Kerlak Enterprises - Reading Room

Interviews From The Ark by Missa Dixon and Joy Ward

Foreword
Missa Dixon

   I realize what I do is, in a word... different. How I became able to translate what animals think and feel is the focus of this forward. On December 14, 1993 I let my dogs run out of water. My life had become a boiling sea of being stressed to the max. I was so tired I could barely move, only feeling painful sadness, deep confusion, and cosmic disconnection from everything and everyone. In this blinding haze, I messed up and became a very bad pet parent for just one moment. I realize this is a strange thing to remember much less know the exact date of such a small mishap; but, just as a butterfly can generate a hurricane across a vast ocean with a simple beat of its wings so can one misstep, made while searching for rest and comfort, change the course of a once ordinary life.
   At 3:45 on that Tuesday afternoon I was in the one and only bathroom doing what one does in the one and only bathroom when blissfully left home alone for a few hours. Because I for once had the whole 900 square foot house to myself, the door was open. I was singing along loudly to the song that had been stuck in my head, looking through Christmas catalogs at all the stuff I could not afford, while preparing for a bath. I had just arrived home after finishing my last semester exam, not 2 hours before. My roommates were both still at school taking the last of their finals for the semester. I had installed a dog door the weekend before so that the family would be free from our mongrel pack of three, small, overly domesticated wolves’ favorite game of Door. You know the one. How many times can we get the human to open the door before they yell at us in frustration? So there I sat, so content in the knowledge that I had three or four hours of complete quiet and uninterrupted peace in our small but very comfortable home. All for me, myself, and I - whatever I wanted to do. I could relax at least for a short while. Roommates off and dogs have what they need. Then to the most precious thing of all - a long hot soak in the tub with wonderful smelling bath salts and too much bubble bath. This was going to be a great couple of hours. I can’t tell you how big the smile on my face was. Little did I know just what I had opened myself up to.
   My mother called the oldest dog a genius. Arnold was a peek-a-cockapoo white with cream throughout his fur. His large dark eyes and brown nose never seemed to stop their investigation of the world. He was the lead dog in the pack. He had orchestrated so many escapes from the yard that I thought of changing his name to The Great Arnold. Arnold may have ruled the roommates, four and two legged, but when it came to me, I had the other end of his leash. I ruled the roost – even when he didn’t like it. So when things needed done he came to me and tried in his best Lassie way to tell me what was needed.
   However, on this day things were different. Arnold came to the hall in front of the bathroom, sat down and looked right at me. If I didn’t know better I would have said he was centering himself. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. With his eyes half closed but looking right at me as I sat looking at the catalogs waiting for my water to run, I heard his voice. "Mama, we are out of water. Fill the bowl for me."
   It was in my own head but my ears felt like they had heard what had just been said as if Arnold had spoken them out loud, in English, as plain and simple anyone could have understood him. I felt his thirst and his irritation that the bowl was not just empty but dry. I don’t know how I knew these things but I did. I was so shocked I hit my head on the cabinet when I came to myself and realized I had heard and felt him.
   I raggedly calmed myself for a second. I rubbed the sore spot on my head. Then I took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and I directed this thought at Arnold. "So you need water in your dish, right?" At this Arnold jumped up and almost fell over in his own disbelief. His eyes opened and stared wide at me, mirroring my own disbelief. Once again I heard the same voice. "You heard me?!!" He responded.
   "Yea, I guess I did." I returned numb from shock.
   And thus this new life of mine began. I had always kind of known I could hear animals; their thoughts, their feelings. But like so many with such strange gifts I had pushed it down to the very far corner of my being.
   "Magic isn’t real. You can’t hear animals talk or feel. They’re animals. They don’t feel or think; they just do," says the world, but I knew that was a lie told to placate tormented souls.
   So I had gifts I had never accepted laying unwrapped, never to be dealt with in the light of day, until I was too tired or too stressed out to hide any longer. In that moment, I had given myself permission to be whatever I wanted and needed to be so that I could be free, safe and whole. What I truly was scared me and my dog. I was gifted, and what I needed was to comprehend that fact all the way to my toes. Then I would be whole, to learn about my gifts would make me safe, and to share what I found out would make me free.
   From that bright sunny afternoon, I never denied what I could do. I woke up from a long nightmare and began training myself in all things metaphysical. Now, like a wild ass screaming in the desert, I tell others that are wrapped up in their own packages of Hellish midnights made of denial and pain that what they know and feel is real and there is a way to live well in this time safe, sane, and free. By all the Gods and Goddess, I am so thankful for that.
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