What is That Black Cat with Wings?

I am currently enrolled in a 16 hour Hospice volunteer training program with the intent to serve as a Reiki and pet therapy volunteer. The first six hours of training consisted of five units covering the dying process, volunteer parameters, caregiver roles, special populations, and legal and organizational procedures. In a session often punctuated by our own personal, sometimes emotional disclosures, Ann, the Volunteer Director, softened the clinical descriptions of "the death journey" with poignant patient anecdotes from her own experience and Hospice literature, revisiting the phenomenon of fading earthly consciousness teetering between worlds as we prepare to die. Patients, open eyed but not fully present, often enter audible conversation with loved ones who passed on before them. Debbie, my friend of 40 years, described her fascination watching her father just before he died; he stared into space and engaged in animated dialogue with his mother, who had died fifty years prior. Our seminar director shared many such stories, all of which validate Dr. Raymond Moody's findings in Life After Life: significant people from our past who made the journey before us retrieve us from the earthly plane at the end of this life. I know from my own meditations and readings that our animal companions return to escort us to the Light. But in this venue I was hardly prepared for her most astounding and exciting revelation: many Hospice patients, rapidly approaching their last breath, ask the same question:

"What was that black cat with wings I just saw pass by the room?"

A spirit cat as an agent of Light, delivering the "all aboard!" message to those about to enter the tunnel . Whether it's the collective unconscious perceiving a single Jungian symbol of death or an actual summoning by a feline angel doesn't matter. It validates our connection to animals on a soul level and makes real a theory of divine exchange: we are their guardians in this life; they becomes ours in the next. What greater love can there be?

About sixteen years ago, in a past life regeression, I was asked to let my consciousness drift to the end of a former life and allow my release into the void. I remember the darkness, the nothing; I had no fear or expectation but felt as if I were waiting, and when the therapist asked me who was coming for me, images of animals, one after the other, began to emerge, soft, blurry edged images of animals leading me from darkness. I know this expectation is held by many indigenous peoples.

For me , the notion of a winged cat passing my doorway to signal my imminent passage offers overwhelming comfort, reassurance that the Spirit never leaves us alone and fearful, a fulfillment of traditional tribal promises as well as God's repeated promise to us in Biblical contexts: "Fear not, for I am with you." What greater love can there be?

For an interesting real-time manifestation of this spiritual phenomenon, read the story of a Boston Hospice cat who accurately predicts the deaths of patients:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2007/07/26/with_a_purr_death_comes_on_little_cat_feet/



You can also read some interesting documented information about earthly cats with "wings."

http://www.messybeast.com/winged-cats.htm

Why Learn Reiki?

I took my first Reiki class in 1989 at the urging of a nurse friend who had seen a Reiki demonstration and wouldn’t rest until we both went for training. She was enthralled with what she explained as a very stunning demonstration she'd seen. She said the practitioner held one hand in the air (much like the Magician in the Ride-Waite tarot deck) with one hand placed on his client and just commanded that Reiki energy. She was impressed by his showmanhip, which left me feeling a bit skeptical. However, because I was bored, I agreed to go to a Reiki training class. I didn’t know quite why I was going but trusted it would be one more metaphysical class that may have potential benefits. At the time, I didn't didn't see myself as a "healer" but as a "psychic" ( I have since learned that the latter is dreadfully incomplete without the former).

On a dismal Saturday afternoon, I took a deep breath and paid my hundred and fifty dollars and went to this class which consisted of me, my friend, and a Reiki master. We spent half the day reading about the origin of Reiki, got mysterious "attunements" with our eyes closed, went out to lunch, and then returned to learn some hand positions. The Reiki master was very impressed with my friend's healing abiltiies and honestly, I wondered why I had spent such money.

I saw no dramatic major arcana tarot poses. Nor did I see any instant miracles and or feel any great energetic surges during that day-long training: no magic, no instant transformation, no sprouting up of the coiled kundalini. But when I returned home to find my one year old standard poodle, Angelo, suffering through a bout of extreme intestinal distress, I knew differently.

He had suffered from colitis and bloody stools for his nearly two years on earth. A cacophany of screeching violins from his lower intestines provided a musical score for his distress. None of his vets had ever suggested anything beyond sensitive stomach or prescrbied anything serious for this almost daily occurance (which continued). My first reaction was to “test” the Reiki on him. He lay on his his back and I cupped my hands gently over his abdomen. Almost immediately, he let go his tension and legs fell open, his head fell to the side, and he gently allowed this new and comforting sensation to fill him. I was astounded. Within minutes, the gastric noises subsided and he slept in my arms. Aloud, I said,"Now I know why I learned Reiki"and from then on, until his death from bloat one year later, his Reiki sessions were routine. Did the Reiki “cure? Him. No. What it did do, without any doubt, was help him live comfortably while he suffered from the auto immune disease that eventually took his life. He died in my arms -from bloat -- on the vet’s table.

