‘Focus on the joy rather than the loss.’
GENEVIÈVE
It was in a little place called Ballydehob in West Cork, Ireland, that I first met Jennifer and heard about her golden Labrador, Geneviève. I’d been giving an animal communication workshop there and during lunch we sat outside and talked about our aged dogs. That was in 2010. In May 2011 Jennifer asked me to connect with Geneviève because she felt too emotionally entangled to do so herself.
Before you read about Geneviève’s soul journey, allow Jennifer to share how Geneviève came to her, her husband, Peter, and their three children, who were aged five, eight and nine at the time:
‘We found a litter on a farm outside Bandon. The nine six-week old pups squealed and snuffled – it was joyous pandemonium. A female pup came and sat next to me, but I took little notice of her, as we had our minds set on a male dog.
I moved to another part of the barn, prompted by the excitement of my children, and the little female pup followed me. As I squatted amidst the puppies, she sat down next to me, seemingly unperturbed by the ruckus.
I moved again, and again she followed to sit next to me. By this point, I couldn’t help but take notice of her. She was following purposefully, although she wasn’t even looking at me.
I called to the children over the chaos: “I think this one is determined to come home with us!”
The children named her “Geneviève” after a golden dog who rescues mischievous Madeline from drowning in a children’s book. Ironically, my mother wanted to call me that name but was told it was too “foreign”. It’s so close to my own name, though, that when someone called Geneviève, I often thought they were calling me.
We lived in the countryside, where our children were home educated, so the puppy quickly became a significant part of their daily lives. They adored her.
Much time was spent in the car travelling to music lessons, rehearsals and performances, and Geneviève always joined us. On the long drives home in the evening, especially in the winter months, I began to make up stories about her to “shorten the road”. In this way the children playfully became aware that Geneviève was more than “just the family dog”. In the stories she continually reminded them, “I am not a dog.” Nor, she reiterated, did she belong to anyone. Instead, she was a vast, all-knowing being.
My imagination aside, Geneviève clearly had a developed sense of humour, as Labradors often do, which engaged the children fully. They chattered to her constantly, climbing into her basket to play, and she joined them on races across the fields, down to the sea, in the garden or chasing the football – she was a part of the pack.
Not all in the family were overjoyed by Geneviève’s arrival, though. Peter, who was frequently travelling overseas with his work, wasn’t happy to meet her. I had long spoken of having a dog, but while he was away I’d had a very strong impression to act on it immediately. I couldn’t explain why and Peter was understandably perturbed that he had not been part of the process or the selection of the pup. It caused considerable discord when all I could keep returning to was “But the puppy kept following me” and “It was as though she was meant to be with us.”
He also disliked the chaos surrounding life with a puppy. He thought home education was enough to cope with and it was ludicrous to add a chewing, yapping puppy. Perhaps in response to this, Geneviève indeed became “the puppy from hell”, tearing around the sitting room, whose antique pine floors Peter had lovingly sanded and varnished, her puppy toenails gouging into the wood; playfully snapping at anything in sight, including the children; climbing onto the kitchen table to devour a loaf of freshly baked bread then vomiting it everywhere.
Peter was far from thrilled with her. When she was six months old, he asked me if I would find another home for her because she was “too wild”. I reluctantly agreed on one condition: if I could shift her behaviour in the next three months, we would keep her. I engaged help from a friend who is a seasoned dog trainer and became very disciplined with Geneviève’s training. She responded quickly. We changed her diet to raw meat, raw vegetables and bones, and her behaviour calmed. At the end of the three-month trial, nothing further was said.
We took her everywhere with us. She and I walked daily across several fields and through holes in hedgerows to the sea, and the children scratched illustrations of her adventures on flat stones on the beach.
Over the years, besides being an integral part of the home-schooling pack, she became my closest companion. We had long philosophical discussions on our daily walks, she’d lean her warm golden body into mine if I were upset, she’d make me laugh at her futile attempts to catch flies and she’d rest her head on my hand on the gear stick, making it impossible to shift as I drove.
When she was five, armed with a PET passport we drove to Italy to live on a dilapidated 17th-century biodynamic farm outside Florence. Geneviève befriended everyone there.
By the time she was nine, we had moved to a village in Portugal, where she had her first taste of restricted access: our neighbours had a pair of fierce, bullying Rhodesian ridgebacks who terrorized the pacifistic Geneviève. Fortunately, there was an expansive national forest above the village, so Geneviève and I resumed our long walks there.
