If you think animals have no feelings, don’t tell Carla Persons. The Phoenix-born resident knows them better than just about anyone and she’ll tell you they sure do have feelings. In fact, she talks to them!
As a youngster, Carla found she could talk to her spirit teachers and friends. She also had a cat that was what she calls “a higher being” with whom she connected closely to. Then in high school, she began studying mysticism.
It wasn’t until 1987, however, that a Shamanic healer told her that she was particularly oriented toward animals and should learn how to communicate with them. She immediately contacted the Foundation For Shamanic Studies and completed her formal training in 1998.
Today, the 39-year-old is a Shamanic healer and Animal Communicator. She operates a successful business helping people to better understand their animals, whether it is a fluffy little kitten or a horse in your stable. And it doesn’t matter if your beloved pet is dead or alive. Either way, she can tell you what their thinking, what is bothering them and how to correct the problem. But how she does it is fascinating. First she goes into a Shamanic trance.
“I use a drum and rattle, and I sing sacred songs,” said Carla.
She does not hear the animals speaking in our reality, but rather during the time she’s in the trance-like state.
“Only once in a while does spirit manifest so strongly that I can perceive them in three dimensions with ordinary reality senses, incarnate and temporal. It has happened, but it is rare. I hear the loud and clear in non-ordinary reality.”
Most people today are aware of Shamanic healing. It is the oldest for of healing, which has been practiced since the binning of humankind.
What a Shaman actually does is connect with compassionate spirits and seek their help to heal people. In Carla’s case, she uses their expertise to heal animals instead.
“The Shaman enters a Shamanic state of consciousness through listening to rhythmic percussion. He or she then journeys to the world of spirits and connects with spirit allies for healing work. These spirits are available to help everyone and the Shaman’s role is often to reconnect clients with their helping spirits, restoring their personal power.”
In the case of animals, Carla said they have powerful animal spirits that can help them. Once the particular animal spirit has been contacted, the Shaman then asks for diagnoses of the animal’s problem. A domestic pet like a cat or dog may have emotional issues or physical problems that cause behavioral problems. Other animals, such as horses, may suffer with lameness or some other illness and needs pain relief. Carla says that an animal’s ailments are often both physical and spiritual, and it’s important to understand the animal’s point of view. When she is first asked to help an animal, she will visit with it in non-reality and find out such things as the pet’s past memories and current impressions.
“In that journey, I also enter the animal’s body and see if there is pain or injury. I ask my spirit to heal the hurt and learn if there is any treatment that would be good to pursue.”
Carla noted that one horse in Arizona told her he was lonely and really wanted to be with the horses in another paddock. The horse also missed a particular colt he was fond of. When the horse was reunited with one of the mares and her colt, the horse was happy.
Other Entities
“When people and animals are vulnerable and dis-empowered, it is possible for entities that don’t belong to enter our bodies. These misplaced entities can cause persistent sickness, soreness and other undesirable things. As a Shaman, one of my key functions is to work with my spirits to extract these misplaced entities and deliver them to a neutral place where they can contribute to the overall good of things, instead of causing harm. After an extraction, we always fill the space with positive healing power of some kind.”
Carla said her spiritual ally might sing a sacred song to an animal through her. She captures the song on audiotape and then gives it to the animal’s owner to pay to their pet over and over again.
Some animals are healed through the instruction of the spirits to give them specific herbs, essences, diet changes, poultices, message, aromatherapy, exercise and more. Carla admits that she is not an expert in such things, so she relies heavily on the advice she is given, and so far, all prescriptions have proved positive for the animal in question. In some case, the spirit ally may actually touch an animal to bring about a healing. In such cases where energy is used to cure an animal, Carla might use a plant, light, crystal or other powerful item and chant over the animal to bring relief.
If your animal has passed over, Carla can find out if the animal has happily settled in the spirit world and will communicate any messages that the animal may have for its previous owners.
“A loved one’s death can be a most sorrowful and heart-wrenching event. It helps to contact the animal (or person) and learn what its new world is like, and make sure he or she is doing okay. It is also nice to hear soothing messages from the loved one and to learn if he or she has plans to come back and live with you again.”
If animals die suddenly, it may not go directly to the light and cross over. This can be a problem for the soul of the animal, as well as for its previous owner.
“Ghosts are often those lost wandering souls. Sometimes too, a soul stays her for a while before moving on, to comfort others or just get used to the idea of being dead. This is generally not a problem and the soul moves on when it’s ready. As a Shamanic practitioner, one of my jobs is to journey to these lost souls. My spirits and I help them understand they are dead, and help them move to the light where they will find peace and healing.”
The concept of reincarnation also comes into play in Carla’s work. If an animal has had a bad experience with a particular person in a previous life, it will likely act out in some way in this one.
“My spirits and I can perform healing on the past and current relationships to help things go better today.”
Another interesting aspect of her work with animals is called ’soul retrieval.’ Shamans believe that when a person suffers from a physical or psychological problem, it indicates that part of one’s soul has split off and cannot contribute to the person being whole. This can show itself through such things as memory loss or just a feeling of incompleteness.
Often people lose a part of themselves as an emergency measure, to keep them from remembering such things as accidents, abuse or other trauma.
“There are pretty predictable situations that will call for soul retrieval – loss of memory, sense of not being all there, extreme shyness, etc.”
In order for a person or pet to become whole again, they must retrieve their missing parts. In Carla’s case, she contacts her animal spirit allies to find out what part of an animal’s soul is missing and brings it back to them. She claims to have good results in this area with horses, dogs and cats. On her site at www.spirithealer.com, she lists several success stories, including a Pekinese, a cat named Pepper, a horse named Harley in Arizona, horses in Florida and a litter of Doberman puppies.