Since then I have devoted my Reiki practice to animals and have been blessed to work with many creatures enduring serious and terminal illnesses, providing adjunct care through their difficult chemo or steroidal treatment, helping to ease their physical and emotional stress until they chose to exit this plane. My clients have sworn that their dogs have improved after Reiki treatments, understanding that even the slightest and temporary improvement during a long term crisis is a gift of Divine light. I worked with two terminally ill Dalmatians, years apart, one a cancer patient on chemo and corticosteroids, the other suffering from advanced stages of Cushing’s Syndrome. For the week after a Reiki treatment, both regained appetite and mobility. Reiki makes it easier for animals to deal with illnesses by balancing their energy and letting them release the anxiety and stress that accompanies illness. My clients are always amazed at how their pets, visibly uncomfortable, fall asleep peacefully immediately following their Reiki session. I always advise my clients to learn Reiki as the greatest gift they can give their own animals; it's the gift that truly keeps on giving. I am offering REIKI I FOR ANIMAL LOVERS AND WORKERS on October 3 at the Crystal Garden. Fee is $170 with an additional $30 discount for shelter and rescue workers. For more information, visit my web site http://www.reikidogs.com/ Namaste!

The Little Frenchman

He came to me unexpectedly at a time when I already lived with two dogs in a development that allowed only two dogs. In her capacity as the Broward County Animal Control veterinaray technician who had to euthanize those too weak for adoption, my neighbor would bring home borderline cases . She would nurse them back to adoptable health and in the late afternoons would sit on her front lawn with anywhere from two to five kittens or puppies, hoping passersby would stop, fall in love, and bring one home. This was the case when I came home from work one spring 1998 afternoon. I looked down the street (she lived about ten houses away) for her usual menagerie romping around her German Shepherds but this time, it was different. Bat ears and a squat body cast a spell that levitated me.

"Whatcha got there?"I yelled. "Boston?" Her reply changed my life for the next ten years.

"No, FRENCHIE!"

I mystically flew to her front yard .
A Frenchie!

"Look at his chest. This is no Boston Terrier!," she said. He was a wide, barrel-chested "fully hooded pied" boy with abnormally bulging eyes, a hint of a tail and a tush that wagged his whole body.

"He's got heartworm," she said. " He just had a treatment."

My whole adult life I'd wanted a French bulldog but couldn't quite afford the breders' $1500 =-plus asking price. . "Take him home," Trish requested.

"I can't," I said. "I already have two."

"Take him for an hour. Look at me. I've got 8 here . Try him for an hour."

I stared at her,. saying "no, no, no" even as I picked up the dog and carried him home. I tried him for an hour. We watched t.v., he drank some water, he coughed a lot, he peed. He seemed to like the house though he never drfited far from my side.

After an hour, Trish said, "Keep him overnight."
I said. "I can't have three dogs."

"Just overnight."

OK, just overnight.

He found his place at the foot of the bed. Gracie the schnauzer ignored him completely but let me know she didn't particularly enjoy sleepovers (what? he's staying?????) , and Seamus, my Irish Water Spaniel, polished his macho armor and every hour on the hour from midnight to 7 a.m. jostled me and hung his head over the bed right above where the Frenchie slept, growling menacingly, baring glow in the dark teeth just to let him know who was boss. It was tear-jerking to watch that poor little orphan, so lonely and sick, be so humiliated.

The next day, Trish begged me to keep him "just a bit longer. " She didn't have to. By morning, I wasn't giving him back to Animal Control. I'd find something better for him. The truth is, by 8 p.m. the night before he had already dug a well in my heart.

But the prospect of the condo commandos raiding my home and confiscating my extra dog terrified me. I thought of placing him with my parents who had just lost their Boston Terrier to cancer. They didn't want him. I asked my brothers and a few other people who didn't want him. Then I contacted the French Bulldog Rescue Network, which runs an "underground railroad" by which volunteer rescuers pick up the dog and drive them to the next rescuer and the next location until the dog reaches its foster home in preparation for a future permanent adoption. I arranged for a man in the Keys to pick him up on Monday and drive him to Orlando, where someone else would take him and drive him out of state, and so on , and so on.

Just try him for an hour. By Saturday I had decided he would not leave my home at all and cancelled the plan. We sat in the kitchen where I fed him snausages and tried every name I remembered from junior high school French class (Jaques? Philippe? Jean-Claude?) He stared at me blankly until I said, "Frenchie," and his bat ears twitched, so Frenchie he became. I also called him "Little One," which he seemed to adore.

He and Seamus grew into the best of friends, mismatched bookends at my heels whenever I left the room, both of them sleeping alongside me, both of them sharing my affection without incident; however even years later Frenchie moved in deference to Seamus, never entering a room that Seamus was in unless I assured him, "You're safe" and physically escorted him in. That first night of Seamus's beastly threats stayed with him for life. Gracie ignored him for weeks until the day Frenchie attempted to play with her in that half-down sprinting position and she realized how much more fun it would be to rumble and tumble with a dog her own size. From that day on she left a heartbroken Seamus without a playmate.


When Seamus became ill, about a year and a half before he died, I contacted another animal communicator through the Distant Healing Network for Pets, a free service for whom I also work. She was someone I didn't know who responded to my inquiry from England or Australia. She told me Seamus wasn't ready to leave us, but he had one major concern and request when that time came: "take care of the little one."