When she was about 12, someone knocked at the front door one day. I heard her bark an announcement, but she didn’t come rushing to see who it was, as was her habit. I discovered her on the ground, legs splayed, unable to move, gazing at me helplessly. The local vet suggested arthritis, but our homoeopathic vet back in Ireland, Tom Farrington, who took a complete history, saw this as the beginning of kidney trouble. I fed her sardines for the oil, massaged her hips and gave her a series of homoeopathic remedies. Although she improved a little, she began to have difficulty getting into the car and climbing stairs, and she started to flag on our walks, which had to be considerably shortened.
When she reached 13, Peter and I returned home to Ireland. The children were now away at university. Geneviève was visibly happy to be home – something in her slow, deliberate gait and demeanour exuded a sense of comfort and familiarity. I noticed her left hip was giving her more trouble, she was losing weight and often seemed cold. The vet confirmed her kidney trouble and treated her with further homoeopathic remedies. Nevertheless, after a few months at home, it was clear she was rapidly deteriorating.
One winter evening, as she walked slowly from the kitchen to her basket in the conservatory, I saw her stop midway. She looked around, tried to walk backwards, stopped and looked completely disoriented. Her eyes were far away, then began blinking rapidly. I spoke to her, but it was as though she didn’t hear me. Our vet confirmed she was having a seizure, which is a symptom of uraemia. I gave her a high potency homoeopathic remedy, brought her to her basket and she slept. The next day, it was as though nothing had happened – she was on fine form.
Peter had warmed to her over the years, but he would still be the first to find fault with her. Her bi-annual shedding irritated him no end; her barking announcements were always “too loud”. Her love gradually worked on him, however, and in her last few years their relationship underwent a radical transformation. The more he let go of his resistance to her, the more he could clairvoyantly see her radiance, a warm yellow glow that emanated from her heart. As her health degenerated, he gently and compassionately cared for her.
I also began to experience my heart in a very different way – as if there were a slow-motion tsunami building inside it. When I fed Geneviève, walked her or just sat close talking to her, my physical heart seemed to expand laterally, to encompass a greater area. There was an interchange of warmth and depth passing back and forth between us. I knew that I would do absolutely anything for her – not in a rational, practical sense, but in a vast unconditional sense. I was wide open.
When cataracts formed over her eyes, we put a small solar light in a jar by her basket so when she wandered back to it in the dark, she’d have a little glow to remind her where it was.
Our walks were now confined to the garden. She seemed interested in little more as she limped along, just seeming to endure it and spending much of her day sleeping.
At Christmas, however, when the children returned home, she made Herculean efforts to accompany the family on a long walk through the snow. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking to watch her take her place with her much-loved pack. When the children left, she sank back into a depressed routine of sleeping and taking a few steps around the garden. She had further seizures; each time the homoeopathy seemed to help, but the recovery time grew longer.
One day I had the strong impression that we needed to drive 45 minutes to see her vet, Tom. This was irrational; she was old, weary, and no longer enjoyed being in the car, as the narrow, winding roads jostled her too much. Our recent consultations with the vet had been solely over the telephone. To think of driving Geneviève to the surgery, a 90-minute round trip, seemed ludicrous, but I felt compelled.
She seemed to be happier than usual to get into the car. Although she was always agitated in the surgery, panting and pacing, when we arrived she hurried to Tom and nudged him for contact.
He was kind as usual, but quickly moved on to the business of helping Geneviève medically. He trawled through pages on the internet, hunting for a particular remedy. Geneviève continued to nuzzle him, insistent upon getting his attention, but Tom was engrossed. She left his side, walked out to the car through the open door and lay down. I looked at her. She looked back then put her head down as though in resignation. I questioned why I had brought her.
Frustrated at feeling the visit was futile, as Tom himself had suggested there wasn’t much left to do for her, I mentioned how much I wished to know what Geneviève was feeling and how to best serve her in her remaining time – I hungered to communicate with her.
After hunching over his computer with acute mental focus, Tom abruptly bolted upright and said brightly, “You should contact an animal communicator. I recently did a workshop with an extraordinary one. Her name is Pea Horsley and she’s based in England. She’s actually teaching a workshop this spring – come to think of it, in your village.”’
