Love, the most potent medicine in the universe, is something dogs embody powerfully and give in abundance. My story is about this great healing power.
Carmelyn was a very beautiful golden retriever. She was extremely loving, high spirited, and fun. I have had many wonderful relationships with animals throughout my life, however Carmelyn was a soul sister of the highest order. We had a very intuitively communicative relationship and our bond was full and complete.
When Carmelyn died suddenly at six years of age, I was swept into such deep grief that I thought I would never recover. I had been diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier, but nothing could have prepared me for the trauma of losing my beloved canine friend.
A month after Carmelyn’s death, I am lying on a table in an acupuncture clinic on the outskirts of Sonoma. It is spring of 2004. Feeling tremendous sadness, I look up into the kind eyes of my doctor. I am grieving for Carmelyn, and for another tiny growth that has emerged on my left side, where I have undergone several surgeries already. I am so blessed and grateful that I have this gifted doctor from Vietnam to keep my focus positive. He has been honored by the Dalai Lama as one of the top fifty healers in the world.
My doctor’s words are a soothing balm. “Your dog friend is coming back to you. She will have four eyes.” He says he has come to this awareness through one of his meditations and my heart instantly knows that what he is saying is true.
As I open myself completely to the possibility, my immune system grabs the boost from this message of hope! I’m now one glowing creature, smiling from ear to ear.
A few days later I dream of a litter of black-and-tan puppies. They look similar to German Shepherds, but I sense they are somehow different – a breed I have never known.
A month or two later, while camping in Half Moon Bay, I spot an unusual dog.
With jolts of electricity running through my body, I run over to ask about him. The man tells me he’s a Hovawart, meaning “guardian of the property,” and that Hovawarts are ancestors to the German Shepherd and a rare breed in the United States. I immediately remember my dream and know I am meant to have just such a dog.
My husband and I begin our research and are guided to a Hungarian woman living in Louisiana who is a lover of Hovawarts. She commits herself to helping us find our puppy and eventually connects us with a breeder in Hungary.
Throughout that summer, as I continued to work on healing my body, communications continued with all parties involved to help me connect with my new dog. I felt certain Carmelyn was trying to find her way back to me.
I was beginning to see with complete clarity that Carmie’s death was no accident. The one important thing I had not done to heal myself was to make a move from a home environment that was extremely toxic for me, emotionally and psychically. I had stayed for far too long, and my illness was due, in part, to that mistake.
I came to believe that Carmie had died in order to protect me, in some way beyond understanding. I had always known that our animals are mirrors for us, taking on our energies and reflecting back our own interior states. I now knew that if I did not find a new home, I might not live, and I couldn’t let Carmelyn’s death be in vain.
With fierce determination I grabbed on to this new goal: WE ARE MOVING!! Within a matter of months, my husband and I sold our home and made our move.
On November 22, 2004, we slept for the first night in our new sanctuary that is like a tree house overlooking the Valley of the Moon. A short time later, we received the news that a litter of Hovawart puppies was born that very same night in Hungary!
That Thanksgiving was filled with gratitude running deep in my bones. I was lifted even higher on December 3 when I received the message that my lymph nodes were clear!
The divine plan still unfolding, we went to San Francisco on January 26 to meet our eight-week-old girl pup who was being delivered by a friend-of-a-friend from a small village in Hungary, just a few miles from where Luna was born. This kind soul suddenly showing up to assist us felt like another piece of the miracle.
I now have Luna in my home and heart – a gorgeous, healthy, playful black-and-tan Hovawart with tan full-moon markings over her brows that look like an extra pair of eyes – my doctor’s prophecy come true. I am convinced that Luna is Carmelyn reborn – that in some mysterious way the same sweet spirit has come back to heal me.
Maia Silver lives in Sonoma in what she calls her peaceful “tree house” with her husband, Jerry, and their loving “guardian of the property,” Luna. She is a psychotherapist in private practice. This Thanksgiving she will celebrate five years of being cancer free.
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