A Deer Crossed My Window

what's up with that?

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As a professional animal communicator I have been trained to tune into animals and see what they want or need to say. I’m also trained as a spiritual director and musician, so I’ve got those listening skills pretty down pat.

It wasn’t until I began practicing true kinship with animals that I first began wondering why I assumed animals would reach out and connect with humans in that way. It hasn’t led to any easy answers, at least ones that I easily and unconditionally accept.

Sure, I can see it more with domesticated animals, we’re family after all. But animals in the wild? Deer?

The other day as I was working with an online group of folx I looked up and saw a deer.

I happened to look up at just the time when he strolled in front of my window. I was astounded, it was the first one I’ve seen one in the neighborhood since moving here 5 years ago. And he was beautiful.

My knee-jerk reaction (even as I was participating in the group) was gee, I wonder what message he has for me? I’ll check in with him when this session is over.

Thankfully, by the time the session was finished I realized what I had been thinking. I was then able to step back from that entitled assumption that deer had a message just for me.

In my work I talk a lot about the need to decolonize our relationship with animals. After all, they have their own agency and their own lived experiences do not need to be verified by humans for them to be authentic.

I explored some reasons for my knee-jerk reaction: this is the assumption I pull out to make animals into commodities so that I feel righteous when I make a request of them. I was also appropriating indigenous practices showing my white colonized privilege.

What I’m most grateful about that experience is I finally was finally able to manage the resolve and the wherewithal to purposefully step away from wanting to communicate with the deer. I was able to tear down the exalted picture I had been creating in my mind.

After, all, who am I to assume a wild animal has a message just for me IF (mighty big if IMO) there was a take away message, it’s probably fair to say it might touch on human responsibility and accountability with our animal kin.

Food for thought, for sure. My fingers are crossed I’ll be more astute and responsive the next time this happens.

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