Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Pets are heart medicine for humans

[Bluebear]

By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Maybe your grandmother is like mine; they see the world with ‘other eyes.’

My grandmother would sometimes say upon seeing the glee in her little dog’s eyes when she returned home: Dogs are heart medicine for humans. Other times when her butter yellow canaries would sing and sing just because the sun rose, she would say, Birds are heart medicine for humans. But then, when her kitties would adorn various kitchen cupboards to help her cook by waving their tails like pendulums, she’d say Cats are heart medicine for humans.

I was thinking of this, because a friend who is so ill, has an oncologist who understands the grandmother/ grandfather wisdom… and lets patients lie in big green vinyl recliner chairs wearing their living kitty mufflers, kitty aprons, and kitty head warmers during IV chemo.

Blessed oncologist whose chemo rooms are like a menagerie. When I’ve been there for my own infusions… another story for another time, I have a recurring anemia… the most unusual thing is that the dogs lying against people’s legs or lying quietly in laps, and all the kitties are on a mission; no fighting goes on there, no scouting for mates, no being sidetracked. Each creature, fully present to their person. It must be so: Creatures are medicine for their humans.

We’ve got Mother’s Day, whether every mother is ‘good enough’ or not. Same, Father’s Day. But no Cat Day. No Dog Day. No Bird Day. Some of the very few creatures on earth who will try to uncritically stay with us no matter how weak, how strong, how strange, upset, preoccupied we act, no matter what....MORE:

http://themoderatevoice.com/entertainment/literature/15148/creatures-are-heart-medicine-for-humans/