So I did. For ten years, as he became crippled, incontinent, immobile, as his dignity faded, as he couldn't get up, as he couldn't sit down. For the last two years he and Gracie were my major focus. When I realized he didn't have much time left, I asked him what he wanted more than anything else and he told me he wanted free run of the house. He wanted to greet me at the door when I came home instead of waiting for me to run into the family room and open his crate. Of course I honored his wish. The very next day when I came home from work, the little Frenchman, even with his crippled and crossed rear legs, was first dog at the door, doing his twirly dance and jumping...and so it remained that way for the next eight months or so.

Every day when I came home I had to mop the floor, clean the sofa, sometimes clean Frenchie himself. When Gracie died, he didn't seem upset but grew quiet. He followed her exit about two months later. It was a Sunday and he collapsed when one rear leg could no longer support him. He couldn't even find a comfortable way to sit.

He is the one dog I have not mourned, that I have not until now allowed myself to mourn, because the pain is too great when I even think of reaching in and acknowledging it. He was pure sweetness and without any doubt a gift from the universe that just ended up in my lap (which is where he was most of the time). Sure, we struggled with 9 years of copraphagia and almost as many of incontinence. Sure, lots of people said "EWWWWW" when his scent reached them before he did. But to me, snoring and snorting in my ear every night, he was a sacred luulabye.

So I am trying hard to avoid mourning and instead celebrating my ten years with a remarkably loving companion who survived cancer, severe heartworm infestation, the wrath of Seamus, and the piercing and sneaky peckings of my mischievous macaw, and who remained unrattled and quiet through his end. He is the only dog I could not pull myself away from. After he died I remained with him and held his body for a long time, sobbing. And even though I did have to let go, I still cannot release that image: his eyes closed, his thick little bulldog body so, so still, his tongue, hanging from his mouth, amost frozen on the exam table.

Frenchie, for the many blessings I received from you and for what you have given me, I wish so many more blessings to you.

That Lucid Moment

I was in PetsMart the other day browsing collars for my dogs, two pretty strong Irish Water Spaniels. As I was looking for heavier nylon martingale collars, a pink flash yanked me upward to a delicate ribbon of a collar perhaps half an inch wide decorated with sewed-on multicolor rosettes. I touched the collar and thought, " I'd have bought Gracie this one" and surrendered to insistent tears. Gracie left us a few months ago and still, nightly when I shut the overhead kitchen light, I turn on the small utility stove light for her, as I did every night when she was alive, and announce to the spaniels, "Let's leave the light on for Gracie." Then the three of us exit the dimly lit room and go upstairs.

I once bought her a pink rhinestone collar and told her they were diamonds. She believed me. Then about four years ago the great folks at Bark Avenue Mall gifted us with a beautiful crocheted pink collar and leash set adorned with large plastic "gemstones." Everyone who saw her "twin set" remarked on how special it was. She loved that, too. It still hangs at the front door.

When Gracie first showed signs of cognitive impairment -- early Alzheimer's -- she did so by refusing to join us upstairs, this after twelve years of sleeping in, alongside, or beneath my bed. She suddenly stopped socializing with us, and it was not for fear of the steps. Occasionally I'd find her sitting at the top of the stairs or on the second to the top step, and if I verbally acknowledged her, she'd speed downstairs, horrified that she was "caught." In her illness she sought invisibility. My challenge was to detach and grant her that wish. Reluctantly, I allowed her to be who she was becoming and missed her terribly in the years even before her death.


Early in her dementia, she conducted secret late-night espionage missions. I'd hear her nails tap tap tapping on the laminate floor at different pitches, back and forth, back and forth, somehow looking for some hidden treasure. At the time, our new macaw (who now sleeps with us, too), spent the night in a wheeled cage in the living room . One of Gracie's first midnight maneuvers involved relocating him. When I heard the tap tap tapping with an accompanying unidentifiable rattle and roll, I tiptoed halfway down the stairs to witness Gracie walking upright, pushing the bird cage into the dining room like a toddler with a baby carriage. I still love this image of her.

I crated at night after that for her own safety, and she rarely ventured out of the crate. She conducted her sporadic spy missions during prime time (scurrying back and forth, back and forth from the crate to the living room window, looking for this mystery object). Because I wanted her to be more comfortable in her preferred confinement, I set up a 36 X 36 plastic pen, open at the top, and placed inside it two beds, a mat, and water and food dishes for her. We called it Gracie's "apartment." She loved it, and every so often redecorated it herself, rearranging the beds and dishes. I left the door open for her to come and go as she pleased during the day, but as she descended deeper into her condition, she left less often. The last thing I'd do for her each night was turn on the range hood light and kiss her round Schnauzer head with a "Goodnight, Grace."