On her site, she also offers courses and workshops for anyone interested in becoming a Shamanic Animal healer and communicator. As well, she has Shamanic books, tapes and other resources available for purchase.
ost of us know about animals? The answer is very little. There are almost two million species of animals on this planet today and their continued survival after one billion years is testament to their endurance and brilliance. At one extreme they are the big cats and elephants that most of us are familiar with, to the unknown animals somewhere beneath the sea bed.
Animals are usually easy to distinguish from other forms of life because most of them have the ability to move. This rule works very well for most of the animals that live on the land but it is not always the case for those that live in water. Here they live in water and in some cases have trailing arms or tentacles that make them look like plants. A reliable way of identifying animals is by their basic biological features. Their bodies are composed of many cells and they have nerves and muscles that enable them to respond to the world around them. They get the energy that they need by taking in food.
Animals are highly complex and responsive compared to other forms of life. Even the most simplest of animals react quickly to changes around them, shrinking away from potential danger or reaching out for food. The animals that are able to learn from experience and are unique to the animal world, are those animals with well developed nervous systems. The worlds largest living animals, baleen whales can live up to 25 metres long and weigh 120 tons. At the other end of the scale are microscopic organisms and sub microscopic flies and beetles. These animals are so tiny that their weight is negligible but they still possess the body systems that are needed for survival.
The different body sizes allow animals to live in different ways. Whales have few natural predators and the same is true of elephants, which is the largest land animal. They are able to process food on a very large scale because of the massive size of their bodies. However they take a long time to reach maturity, which means that they are slow to reproduce. Insects on the other hand are easy prey for many animals and their small size means that their bodies are not as energy efficient as large animals. But because they can breed very quickly when the conditions are in their favour, their numbers can rise at a very fast rate.
Almost all of the world’s largest and most familiar animals are vertebrates; these are animals that have backbones. They include the fastest animals on land, sea and air and also the world’s most intelligent species (homo sapiens). Vertebrates are all related to each other, sharing a common ancestry that goes back millions of years. However despite the fact that vertebrates lead the animal kingdom in many fields, they only make up a small minority of the animal species known today. The vast majority of species are invertebrates – animals without backbones.
Invertebrates often have very little in common with each other (unlike vertebrates), apart from their lack of a backbone. The giant squid which is the largest invertebrate, can measure over 16 metres long but it is very much an exception. Most of the invertebrates are very small and live in inaccessible habitats.
Most animals are cold blooded (ectothermic), which means that their body temperature is determined by that of their surroundings. The ability to generate their own heat and to maintain a constant internal temperature, regardles of the conditions outside, is particular to warm blooded (endothermic) birds and mammals. This difference in body temperature has some far reaching effects on the ways that animals lead their lives; this is because animal bodies work best when they are warm. Reptiles, amphibians and insects are cold blooded animals. They can exist very easily when the conditions are warm but if the temperature drops, there work rate and energy slows down. They are able to absorb some heat by being out in the sunshine but if the temperature falls below about 50 degrees fahrenheit, their muscles work so slowly that they find it difficult to move. Mammals and birds are hardly affected by this kind of temperature change. When the temperature falls below freezing, their internal heat and good insulation helps them to remain active.
In a physical way vertebrates function as separate units even though they may live together in families or in larger groups. In the invertebrate world it is not unusual for animals to be permanently linked to together, forming clusters that are known as colonies. These colonies often look and behave like single animals. Most are static but some, particularly those that live in the sea, are able to move around. Colonial species include some of the world’s most amazing invertebrates. Pyrosomes, for example, form colonies that are shaped like test tubes which are large enough for a diver to swim enter. However in ecological terms the most important colonial animals are reef building corals, which create complex structures that provide havens for a range of other animals. In reef building corals, the members of each colony are usually identical. But in some colonial species, the members have different shapes that are designed for different tasks. An example of this is the Portuguese man o’ war which looks like separate animals, called polyps that capture food, digest it, or reproduce. They use a giant filled polyp as the colony’s float and dangle beneath it.
Animals obtain their energy from organic matter or food. They are able to break food up by digesting it and then absorb the substances that are released. These substances go into the animals cells where they are combined with oxygen to release energy. This process is called cellular respiration and is a controlled form of burning, with food acting as the fuel.
The majority of animals are either herbivores who eat only plants, omnivores which eat both plants and other animals and carnivores which eat other animals. There are also scavengers that feed on dead matter. All animals, regardless of their lifestyle ultimately provide food for other animals. All are connected by food chains which pass food and energy to one another. 90 per cent of an animal’s energy is used to make its own body work and therefore food chains are rarely more than six links long.
Your xbox membership lets you connect and play with friends around the world and watch thousands of HD movies instantly from Netflix. In addition to Xbox LIVE features like available game add-ons, full Xbox 360® game downloads, Xbox LIVE Arcade games and unique fashions and props for your avatar, you’ll receive Gold-exclusive discounts like the Deal of the Week.
With your Gold membership you get early access to some of the best new games and content. The Xbox 3 month gold card will add 3 months of Xbox 360 Live Gold time on your subscription. The xbox live membership Month Gold Card will be delivered by email. With Xbox LIVE you can download games or game add-ons such as new songs, levels, and characters. Invite your friends to connect, chat, and play along and instantly watch thousands of movies.
The Xbox 1 month gold card will add 1 month of xbox live gold membership time on your subscription. The Xbox Live 1 Month Gold Card will be delivered by email. This is card can be used worldwide except in the region of Australia.