Skip to main content

PROGRESS!!!!

I am not the only one in this household who got divorced -- the animals are also adjusting to a new dynamic. During the first few days of our altered space, upon waking, Luinigh would dash to the spare room seeking my ex-husband (whom I displaced after I learned he was dating a woman he'd recently met and was "falling in love with" while still occupying the western spot in the bed next to me as if this were a forgivable arrangement even though the divorce had been finalized, whew!). I was also not the only one shaken and shocked. Dumbfounded, all poor Luinigh saw was a room distinguished by purses hanging from an unused Tony Little Gazelle. He stopped looking on day 4. Frankie the Crested Puff has become king of the house (or so he thinks), demonstrating an unpleasant resource guarding behavior in the bed at night (we are working on modification). Ingrid remains Her Regal Highness, the one whose path no other animal may cross without permission. Me? I'm still plumbing my way through alternating anger and hurt, but objective acquaintances have shared unsolicited critiques about my face looking refreshed, relaxed, and --dare I believe it? -- younger.

Now Baby! If you read my previous posts, you will recall my theory of a link between his feather picking intensity and his rocky relationship with my ex.

WELL, LOOK AT THIS!! After two months, my naked and downy gray macaw is getting greener still. I'm sharing a photo, evidence of this new era of peaceful domesticity.

Does this mean that I have lost love for this man? God help me if I ever get to the point where someone else's foolish and selfish actions reduce my capacity for love.

I also want to announce that on August 15th from 5-7 p.m. , I wll be teaching a two hour animal communication class at the Metaphysical Chapel of South Florida; hope some of you locals will be interested. Contact me and I'll get you the particulars. Namaste!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Animals, Divorce, Picador: Living in the Moment

I once heard George Carlin say dogs can't tell time; they don't differentiate between one minute and one day, so when we leave them, upon our return we get the same exuberant greeting whether we were gone for three hours or three seconds. This merits some thought. Is it that animals don't recognize time or that they don't worship time the way we do? We obsess over time lost and time coming; we struggle to retrieve the past, seeking some previously missed key to consequences we endure in our ongoing life sagas. Or we project and fantasize about the future, what will be, what could be, what we want. Doing so, we miss the present moment, the essence of a happy life. The Buddhists teach us that by living in the moment, we have no expectations and feel neither sorrow nor disappointment. So sensible. So difficult. Do our animals experience disappointment and resentment? If they do, such states are momentary. I am still winding through my fresh divorce, which I know in my hea...
8 comments
Read more

Scared to Death of Death

In Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel," a tentative young rabbi explains his arrival at his professional station: " I came to God not because I loved him but because I did not." Sometimes I read a line and pause to reflect a minute before continuing. Often I read without needing to register the words because they're either familiar or insignificant. But occasionally words immobilize me, not because they possess extraordinary power in themselves but because they arrive at the precise time and place I need to receive their message. I came to God not because I loved him but because I did not. What a contrast-based, convoluted route to enlightenment. Aha! But this is how so many of us arrived here. When I began studying loss and death, people questioned me, barely able to camouflage their distaste for the subject, which usually emerged as a sneaky grimace. Why on earth would you want to study death? I answer the way Malamud’s rabbi would have: I came to death b...
5 comments
Read more

Surviving the Loss of a Pet: Tips to Get Through the Grief

Your animal has died and you are distraught. You have never felt such deep and prolonged loss and are afraid to share this with others who will minimize and perhaps dismiss your pain as misplaced or trivial. Wrong. All of us who have shared life with (not "owned") animals have entered and emerged from this unavoidable black hole, and we'll likely revisit it as long as we live with animals whose life spans do not equal ours in measure. What can you do with this grief? 1. Give yourself permission to grieve, and give your self permission to grieve hard. Experience it. Embrace it, even. It's real and it's potent. Avoiding grief, burying it, masking it, will guarantee its future re-emergence as a larger and more devastating threat to your well being. 2. Remember. Remember the joy and mischief, the silly songs and the serious training, the intimacy and the frustration, the quiet support and cuddles your dog gave you when he sensed you needed them most. 3. Talk ...
5 comments
Read more