That spring, Jennifer attended my workshop in Ballydehob. She arrived with photos of Geneviève, yearning to learn how to listen to her. However, she was concerned that she might not be able to distinguish her own emotional projection from Geneviève’s unadulterated message:
‘With the teachings at the workshop, I discovered I seemed to have some facility for listening to other people’s animals, but could I do this as effectively when I went home to Geneviève? I longed to know how she was in herself, beyond the physical discomfort of her body’s degradation. I wanted to hear her final wishes and whether she required assistance from our vet.
I practised regularly with wild animals and found their communications short but very clear. However, when I went to Geneviève, I quickly began to doubt myself. Was I blocking my own ability to hear her? When I returned from the workshop I could feel she was overjoyed with what I was doing, but when I went to ask how she was specifically, I couldn’t receive a clear response.’
By now, Geneviève could hardly walk. It was a glorious spring, though, and Jennifer was able to carry her outside to lie on the grass:
‘In these weeks, I can only describe the feeling as becoming one with her. Where she began, I ended; where she ended, I began. My heart stretched ever wider. Her eyes were dim, but I know she still saw me. There were occasionally tiny flickers of light through her weary, heavy-lidded black eyes and her tail still made tiny twitching movements when I approached her.’
Geneviève deteriorated further: she became unable to control her bladder or bowels and was no longer interested in eating more than a mouthful of meat. She was becoming dehydrated, the skin around her nose and eyes was cracking and she had frequent nosebleeds. Jennifer was helping her to drink, cleaning her and changing bedding constantly.
‘I was happy just being with Geneviève, but when my neighbour said, “You just have to do the deed, Jennifer, you can’t have her suffering like that,” I wobbled. Was I selfishly perpetuating her suffering?
It was at this critical point, when “reason” began banging at my door, that I contacted Pea for clarity around Geneviève’s final wishes.’
I printed Jennifer’s e-mailed photos of Geneviève. One showed the soft face of a golden Labrador, another her lying in her wicker basket, head up, sunbathing, with a rook crouched to her left, facing the same direction, and a third was a close-up of the same rook next to a bowl of water.
Jennifer told me she had tried to ask his name and heard ‘Aster.’ Then she realized he was communicating, ‘Ask her,’ referring to Geneviève. When she did this, she clearly heard ‘Borvis.’ Out of curiosity she web-searched the name and discovered it had a Yiddish meaning: ‘barefoot’. There was also a Romanian reference to mineral water and changing water to wine, and an American online gaming reference to ‘the Dragons of Borvis’, who were notorious for their shapeshifting ability. Jennifer was already aware that in Native American traditions the rook governed magic and was the one to give courage to enter the darkness of the void – all that was not yet in form.
She explained that two weeks earlier, on a cloudless, warm day, a large old rook had flown onto the low stone wall just outside the kitchen. ‘He had a well-worn scratched beak, scruffy feathers – he was quite comical, like a wizened old man in tattered black trousers, but full of energy.’ He strode up and down the wall then stopped and lowered himself on his ‘haunches’ to sit quietly.
The next day, he reappeared. He hopped down to the patio and strutted confidently, drinking from Geneviève’s water bowl.
Unperturbed by Jennifer’s presence, he kept returning day after day, and each day seemed to feel more at home. He began to approach Geneviève, either lying on the grass or outside in her basket, to the point where one day he sat right next to her. Geneviève lifted her head, looked squarely at him and there was ‘a feeling of recognition’.
On another warm day, Geneviève was lying on the kitchen floor with the door open. Jennifer left the kitchen for a moment and returned to discover the rook perched on the back of a kitchen chair, looking down at Geneviève and clucking very quietly, almost purring.
‘Geneviève looked up at Borvis,’ Jennifer said, ‘then put her head down as though this was nothing out of the ordinary.’
When I first found the stillness to connect with Geneviève, the overarching impression was one of grace. This was closely followed by gentleness, humility and loving kindness. I could also sense she was generous and had great strength of will. Geneviève came across as a very happy soul who was here for a purpose – to empower – and that included not only family but friends as well. I wrote on my notepad: ‘She’s a queen.’
I felt Geneviève was very tired physically, emotionally and spiritually and that she needed to recharge ‘through death’. I felt she had prayed for the energy to continue life as long as possible and Borvis had arrived as support. But I knew she was just waiting for death.
When I connected with Borvis I felt he had come in service to Geneviève and that they had been together in another lifetime. He was watching over her now and telling her of ‘light-work’ to be done on the other side.
Geneviève also communicated to me, ‘All is well,’ and, ‘Tell her I feel loved. I always have.’
I sent these impressions across to Jennifer, who verified them and accepted the description I gave of Geneviève. We immediately moved on to her questions.
