When was the last time you called someone a rat? Or a dirty dog? Or felt like a group you were a part of were just a bunch of sheep blindly following a leader? I can well imagine the feelings and intentions that went along with those words. A “rat” is someone we refer to as being untrustworthy and belonging to a lower level than ourselves. A “dirty dog” typically refers to someone who’s acted in a particularly underhanded way – or so we perceive. Being thought of as a sheep not having a mind of your own seems similarly undercutting when we as humans prize and elevate our individual states to great lengths at times. The one thing these derogatory terms have in common, of course, is the use of an animal being’s species as the identifier. Yes, yes – we humans also use other names, too – such as criminal, lowlife, heel, scum – that don’t have any species tags on them. It does seem to me, though, that when we use a species name associated with a negative connotation of another person, situation or issue that it carries with it the energy of intention behind that name as being descriptive of the animal as a whole. And nothing could be further from the truth as far as that particular species goes.
Even our political system has both an elephant and a donkey, traditionally, I’ll not step into the meaning behind the Tea Party Movement – and yes, I do know the roots of that name. An elephant is actually a keystone species upon which the survival of other species – including human – depend. Elephants are extraordinarily intuitive, form highly structured family groups and remember the bones of their ancestors long gone when they come across them in their travels. A donkey is more intelligent than a horse, can be used as a guard animal for sheep, and is generally less fearful than a horse is with new situations or people. Yet we often use the term jackass – a male donkey – for someone who appears to be the exact opposite of this intelligent animal. Why oh why must we bring animals down to our level when describing our shadow side? Is it that we correlate the shadow side with animals as we see them as being “less than” and not having a light side like us? Nothing could be further from the truth as their light side matches perfectly with their shadow self and Nature embraces the non-duality nature of all species as do animals themselves. Is it because they accept without discussion the laws of nature – predator and prey – that we find distasteful? And yet who among us can’t name one instance of human beings treating animal beings far worse than what we would expect ourselves of being treated by those same human beings?
I’ve come across clients in my practice whose companion animals sometimes take on the energy of their familiar names – such as a cat named Van Gogh or a dog named Brutus. The tables would be turned it would seem that the cat acts “crazy” and the dog is perceived to be unfriendly and dangerous around all others not in his family group. Connecting with these animals usually reveals a lovely soul who understands that this name business is part of their path and they’re eager to change it to something more love-based. One cat wanted to be known as Romeo and Brutus requested a name change to Theodore simply because he liked the regal quality of that name.
Energy knows no boundaries and as we know from the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his book “The Hidden Messages in Water” that words and the energy they carry with them do affect water and what is a physical body except between 50-75% water? That energy vibration from all words sinks in most definitely to the very cells of your being as it does our companion animals. I invite you to take care with your words with and about animals everywhere if only to experience more accurately the vibrational level of love and compassion they already have for human beings.