This may seem like an odd topic for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY, but as my more frequent readers know, I combine professional level genealogy research with a vivid interest in the human family and human beingness - DNA, early migrations of our ancestors, ethnicity, historical and cultural studies, some archeology, and the spiritual aspects of life, including theories about genetic memory (sometimes called cell memory), and reincarnation. I ask, could it be that a person, when discovering an ancestor, is actually discovering themselves - in a past life?
This week I encountered two individuals while out walking my dog who had interesting things to say about dogs and reincarnation. (The term transmutation is correct when saying that a person has incarnated from an animal to human life (usually seen as progress), or when a person next incarnated into an animal (usually seen as a demotion) but the term reincarnation is used more to describe any repeats of life on earth.) Much of the world has long believed in reincarnation, and some Christians do, though usually, in Catholicism and most versions of main stream Christianity, we learn that this one life is it. We have one chance to prove ourselves worthy of eternal heaven as an afterlife. Or, we wait after death for a resurrection by God.
I was walking my dog in the park when I saw a man up ahead wearing the rolled white head dress of a Siik. I couldn't help but stop and talk to him. He was pushing a fancy cart that contained not only his bright-eyed Chihuahua, who sure did seem to be enjoying being up front for the ride, and his beautiful toddler, who clearly loved her dog. He told me that a friend of his was told by their guru that his dog was, in the last life, his partner, but that she had been reincarnated into this dog to learn the lesson of loyalty!
Certainly some pet dogs seem to be all about that, especially the ones that make the news for walking a thousand miles and somehow finding the family that left them behind when they moved, or the ones who sit on a person's grave and don't want to give up on them even though it's been a while.
Then, my dog and I stopped at a corner store where a few of the employees are from India, and I tied her up on the door since I didn't want to take her inside against their rules. One of the clerks and I got to talking about dogs and I told him mine was such a person. He said he was a Buddhist, and incarnation into a dog was definitely a punishment.
My dog, I tell everyone, is most certainly feminine, not only because that her sex, but also her gender. I give, as examples, her love of baths, her love of being dressed in clothes, wanting to smell and look pretty, as well as the way she has taken to pretending to be not interested at all when males approach her. She has developed very specific taste, preferring males who are well past puppyhood, who are about her size, and who are usually poodles or part poodles! One of these males lives across the way and high up on a balcony and I've seen them lock eyes - like Romeo and Juliet. However, I've seen her and a large young male fall in love with each other at first sight - not wanting to pass each other but stay put. I've seen more than one male pup, at the sight of her, take in a deep breath and stare. (In a month or two, when they've been there, done that, they get over it.)
Many people who have rescued dogs from shelters have stories about the DOG PICKING THEM. I do think my dog picked me, though I don't have any strong feelings about her having been in my past life or lives. I do hope, however, that I will be someday reunited with her in heaven, that she will be waiting for me when I get there, hopefully, and, full confession here, sometimes I do call her "daughter!"
Because many people who have pets these days see them as, perhaps not human, but as sentient beings, the relationship has changed for those people and those dogs. There are still wild dogs, dogs who help people herd or hunt, dogs who people eat, dogs who people steal and sell for medical experiments, dogs who are terribly abused, dogs who stay outside their entire lives and never have a comfortable bed, and then there are dogs like mine, who is right now, all curled up in a swirl of old blankets. I can only hope her previous owners were good to her! She is not spoiled. She is a survivor.
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