She eventually grew unaware of her surroundings and more than once stood immobilized in the dining room, panicked, unable to navigate an exit. On her last day with me, when I brought her in to the animal hospital, a place she'd been many times for fourteen years, she was anxious, unsettled, disturbed. She'd been the only one of my dogs who didn't succumb to nervousness at the vet's office; she'd eat treats before, during, and after an exam, unfazed by prodding, injections, blood draws. This time she ran in frantic circles around the exam table legs, under the chair, doing a high speed figure eight around the furniture, panting rapidly and heavily, running and in and out, t his way and that, unable to settle down. The vet tech said, "I'd never know this is the same Gracie I saw two months ago." When Dr. Kuhn sat on the floor with us and watched Gracie's nonstop laps around room, she assured me that the Gracie I loved for almost fifteen years no longer existed. We talked on the floor for about fifteen minutes while Gracie panted and scooted, panted and scooted, uninterested our conversation, in the blanket on the floor, in the hypodermic needles protruding from Dr. Kuhn's pocket. Then unexpectedly, as if party to some other-wordly intervention, Gracie had her lucid moment. As in a Flannery O'Connor revelation, she became her name and we touched souls in a most Divine instant. She stopped running and stood still, staring at me, holding the gaze for what seemed like minute, giving me not permission but conviction. Then she stepped onto the blanket and we gave her back to the Universe.

