Animal Tales
Amàra – The Eternal One
What Amàra taught me
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
Amàra was born in my kitchen, one of a litter of five, the daughter of my neighbour’s cat. I wanted to keep all five kittens but couldn’t, so I asked an animal communicator to help me choose. She told me there was a grey kitten who wanted to live with me and she wanted to be named Amàra. To my surprise, there was a grey kitten, so I chose her. I’d never heard the name Amàra before but honoured her request. After all, the animal communicator had inferred, on this point, the little one was adamant. Later, I discovered Amàra means “eternal”, “smiling” and I was soon to discover why her name was so important to her.
When Amàra was 2-years old...
… she was taken and tortured. She was in such a state the vet recommended putting her to sleep.I wasn’t ready to make such a decision, so we agreed to seek a second opinion.
That night, distressed and in shock, little Amàra ran away. I was in panic, thinking of my little one, with all her wounds and injuries, outside in the winter rain. I couldn’t bear it. For a month I looked for her, scouring the neighbourhood, calling her. She never appeared.
As I searched, many people around the world sent healing and love. Most said she’d probably gone away to die but something inside me told me they were wrong. I reached out to her, asked her to tell me where she was. Silence came the reply.
I was exhausted and lost in despair. It was then a special friend reached out to me. She told me in words so clear they were written in crystal ice: “Hold peace in your heart.” She continued, “Amàra needs your strength, not your distress. If she connects with you now, you’ll pass on your desperation and that is no help to her”. It isn’t always easy to change our emotions or our energy, especially when one is feeling so low. But I summoned the courage, took a deep breath and, with a lightness of being, somehow managed to make the shift.
And the next morning, Amàra came home and without a care in the world, she looked at me with her typical happy smile and followed me to the kitchen for a hearty meal. Satiated, she demanded cuddles. And there we stayed for the next two days, two lost souls rejoined.
To everyone’s disbelief, her shocking wounds had healed. The gaping cut that stretched along her back had closed, leaving little sign it ever existed. Her back legs had self-amputated below the knee and the skin had closed the stumps. It was miraculous – no vets, no surgery, no medicine. Of course, it wasn’t a “miracle” because animals know what we’ve forgotten – that we can heal ourselves. All it takes is the right energy. That’s why she needed distance between her and my depressed and agitated state. Away from me, she found the peace and calm she needed to heal herself.
As I cuddled her, gently stroking her soft fur, examining the effects of her ordeal, looking at the stumps that now formed her back legs, I wondered, “How on earth did she walk home?”
Eventually, I took her to the vet for a check up. Ignoring the miracle that had occurred, he maintained euthanasia was the “kindest” solution. “She can’t live with just two legs”, he said. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Amàra had had the strength of mind to take herself to a place of peace, she had survived a winter month, alone in the wild; she’d had no food, no man-made medicine and no medical intervention of any kind and yet, she had returned to me better than when she left. There was no way I was going to give up on her when she never gave up on herself.
I took her to a different vet, who listened to my story and gave Amàra a cursory exam. After a moment, he turned to me and, almost apologetically, said, “Mother Nature is doing a better job than I ever could. Let’s allow nature to take its course and Amàra will adapt.” He apologised again that, as a “conventional” vet he had nothing else to offer. What he didn’t know was, his energy, his compassion and, most of all, his words, had given me more than he would ever know. Now I had trust in something bigger than ourselves.
A short while later, another friend, a shaman, performed a healing for Amàra. She was astounded at the love emanating from such a small being. She told me Amàra had thanked her for the healing but had insisted instead that she give healing to other animals and people she’d met in-between consciousnesses. Amàra then made the most compassionate request of all. She asked for a healing for the men who’d hurt her, explaining they were the ones most in need of her love.
How many of us could not only forgive a perpetrator but embrace them with our love as well? How many of us are able to show such compassion when we are trespassed in the worst way? And here was Amàra, showing me how. My heart expanded like a pumped up balloon. Where there had been fear, I found grace; where there’d been enmity, I found tenderness; where there’d been censure, I found clemency. In healing herself, Amàra had healed me.
Today Amàra is 15 y.o. and she is still thriving. She has a mind of her own and is the matriarch of my seven cats. As the second vet insisted, she has adapted. She walks on two legs instead of four (it’s something to behold), and where she can no longer jump, she climbs, pulling herself up with the strength of a leopard. No challenge is too great, no obstacle too big, no hurdle too high. To Amàra a problem is merely a chance to evolve, to grow, to become a better version of herself.
life lessons
What greater lesson in life is there? We all face challenges from time to time but we are not characterised by our problems. Not once since that fateful time have I seen Amàra moping, complaining or feeling sorry for herself. She lives not in the past but in the right now; and she defines herself not by her history but by how she affects the outcome. Rather than being dictated to by circumstance, through mindful compassion, she creates her own reality.
mindful alarm
And in case I ever forget the lessons she has given me, which I often do, she is my alarm. Many a time she notices me absent from the moment. It’s then she lets out a penetrating “meow” that startles me and brings me back to me.
energy connects us
Through energy, we are all connected. Amàra taught me that. Whatever emotion we are feeling we pass on to our pets, our family and our friends; in fact to anyone and every living being we encounter. And, when we are living in a mindless state, we allow others to impart their energy onto us. To find peace and healing, Amàra took responsibility for her own life. She abandoned energies that, in that moment, no longer served her, and sought resonance with her own overpowering emotion – love.
What is your animal companion wanting to share with you?