A World Apart

I’ve just returned from a month in India, immersed in sadhana, or spiritual practice. I’m having a bit of a culture shock reintegrating.

I was away from media, email, Facebook, and patients for that whole time, turning my practice over to the capable hands of a few colleagues who are also full time homeopathic vets. 

I dove deeply into devotion. I heard about the hurricane, but it had little impact. The election outcome, uh huh. 

My concerns were keeping focused on remembering God very close to me, visualizing His/Her beautiful form while chanting beautiful chants filled with God’s divine names, virtues, playful past times; keeping comfortable in my body while sitting for hours doing this; getting my body moved from place to place within the ashram I was in, so my  body could be nourished, briefly rested, and ready for more sadhana.

It was amazing the depth of love I felt, and I still feel wrapped in a cocoon of sweet appreciation for the relationship with God I’ve developed over the years, and the deepening that relationship took with the past month of practice.

Back to earth

Now, I’m faced with a bulging inbox, reports of patients dying (some unexpectedly, others predictably), requests for new patient appointments, rescheduling, a patient lost to allopathy, etc.

Animals were born, died, suffered, overcame suffering, and people’s lives have been intertwined with it all, grieving, laughing, feeding, petting, walking, running, nurturing, loving.

And I have been apart from it all. It’s gone on without me.

Suit Up

And it’s time to re-engage. To put my doctor “hat” back on, to share with my clients in the struggles of overcoming disease, the joys of new young lives, the wiggling bliss that new puppies bring to my office, the compassion that is elicited in seeing the old struggle to get up and walk, or live in their skins that itch and have sores.

To battle the demons of conventional medicine that causes the majority of this suffering. 

To share with animal owners what can be done to truly prevent illness in a completely different context than that promulgated by Dr. WhiteCoat.

To struggle with the handful of other Davids against the megalith of Big Pharma and the Almighty Dollar that has my conventional colleagues following their MD counterparts down the slippery slope of “disease management” instead of true prevention and cure.

Is it all worth it?

Is there hope for the mass of animaldom in the face of such vast momentum away from true health?

Can one individual make a difference in such a huge downhill slide?

I have to hope that the answer is yes. 

I have to do what I do, knowing that I’m a small voice of hope for those who find me after they’ve tried everything conventional medicine offered them to no good effect.

The human side of the equation can be heartbreaking, aside from seeing the damage done to the animals. 

• People who’ve invested thousands of dollars only to lose their precious animals’ health even further after treatments that haven’t worked. 

• People whose perfectly healthy youngsters became disfigured, lamed, compromised in functions basic to life, as a result of following recommendations from “experts” who they thought they could and should trust.

• People who’ve lost a beloved animal way before they should have, robbed of precious life by a manmade disease.

But there’s also the joy of seeing an animal so chronically, seemingly hopelessly ill, whose vital fire, nearly extinguished, can still be gently fanned with subtle, deep acting remedies and come to life again. 

There’s the joy in watching the animals who’ve been raised on processed foods from a bag or can positively glow when given balanced raw diets.

Joy also to see lameness go away, to see skin sores finally heal, to see sleep restored that was once robbed by chronic allergic itch, to see eyes restored to lustrous shine, teeth to white and shiny, appetites to full normality, and most of all, to see

Whole Animal wellness, with unexpected beneficial “side effects” that only come from treating the depth of the whole being

I’ve been fortunate to get good at my chosen craft and to be able to offer healing to the suffering animals who come my way, and hope to their caretakers who’ve often lost it.  

People who’ve come late to the natural path, seeking a “DLR” (Doctor of Last Resort) to restore their vital animals’ innate health after months or years of ineffective and often toxic treatment; and

People who wouldn’t think of treating themselves with drugs who are overjoyed to find someone who treats animals the way they’d choose to be treated themselves.

So yes, the depth of devotion will remain, quietly inside, to have its outlet outside the office, but the work of veterinary homeopathy will resume now.

It’s good to be home.