God's Covenant with Animals in the Old Testament

What is our human responsibility to the earth and its non-human inhabitants? Traditional Biblical scholars would say one of master-servant and ecologists would say one of caretaker. However, using either frame, neither movement has responded in full view of the evidence presented throughout the Bible that God clearly included animals in covenantal relationships with Biblical scholars neglecting the sanctity of animals and secular environmentalists neglecting God. A closer look at the Old Testament reveals that God designed humankind’s role in relation to the animals as one of stewardship rather than domination. Traditionally religious people often cite Scripure justify a master/servant relationship between humans and animals rather than one of partnership, but deeper investigation invites us to see texts rich with references, both literal and figurative, to the partnership between humankind and the animal world. From Genesis through Prophets and Wisdom Literature, the writers of the Old Testament expose God’s instructions for this relationship and the responsibilities inherent therein through clearly stated covenants beginning in Genesis and reverberating elsewhere in the Old Testament.
Understanding this relationship requires an initial analysis of the word covenant. While modern secular usage restricts covenant to a “bilateral contract or agreement,” theological dictionaries add critical divine dimensions. The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology distinguishes between modern day contract and covenant. “From the Latin word, convenire (to come together or to agree)” covenant as currently used “ neglects the Biblical sacred context of the word berith and offers as analogy “the difference between prostitution (contract) and marriage (covenant). or between owning a slave (contract) and having a son (covenant).”
Secondly, theological commentaries underscore the unilateral nature of God’s covenants. Humans are not God’s equal; thus it is God, not man, who “ formulates all the conditions” and “stipulates all the results.” Theopedia provides further insight: ” …the inequality between the parties (Creator and creatures) is absolute. It is always made clear that the initiative is God's - that He makes covenants with his people and not vice versa. God initiates, confirms and even fulfills.” The argument extends beyond mere definition to incorporate the concept of relationship. Ralph Alan Smith implores us to lay down the argument differentiating between “agreement” and “relationship” since one is often a precursor of the other: “an agreement may establish a relationship and be considered an aspect of it.” Accepting God’s relationship with his creation, then, means accepting the intimacy of relationship. Terence Fretheim concurs with his assertion that Genesis lays the groundwork for our perspectives on “the relationships between God and the world, and human and non-human interrelationships” (71).
Translators tackle challenges when interpreting covenant, which has no accurate translation; as the St. Paul Center explains, its unknown origin requires contextual definition. Scholars actually translate two words, the Hebrew word berith and the Greek word diatheke, each with individual connotations. In fact, an appropriate etymological irony here is that, berith relates to a word meaning "to cut" and covenant is a metaphor for ‘cutting,’ refererring the ancient practice of “ dividing animals into two parts with the contracting parties passing between them, in making a covenant” (Theopedia). In Genesis15, God told Abraham to bring in a ram, a heifer, a goat, which he split “and placed each half opposite the other.” After a “terrible darkness” enveloped Abraham, a “flaming torch” passed through those pieces.” This is immediately followed by, “It was on that occasion that the Lord made a covenant.” The St. Paul Center points out that Abraham’s passivity signifies the “unilateral nature of this covenant…” Indeed, his slumber, as opposed to God’s deliberate activity, enforces this notion.
Animal Covenants throughout the Old Testament
Throughout the Old Testament, God proclaims his care for both humans and animals, which begins in Genesis beginning with, as Diane Bergant notes, our shared origins as both man and animals are created from “ the substance of the earth” (“The Bible Tells Me So”). Our shared creation is further evidenced by Greenway’s assessment of God’s dietary instructions: we were given plants and fruits for food, and so were all the other animals who have "the breath of life" in them… neither animals nor we are given other animals to eat.”
Terence Frethheim identifies significant passages in Genesis where the world, including the animals, are “caught up in God’s saving work (6:19 -7:3), God’s remembering (8:1), and God’s promising (9:10)” (44). In Genesis 6:19 God instructs Noah to bring two kinds of each of the “birds,” “beasts,” and all kinds of creeping things” into the ark “to stay alive.” In Genesis 8.1, as the rains continue, God’s remembrance of Noah and the animals compelled him to end the flood: God remembered Noah, and all the animals, wild and tame, that were with him in the ark. So God made a wind seep over th earth, and the waters began to subside.” After the flood, when God blessed Noah and his sons, he enters into a covenant with him and all the earth’s creatures. I t is written in the frequently cited Genesis 9:10, “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you.” God promises never to destroy the earth by water is clearly extended to the animals: “ never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood” and repeats with the appearance of a rainbow, the triangular covenant that is “between me and you and all living beings.” In fact, between Genesis 9:8 and 9:17, God repeats his promise no fewer than six times. Hiersl writes , “Clearly this was not an anthropocentric covenant, rather it was made with and for the benefit of all kinds of living creatures and calls covenant with the natural world the most significant of all the covenants because precedes the other covenants Abraham and his descendants and it covered all life (5).
Historical, Literary, and Theological Associations
The most debated element of our relationship with animals centers on the controversy over one word in the Old Testament: dominion. Theologians have treated it as synonymous with rule and subordination, but examination suggests otherwise. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language assigns its derivation from the Latin dominiom, meaning property, from dominus, meaning lord; also related to domain and dungeon. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary offers the synonyms sovereignty, control, rule, and authority. In Biblical contexts, the word has been linked to domination. Although radah/dominion is used most often to speak about kings and national rulings, James Limburg concluded that a study of the Old Testament yields evidence that “humane and compassionate rule that displays responsibility for others … results in peace and prosperity,” supporting the interpretation of dominion as caretakaing (Bunge).
In considering its application, theology professor Ellen Bernstein calls for primary attention to context. “You have to consider the derivation of the words under consideration the meaning of the neighboring words and verses, the message of the Bible as a whole, the context in which it was written, and how others have understood the verse throughout its 3000 year history”(2). She suggests that we often miss the sacred context of the word dominion as it was written in Genesis. “The concept of ‘dominion’ in this context is a blessing/bvracha, a divine act of love” (3). She explains the intricacies of Biblical Hebrew, a “more symbolic, multilayered and vague language than English – any single word root can have multiple meanings and often a word and its opposite will share the same root” (3) Bible scholar Norbers Samuelson demonstrates that the word kvs/master comes from the Aramaic “to tread down or make a path” and in Sechariah the root is interchangeable with akl, the word for each. This demonstrates that in one case it can be translated as master but in other cases “it appears to have agricultural implications” (3). “Have dominion over” –rdh, “generally refers to “rule of subjects.” If we are righteous and rule wisely and responsibly we are above animals, but if we misuse our power, we “sink below the level of animals and bring ruin to ourselves and the world”(4). The duality of meanings is at play here as it is in many Biblical passages. “graciousness and domination” (5).
Diane Bergant also supports the nurturing context of dominion, citing Gensis 2:15: ""The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. " Jeanne Kay relies on the benevolent monarchy – “good shepherd stewardship” rather than tyrannical rule (221), and noting the limitations of dominion, reminds us that “Adam cannot eat the animals” and God gives Noah the task of saving them. (222). Man cannot claim authority “to subjugate” animals. In Job 39:9-10, God asks, “Who has given the wild ass his freedom, and who has loosed him from his bonds?.” declaring, “ I have made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling.” He uses this line of questioning in lines 26-27 to demonstrate that he alone rules the earth: “Is it by your discernment that the hawk soars” and “Does the eagle fly up at your command to build his nest aloft?” Only God can dominate nature, Kay contends. “Humans may, on good behavior, serve as nature’s managers, but true dominion belongs only to God” (227). Bernstein speaks of “perpetuity” in defining the role of dominion: we cultivate the garden to ensure that its creatures continue. Likewise, only God can take a life. The dietary directions given to Noah after the flood are explicit in their prohibition of consuming an animal’s blood which Tubbs contends “ is presented not as a cultic ‘dietary law’ but as a universal ordinance: " Even when man slaughters and kills, he is to know that he is touching something, which, because it is life, is in a special manner God's property…” and as a sign of this he is to keep his hands off the blood." It was not God’s intention for humans to behave as "tyrants" in the natural world, “but rather to preserve and care for God's creation in the image of God's own providence.”
Theologians frequently justify the rulership model of dominion through Adam’s naming of the animals, a task given to him by God. However, Tubbs offers contrary evidence: “the Yahwist Adam names his human partner no less than the animals, and the Priestly account certainly does not indicate any human "dominion" over other humans.” Writing in the Theology Today, Tubbs shows us how God attends GOd's creation “quite apart from any human agency.” God sends rain to areas with no human inhabitants (Job 38:26-27) and provides habitation, food, and drink for animals in the wild (Job 39:5-6; Ps. 104:10-27).” “Clearly, such depictions of the natural (nonhuman) creation as subject to God's ownership and providence imply strongly that its proper value and status extend far beyond its utility to humankind.” Bunge interprets God’s speaking to Job through the storm in (Job 38 and 39) in a similar vein: “God's first speech from the whirlwind (Job 38,39), indicate that God takes great delight in non-human creatures and did not create them for human benefit alone:
Who puts wisdom in the heart,
And gives the cock its understanding?
Who provides nourishment for the ravens
When their young ones cry out to God,
And they rove abroad without food?
(Job 38:39-41)