‘Are you in pain?’
‘No. You kindly make no fuss,’ Geneviève replied.
‘Do you wish us to have Tom, our vet, put you down or do you wish to go on your own?’
‘Let me go naturally,’ she replied. ‘This is the journey of life and death. Everything in its own time. No pain. No shame. It will be perfect.’ Then she added, ‘Tell Tom no!’
I didn’t know what that meant, but passed on the message for Jennifer to decipher.
‘Is there any way we can assist your passage? Do you wish to be left outside on the grass? Do you wish to be left alone to make your transition?’
‘Be close if you can. You’ll find it peaceful to see my spirit leave. Do not worry what others say. Our hearts are true to each other.’
When I was repeating Geneviève’s answers, Jennifer admitted she was under a lot of pressure to give her an assisted transition.
‘If you do not wish assistance to cross over, can you give us an idea of your own timing?’ she asked. Then she went on to explain, ‘We have to go away for three weeks and if you are still here I will need to make arrangements.’
Geneviève’s reply was short: ‘No, I can’t.’
I told Jennifer my feeling was that Geneviève would transition soon and it could be within the next week.
At this point I felt an urge to ask Geneviève my own question: ‘Do you know what is happening?’
She replied, ‘I am slipping away. It feels like sliding. Nothing will stop it.’
I could feel this sensation was slow, not fast or scary, just inevitable.
Jennifer wanted to ask about further practical matters, ‘Do you have a preference as to where you would like to be buried? In the orchard? To the east or west, north or south? Near the house? Near Borvis?’
I asked about Borvis’s transition and Jennifer explained:
‘One afternoon as I crossed the patio I saw him perched on the wall, not far from where Geneviève was lying on the grass. I opened my heart to him.
“Sit!” he commanded.
I was quite taken aback and sat.
“Close your eyes. Now focus,” he told me.
I did and fell into a deeply meditative state. It was as though the garden had become a boundless space. I was filled with the sense that I was connected to everything.
Fifteen minutes passed, though it seemed timeless, and as I opened my eyes I heard, “You’d be wise to move more slowly.”
I stared at Borvis. He looked much bigger than a rook, as though a presence had surrounded him and enlarged his appearance.
Unbeknownst to me, Peter had had an almost identical experience with Borvis just a few hours earlier. We marvelled when we compared notes and agreed he was undoubtedly a teacher.
After he’d lived with us for 12 days, sitting next to and seeming to commune with Geneviève, we found him lying on his side by Geneviève’s water bowl. It had been unseasonably hot, so we thought he might be suffering from heatstroke, given his seeming great age.
Peter picked him up and we sprinkled him with water, gave him drops to drink and brought him into the shade under a cherry tree. His claws clutched at Peter’s fingers for a moment and he stared at him then slowly released his grip. He was dead.
We felt it best to leave his body lying in the shade for a while to allow him to transition undisturbed. We lit a stick of incense, put a small purple flower on his breast and offered him our love. Peter saw his spirit rise from his lifeless body to overlight the entire garden and connect to Geneviève.
A few minutes later, we were astonished to see Geneviève get up and walk – shakily, but with a pointed determination – to the cherry tree. She sat down, head high, like a sphinx, and remained there, radiant, for the next four hours, as though keeping a vigil. Afterwards, she limped back to her basket. She never walked again.’
It was a moving revelation and there was so much to take in. I felt Borvis had come to show Jennifer what death was and also to honour Geneviève’s wishes. I could sense they had communicated with each other about their next life together and how Geneviève felt about leaving Jennifer.
I repeated Jennifer’s question: ‘Do you have a preference as to where you would like to be buried?’
‘Large apple tree – horizontal branches, very old, large trunk. The Earth Tree: holding the energy. It receives a lot of sunshine. It’s where the bright star is.’
Geneviève showed an image of a star shining brightly and I felt a link to Jerusalem and Jesus. It felt as though the tree was in a southerly direction.
Jennifer said, ‘I know that tree. About 10 years ago a very old Bramley apple tree toppled to the ground in the southeast corner of the garden. We assumed it would die but it continued to grow, spreading its branches horizontally and bearing abundant fruit each summer.’
Geneviève offered a final message for each member of the family.
‘I can’t stop my tears, as the messages are so accurately designed for the individual histories and personalities,’ Jennifer observed.
