious in her loving stare, when Melissa shared the news of Banjo’s passing.

But what about when certain details get missed?

Often, animals in a family will know when one of their friends haven’t understood something and will have telepathic conversations among themselves. In a communication with Melissa’s dogs, Banjo showed me that he had been preparing his friends, Big Joe and Molly, for his passing.

He had been sending images, sensations from his body, and knowings to his dog friends that his time was close. And he had been asking his friends to take over his jobs, especially to be present for Grant, Melissa’s husband, who was especially close with Banjo.

He was such a noble, strong and sincere fellow, that Banjo.

The world of telepathic communication is mysterious and beautiful and so simple, all at once. Maybe the best part of it all is that when you learn animal telepathy, when you reconnect to this world of knowing inside yourself, you come to appreciate the beings you love on a whole new level.

I hope to see you soon in a Basic 1 course in Sedona.