Tubbs writes that it was not God’s intention for humans to behave as "tyrants" in the natural world, “but rather to preserve and care for God's creation in the image of God's own providence.” Greenway concurs, writing “True dominion lies not in us, but in God. If we are rightly to understand how to exercise our dominion, we must strive to imitate and understand God's dominion.”
How Covenant with Animals Contributes to the Wider Theology of the OT
The covenant between God and animals is referenced throughout the Old Testament with animals used in various capacities: as agents of God, messengers, and teachers. Hosea 2:20 the reiterates the covenant: “I will make a covenant for them on that day, with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with the things that crawl on the ground (Bergant). Animals also serve as teachers in many instances. Jean-Yves Lacoste writes that “Directives and reprimands may come to humans through animals” and Murray suggests that animals offer a Divine model for human behavior .
Ezekiel’s vision of a chariot (43) may illustrate (albeit metpahorically)how animals and humans will share a place in God’s heaven as "blended creatures." The characters within the chariot in Ezekiel 1:5-15 are presented as “living creatures” that possess both human and animal characteristics that include multiple wings rounded feet (“the souls of their feet were round”) “ but each had four faces and four wings” and “the soles of their feet were round.” Their animal faces are very specific: each of the four had the face of a man, but on the right side was the face of a lion, and on the left side the face of an ox, and finally each had the face of an eagle.”
Tova Forti explains that Old Testament literature, particularly Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, “embed empiric observations of animal’s [sic] behavior as well as illustrations of zoological characteristics as examples reinforcing various teachings about human behavior” (120). In Proverbs, “minute creatures, such as ants, badgers, locusts, and lizards, are considered to display some of the wisest models of behavior in spite ote their lack of physical strength. Proverbs 30:24-28 lists numerous creatures who have lessons for human beings:
Four things are among the smallest on the earth
And yet are exceedingly wise
Ants, a species not strong, yet the store sup their food in the summer.
Rock badgers – a species not mighty,
Yet they make their home in the crags
Locusts – they have no king,
Yet they migrate all in array;
Lizards – you can catch them with yoru hands,
Yet they find their way into kings’ palaces.

The locusts, usually seen as a destructive force are seen in Proverbs as admirable because of their “efficient organization” (Forti 121).
Throughout the Old Testament, God proclaims his care for both humans and animals. Addressing God’s care for all creation, Robert Murray notes, “Human beings share with animals the condition of being creatures” (42). This means also that they share the condition of mortality. Psalm 49 warns humans against valuing the “folly” of wealth, reminding us that our demise is contingent upon our lack of wisdom: “If mortals do not have wisdom, they perish like the beasts.” Bergant says we are interdependent with all creation and thus bond with the animals, even in our blessings as Psalm 103 indicates: “Bless the Lord, all creatures” (“The Bible Tells Me So”).
More than messengers and models, animals are often used to do God’s bidding, as Kay shows. It is written in Exodus 23:28-30 and Leviticus 26:22: that if the Israelites’ behave righteously,” hornets will drive out the Hebrews’ enemies and wild predators will not attack them as they escape from Egypt and head for Canaan (223). In 1 Kings 17:1-6, God directs Elijah to hide in a wadi in Jordan during a severe drought . God assures him, “You shall drink of the stream, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there….Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening.” In 2 Kings 2:24, on the way to Bethel, the prophet Elisha is ridiculed by children and the wrath of nature is set upon them:“Go up, baldhead,” they shouted, “go up, baldhead!” The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore torty-two of the children to pieces.” Another instance of an animal carrying out the wishes of God appears in the story of Jonah, as the fish does God’s work of transporting Jonah safely to shore. “Out of my distress I called to the Lord…From the midst of the nether world I crid for help and you heard my voice,” Jonah says, and continues describing his life-threatening experience “enveloped” in the “abyss;” when he acknowledges that God has the power of deliverance. In Daniel 6:23, we see a similar scenario (226). Surviving the lion’s den, Daniel proclaims, “My God has sent his angel to close the lions’ mouths so that they have not hurt me.” A drastically different fate befalls Daniel’s accusers, their wives, and their children, who were killed by the lions even “before they reached the bottom of the den.” The most widely known instance of creatures doing God’s bidding is evident in Exodus, through the Plagues, “the role of the nonhuman as mediator in God’s delivering activity (Fretheim 44).
In nearly every book of the Old Testament, we witness the relationship with God and non-human creation. Even the genealogies in Genesis demonstrate more than historical lineage, according to Fretheim: “it shows that every person is kin to eveyr other; even more…human and nonhuman are linked together in one very large extended family” (68). The Book of Psalms concludes with a testament to God’s relationship with all life: ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!’ (Sharp).