To Jennifer herself, Geneviève said:
‘We are one and of the same energy, from the same soul group. We are helping each other evolve, discovering new depths to our spirits. All is well with us. We have learned so much through each other and will continue to do so. It doesn’t end, not here. My love continues. You will feel me in your heart. Look up to the bright star and you will see me. All I have wanted to say to you, I have said. I have told you through my eyes… Our love has always been pure, from many lifetimes ago. Know your heart is always strong enough. I feel loved and always have.’
Towards the end of her communication she added that she had a message for Tom. I got the sense she had to activate something in veterinarian Tom, but he needed to take the first step.
Geneviève concluded her communication with another message for Jennifer: ‘You have always done the very best for me. Love. God bless.’
Finally, I received an image of the number 16 in Roman numerals: XVI. I shared this with Jennifer, although I had no sense of its meaning.
Later Jennifer explained to me that the previous Wednesday Geneviève and Borvis had appeared ‘larger than life’ in Tom’s morning meditation – Geneviève’s face with Borvis behind her – with the urgent message that he come to see her. He told them that in his 30 years of veterinary practice with hundreds of animals and as someone who had had countless dogs and cats as pets himself, he had never had such an experience. It startled him, so he took it seriously and set out to see Geneviève right away. However, he got hopelessly lost on the winding country roads. He rang the house four times, but Peter was on the telephone with a client all evening, so he was unable to get through. Thereafter he was fully engaged with his veterinary practice until the following Sunday.
By then Geneviève was undeniably slipping fast. Her body was lifeless, her functions all failing. She could still move her eyes and her head just a bit, but her lifelong wagging tail had ceased even twitching. Jennifer told me:
‘On Sunday morning I noticed she kept making the effort to raise her head to see over the rim of her basket, out of the window and up the road.
Tom arrived at midday. When his car rolled down the road to the house, she looked at me and I saw a bit of light in her eyes.
Tom and Geneviève spent 20 minutes together. He said he felt a stream of warmth pouring from her into his heart and saw it as a long optical tube of light. He told us she might have three or four days left and asked if he could offer her some hydration. I naively agreed, as I imagined him filling a dropper with water, and was then appalled to see him go to the car and return encumbered by medical trappings to intravenously hydrate her.
I looked at Geneviève and though her eyes were faded, I received a very clear impression of ‘No.’
As I went to say something, Tom put his hand by her head and Geneviève growled and snapped at him. She had never snapped at anyone, except as the wildly chewing puppy. Tom was shocked she had the strength to do so and quickly accepted that she didn’t want to be given anything.
I relayed Geneviève’s message from Pea: “Tell Tom no.” She wanted to go completely unassisted.
As we sat with her, Geneviève continued to beam light into Tom’s heart.
Tom warned us that with uraemia the toxins being released into the brain might cause Geneviève to die shrieking and it might go on for a few days. Could we take it?
I was grateful for his concern, but had taken great comfort in the messages Geneviève had relayed through Pea and assured him, “All is well.” He was very happy to hear we had consulted Pea and felt moved by what he perceived as the gift he had been given by Geneviève.
I received the impression from Geneviève that she wanted me to stay nearby, so I moved my work into the conservatory to be next to her. But soon after Tom left, both Peter and I were overcome by an intense and inexplicable drowsiness. We both went into the sitting room and fell asleep. It was bizarre.
About 20 minutes later, I awakened with a start to see a cloud of tiny shimmering light crystals surrounding me. Peter awoke and we both saw a shot of light streak across the sitting room. Then we heard a gagging sound and immediately went to Geneviève. I wanted to tell her I loved her. “Oh, sweetheart” was all I could manage, but I felt remarkably clear and still.
Within 10 minutes, her whole body went into short, sharp spasms. She lifted her head, took a breath in, let it out and everything stopped. Grace. Perfection.
Peter sobbed uncontrollably.
With regard to the Roman numbers XVI, using the 24-hour clock these numbers correspond to 16:00. Geneviève died at 4 p.m. It became clear to us she had been waiting for Tom.
Peter saw her spirit rise and join that of Borvis, whose light had continued to overlight our garden. I placed flowers in her basket, lit a beeswax candle then took myself on the walk that Geneviève and I had taken together for years, through the holes in the hedgerows, across the fields and down to the sea.
I was hollowed out, but there were no tears left in me. I sat on the beach and everything felt flat. I spoke to Geneviève, remembering aloud so many things we had done. As I did, it felt as though I was looking down a tunnel, unemotionally witnessing the events of our lifetime together.