Practical Ministerial Applications of the Theme

In “The Role of Nature in Natural Disasters,” Diane Bergant sees a causal relationship between “anthropocentric imperialism” and ecological destruction. “We, like every other creature of the natural world, are embedded in the realityof this world, we are not above it. Furthermore, like every other creature of the natural world, we are subject to its laws, laws established in the beginning by the Creator.” Greenway accuses traditional Biblical scholars of ignoring ”a pivotal theological teaching” “that we are to love all creatures. ” Bunge credits Fretheim with teaching us that through Psalms, we witness that “God is active in nature and intimately involved in every aspect of natural order” (2).
Furthermore, Bunge highlights an important connections between the environment and social injustice: how can we love our neighbors without considering their vulnerability to environmental hazards? (2). The Bible “points out the commonalities between human beings and other living things” and “provide powerful grounds for environmental responsibility” (webofcreation.org). Referring specifically to divine covenant, we receive blessings from our covenant with God, but such That receipt is contingent upon how we fulfill the duties assigned to us in our living relationship with non-human inhabitants of the earth. Relationship with God is not limited to humankind, as Yale Divinity Professor Carolyn Sharp reminds us that “every living creature hears God’s voice” .
This concept assumes new significance today because of our heightened sensitivity to the environment and earth’s creatures, both suffering devastating loss and destruction. It gives us a Biblical imperative for cultivating relationships with non-human elements of the earth and spiritually validates those of us who choose to share our lives with them and work for their benefit. It adds Divine impetus to “humane” living as we reassess ourselves in relation to the Bible, demonstrating that our moral standards – sadly, not shared by all – lead us to be activists for Divine justice. It invites us to rediscover purpose in our relationships with the non-human world we share. As a grief counselor specializing in the loss people's animal companions I see first hand how these insights validate their choices and can draw them into rather than away from organized religions that have traditionally neglected the potency of human-animal relationships and minimized the spiritual value of the natural world. People often experience discomfort when their religious leaders proclaim human superiority over animals because their experience shows them otherwise. They often become disenfranchised. This research elasticizes religion to embrace a more holistic spirituality reserving for them a place where they are not only welcome but blessed by God for their loving stewardship of the garden. As Bergant writes, “The human creature is placed in the garden to serve (the same verb as ‘till’) and guard it” (“The Bible Tells Me So”). Tubbs maintains that giving attention to our role in dominion and nature offers us opportunity through reflection to assess our values which may “deepen and broaden our appreciation and concern for the effects and consequences of human decisions upon nonhuman beings.

Works Cited
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Houghton
Mifflin, 2006.
Bergant, Dianne. "The Bible Tells Me So: The Good Book is Gull of Passages to Inspire
Environmental Action." U.S. Catholic 73.4 (April 1, 2008): 16(2). Academic OneFile. Gale. CCLA, Miami Dade Comm College. 19 Apr. 2009.
----. “The Role of Nature in Natural Disasters.” Listening: Journal of Religion and
Culture. 1998 (33).
Bernstein, Ellen. The Splendor of Creation, a Biblical Ecology. www. Ellenbernstein.org
www.religiononline.org/showchapter .
Bradshaw, Robert L. Covenant. http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_covenant.html
Bunge, Marcia. “Biblical Views of Nature: Foundations for an Environmental Ethic.”
www.webofcreation.org.
“Covenant.” Dictionary of Theology. http://www/.carm.org/christianity/dictionary-theology
Forti, Tova. “Who Teaches Us More Athan the Beasts of the Earth, and Makes us Wise than the
Birds of the Heavens. PECUS. Man and Animal in Antiquity. Proceedings of the Conference at the Swedish Institute in Rome, Sept. 9-12. 2002. Ed. Barbro Santillo
Frizell (The Swedish Insittute in Rome. Projects and Seminars , 1) Rome 2004. http://www.svenska-institutet-rom.org/pecus.v%20120-122.
Fretheim, Terence. The Pentateuch. Nashville: Abington Press 1996.
“God’s Covenant with Animals.” Humane Religion. July - August 1996
Greenway, William. “Animals and the Love of God.” Christian Century , 21 June 2000. Gale,
Cengage Learning. 1-4.
Hiersl, Richard H. “Reverence for Life and Environmental Ethics in Biblical Law and Covenant.
Covenant.”http://fore.research.yale.edu/religion/christianity/essays/chris_hiers_index.htm
Kay, Jeanne. “Human Dominion Over Nature in the Hebrew Bible.” Annals of the Association
American Geographers. (1989) 79: 2. 214-232.
LaCoste, John-Yves. “Animals.” Encyclopedia of Christian Theology.
www.books.googlebooks.com
Sharp, Carolyn. “Rereading Dominion in Scriptural Traditions.” Catholic Concern for Animals.
http://www.all-creatures.org/ca/art-rereading.htm .
Smith, Ralph Allan. “Defining the Covenant: What Consensus?”
http://www.berith.org/essays/defining_the_covenant_what_consensus.htm
St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.
http://www.salvationhistory.com/studies/lesson/covenant_the_master_key_that_unlocks_the_bible
Tubbs, Jr., James B. “ Humble Dominion.” Theology Today. 50. 4 (1994.)
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/search/index-search.htm
“Covenant.” Theopedia. www.theopedia.com/covenant.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA,: 1996

Gracie Shaw, 5/21/94 - 2/25/09

It was time. She knew so, the vet said so, I thought so. I drew Reiki symbols over her head, stroked her side as the valium lured her out of anxious pacing into peaceful slumber, willing and needing to depart (it was time, it was), and now I celebrate the life of this once feisty little Schnauzer who came to me like an angel 15 years ago and led me through crisis into clarity with her zest, her verve, her love. Ciao, Grazia. You were aptly named.

When?

When?
I'm living with two ailing senior dogs for whom special care is routine. I cook bland, grain-free poultry dishes for Frenchie, whose deteriorating spinal malformation required serious weight loss -- under his vet's orders, I had to take him from 23 pounds to 19 (at last weigh in he was under that). His disorder has caused paresis, rendering him unable to walk without his rear legs sliding out from under him. The slightest stress causes frequent urinary and occasional fecal incontinence. He has always been my little sidekick, following me from room to room, and now I sometimes forget that he can't, so when I leave the room for more than a minute, he breaks into wild howls and yodels, what Frenchie people know as "the French bulldog scream." He has slept next to me for the ten years I have lived with him. Once a week or so I am awakened by a mess in the bed....a very unsavory mess with omission-worthy details. From the waist up he's joyful, hungry, alert, and appreciative, so grateful that I can actually feel his heart swell when I sit on the couch with my arm around him, his head lowered, pressing into my side. On the days his legs can't hold him up, on the days they crisscross behind him and he falls onto his side when hewalks, on the days he leaves three rivers of urine on the floor within 10 minutes, I think about bringing him to his vet and gently saying goodbye. Dignity is the determinant, people say.

My deaf and silent schnauzer, who will be 15 in May, has descended deeper into the abyss of dementia. Her vet's office displays a brochure advertising a medication that eases the progression of "doggie Alzheimer's disease," which asks: does your dog pace back and forth regularly? does your dog wander in the house or spend hours staring into space? does your dog seek isolation rather than your company? If so, .... We answered yes to all of the above with the added behavior of engaging in imaginary room-to-room missions, anxiously seeking an elusive something. But because Gracie has been happy in her loopy wonderland, I decided not to medicate her. She's on enough medication for petit mal seizures, kidney-related blood pressure problems, incontinence, and thyroid malfunction. Some days days she still hops like a jackrabbit through the yard, which was always her yard-- she patrolled it, she killed unfortunate feathered invaders in it, cleared two feet of bushes along the fence to chat with the neighbor's Cairn terrier, remained the last of the dogs to return to the house because she so loved being outside, watching the water, the trees, the sky. One day after circling the palm trees she greeted me, ecstatically crunching on something marble-like, rolling it against her teeth, her little stumpy tail wagging and her head held high and back, but she quickly twisted her neck, looked sideways and clenched her jaw when I tried to pry her mouth open. It was the skull of a baby bird who had fallen from its nest, its retrieval a measure of Gracie's prowess and dignity. My vet and I said, "Ewwww."

She survived cancer twice, and whenever I bring her to the vet to examine some new growth or behavioral peculiarity, I ask is it time? I lose my objectivity with my own dogs. Once, using a needle to extract fluid from a tumor for lab testing, Gracie turned and bit Dr. Kuhn, whom she's adored for ten years. "Not yet," Dr. Kuhn assured me. " She's still full of piss and vinegar." That was a year ago, before her recent malignancy, before she slowed down. She doesn't remember direction. She forgets how to walk through the open door. She stands immoblized in the dining room, not recognizing the walls. She reacted poorly to the narcotic the doctor administred during the tumor removal a few months ago and cried through the surgery, then screamed in the house for eight hours following -- wandered from room to room crying and howling and screaming. Finally at 9:00 p.m. I gave her 3/4 of a Xanax the vet recommended I get from a friend (thank God I have anxious friends). She settled down at midnight and slept next to my bed, which in senile isolation mode, she has avoided for the past three years. I thought we’d say farewell in the morning.She woke up at seven without so much as a whimper and bounced back from the surgery like a two year-old.

I heard two stories about dignity from dog people I greatly respect. Deborah, an Irish Water Spaniel breeder in Georgia, described her moment of recognition. Her dog also lived in LaLaLand, happily, until one afternoon, running in the yard on one of her imaginary missions, the dog stopped and froze and as Deborah described it, "a look of absolute terror overcame her." At that moment, seeing her dog so fearful because she couldn't recognize her surroundings, she knew it was time to let her go. Dr. Kuhn shared a similar story. Her "cognitively impaired" dog engaged in unexplainable night missions much like Gracie. In the morning she found furniture in odd places. One morning she discovered her dog stuck in a furniture configuration of her own making with that same fearful look that asked, "Where am I and how did I get here?" She euthanized her later that day. "They have to go with some dignity," she said.

Old dogs sleep deeply. Gracie hasn't responded to calls in years but lately sleeps longer than the rest of us and needs a vigorous shake to awaken. I bend into her pen, checking for breathing, and visualize her ending this life in such sleep, draped like a rug over her pawprint soiled pink "princess" bed, by her own calendar and consent, sparing me the anguish of watching her dignityevaporate before she does.