A large seagull began circling over my head, flying lower and lower until he was only three or four arm’s lengths above me. Moments later, a rook flew so close by I felt the rush of his wings. He was squawking. Then a tiny sparrow alighted on a rock next to me and stared at me. The message I received was: “All is well. We are here.”
That evening, Geneviève’s spirit continued to waft around me in the living room. We also noticed that there appeared to be waves of energy rippling across her body. It almost looked as though she was still breathing. We felt no rush to bury her – what seemed important was just to sing our hearts to her. The candle burned all night and was still alight the next morning, strangely only melted halfway down. There was a beautiful but subtle odour in the conservatory where Geneviève lay.
In between torrential downpours, we buried her where she had requested in the southeast corner of the garden by the Earth Tree. Peter was very emotional; he had been on such a steep learning journey with her, one that had ended in a wash of love.
The night of her burial I dreamed of two complete rainbows, one above the other. As I looked at them, they merged into one colossal, resplendent rainbow. I wondered if they represented Geneviève and Borvis’s energies merging together.
The last impression I received from her after the burial was: “Focus on the joy rather than the loss.”
For weeks after, I continued to feel her presence in the house and garden. There was lightness to it, unlike the heaviness of the degenerating body she had inhabited. About three months later, when she would have been 14, her presence became more internalized – rather than surrounding me, it was a feeling focused inside my heart. I literally felt it as a glowing ember, a radiance.
Peter saw Geneviève’s spirit bounding around the garden in youthful form and Tom telephoned to say Geneviève had appeared to him in a meditation as a puppy.
In Pea’s communication with Geneviève, I had asked if she would ever join me again, as I dreaded the imminent void of her departure. Geneviève showed Pea an image of a rabbit and then Pea heard her say, “A bird,” and, “You would know me if I walked through your door. You’d know me immediately.”
Our garden was often peppered with wild rabbits, particularly since Geneviève had become infirm and no longer able to chase them. Several days after her transition, I noticed a single rabbit who didn’t scatter with the rest when I appeared but seemed uncharacteristically fearless. Each time I saw him, I stopped and tried to open my heart to him. It wasn’t difficult, as I felt the ember of Geneviève begin to glow in my chest. I heard his name was “Pears” and he had highlights in his coat the colour of Pears soap.
Like Borvis, he was a teacher and also a taskmaster. He’d stop what he was chewing on, sit back on his haunches, become perfectly still and we would meditate together. The moment my focus strayed, he’d be off like a shot, showing me what focus actually was by disappearing when I lost it.
When I asked him if he was Geneviève, he simply replied, “We are all one.”
As our communication developed, my gratitude and joy deepened – I felt as though my heart was beginning to open in a way I had known as a child.
A few months later, I travelled to the New Mexico desert to shoot a film I had spent three years developing. Peter only saw Pears a few times in the orchard after I left.
While away, I went through a challenging time with work. Deadlines were approaching, the remaining funding wasn’t materializing, an actor we were counting on was being elusive, our cinematographer was backing out and I was questioning whether the project would come to fruition. I began to doubt myself, my abilities and my vision.
Early each morning before it became too hot, I walked along a deserted railroad track in the open wilds to sit quietly and meditate before the day’s frenzy took over. One morning as I walked, a wild white-winged dove flew from a tree several yards ahead of me, landed on my shoulder and began cooing in my ear and tenderly pecking at my shoulder. Dumbfounded, I slowly lowered myself to sit on the ground without disturbing her. When I sat, she hopped to my arm, onto my knee and then to the ground in front of me. Our eyes met, she bowed and cooed and began circling me as though performing a mating ritual. Everything around me disappeared: all I was aware of was love. Tears burned my eyes in wonder and I had the impression of Geneviève. I recalled Pea hearing Geneviève say she would appear as a bird. “You would know me if I walked through your door. You’d know me immediately.” My heart flew open.
The dove flew to me for the next six days on my morning walks. The impression I was given on each visit was: “All is well,” along with the feeling of love. And all was well: at the risk of sounding trite, the film did fly and was actually driven by love.
It is a sacred privilege to know animals and, further, to learn to listen to them. For this, I have Geneviève to thank – for lifelong teaching, for the golden glow that lives on in my heart – and Pea, who has already learned to listen with her heart and is willing to share what she hears and encourage others to remember and listen.
When darkness falls, the small solar light jar, which still lives in the conservatory, comes alight. It is a perpetual reminder that Geneviève’s light shines on.’