Beloved Myo, our Sage (May 28, 2007 – October 27, 2016)
Co-Chief Furry Officer, Reiki Master, Manager, Muse
Sage Spirit Coaching & Reiki

In loving gratitude for the outpouring of love and support from our community as Myo crossed the Rainbow Bridge. We feel so incredibly blessed knowing she is smiling and shining down on us all, feeling so much love from you all.

I know… I know… death is a taboo subject, for many death is a marker of failure and something to fight against. This post is about death, in practical and mystical terms. It may provide a map of discovery and a gateway to new perspectives. It’s also, of course, a celebration of life and of Myo in particular. I will share some of the mythical, mystical aspects with which Myo enchanted me even more than ever before.

Many of you know Myo personally from your visits to OdaBe. We like to think of her as the Manager, as she recorded every movement throughout the day. Yes, that kind of dog. She showed us the energetic impact of being an empath to the extreme, and even small crowds could over-stimulate her to the max. And she over-stimulated us too, believe me!

Myo taught us so much about energy. When clouds filled my thoughts on a walk, she would depart as far away as she could. Her awareness was keener than mine could be, but she trained me by and by with her proximity cues, and fed my expanding consciousness exponentially.

More important than any of that… Myo could LOVE. I mean, really love. Even when I was impatient, or distracted, or when I apologized for her persistent voice again and again. She filled me up with so much affection, and I craved it. I loved having her near as much as I could.

This year was rough on Myo. Her athletic, high-drive nature wore out her front shoulders, elbows and ankles. For the first few months of the year, we managed to get her pain under control with Reiki, Micro-current Therapy, and supplements for joint support. During our Reiki classes, Myo would make the rounds to each person in the circle, offering her leg for Reiki, round and round again, making the most of Reiki and our community. She also had a few brief episodes that seemed neurological. We had her completely checked out early in the year with blood panels, x-rays, and more, but the tests were inconclusive.

On Sunday, October 9, during a Reiki II workshop at OdaBe, Myo wanted to go off in the yard by herself. She never barked at anyone the entire day. Even though I was focused on teaching and facilitating, our students noticed her behavior changes right away. In the early afternoon, we brought her into the tipi and we all shared Reiki with her. By late afternoon, she gained much of her energy back, but she was still uncharacteristically quiet. The next few days, she seemed more like herself. But then we woke Thursday morning, and saw that she had thrown-up in the house. We let her outside for her morning routine. Then she didn’t want to come back in the house. We thought perhaps she was ashamed, as she was impeccably conscientious. I went into shamanic ceremony with her, to provide her with healing blessings, and the work we shared seemed really powerful, but she still didn’t seem to rebound. We took her to the vet that afternoon, and an x-ray revealed masses in her abdomen. With several more tests and an oncologist consultation, we found she had at least five incurable mast cell tumors internally and early sepsis. Her health deteriorated so rapidly, that within a week she cut herself off from food, and a few days later, water too. And she transitioned just two weeks to the day of our initial appointment and x-ray.

But in our world, there are always so many more factors than those that appear in a practical sense. We were absolutely open to Reiki miracles, but we also wanted to hold Myo’s interests and intentions utmost in our hearts, supporting her on whatever path she may choose rather than imposing our will upon her. That’s easier said than done when we love so big. And how would we know her choices without asking or mind-reading?

We teach in our Reiki workshops that we don’t always know what healing looks like, and transition or death may very well be the highest expression of healing. It helped us to stay open and receptive to possibilities without trying to hold onto Myo too tightly.

Here’s a little of the more mystical aspects, what Myo was up to on an energetic level, and how I was able to serve as psychopomp.

Psychopomp? Well, that’s not an everyday word. I became one before I ever heard the word or even imagined what it meant. A psychopomp is one who guides souls or spirits to the afterlife or other dimensional realms. Why is this important? In our culture, we are often taught to fear death or that death is a failure in the game of life. We are often heavily medicated, startled when it’s unexpected, and/or otherwise confused when our time for transition comes. All of these conditions can create more fear, resistance and confusion around what would rightly be considered a natural process. A psychopomp helps the transitioning one by journeying in between the dimensions with them, helping them to gain a sense of completion and closure of this life, helping them to make sense of what’s happening through discourse with their higher self, and helping them to find and walk into “the light,” as it’s been described in the near-death experience literature.

My first experience as psychopomp happened spontaneously many years ago when sharing distance Reiki with Dana’s mom. In a vision, I saw her with me walking into the light together, so that when she was finally ready, she would know her way and know how it felt. Years later, I had the opportunity to help a coyote to transition. You can listen to that story, and get a nice visit with Myo and SunBear, here.

Each of my experiences as psychopomp has been completely intuitive and unique, as I’ve been called to service in this way professionally and with those close to me. My experience with Myo, however, really rocked my world. This was also the first time that I incorporated The Stargate Experience into my shamanic Reiki journey work as psychopomp, and these energies felt particularly supportive of going to new depths of connection and wisdom-sharing.

One of the first things I noticed with Myo, from the very first day of that Reiki II workshop, was that she was working closely with the “Ancestors of this Land.” I’ve talked about them many times in sacred circles, especially at OdaBe. I have been working with them for many months, as spirit guides and healing helpers. They helped me to address the wildfire that nearly came to OdaBe. In my perception, they are a male and female, both in spirit form, but once embodied as Natives of this land. Through their enhanced consciousness, they channel ageless wisdom from this region, but also from other realms. I’ve felt Celtic Wisdom, along with that from New Zealand and Africa, and even from Atlantis and Lemuria, as well as many other places, cultures and timelines. Through journey work linking my consciousness with Myo’s, I received validation of my hunch that Myo had a direct connection to them, and I supposed that they were helping with her healing. When she wanted to connect with them, Myo would wander into the junipers near to the house. Her antenna to feel them seemed stronger there.

The Ancestors of the Land in the Junipers, Myo & SunBear, during a Vision Quest we shared several years ago

As Myo embraced not-eating, her consciousness and focus shifted dramatically. I would open the Stargate to connect with Myo. In fact we spent six to ten hours in the Stargate each day of her remaining. I would then invite Myo to invite those she wanted to connect with, rather than choosing her healing helpers or directing her healing path for her. However, rather than seeking healing for herself, I saw that she was working with the ancient Atlantean Masters.

Many of us know the story of Atlantis falling into the ocean. Many of us remember on a soul-level the corruption that brought about that catastrophe. The times were not so very divergent from our experiences now in many ways. What I was shown in journey was that long ago, when earlier realms of Atlantis were more of a utopia, there were vastly different healing modalities that more closely matched human construction and DNA at that time, which was actually more advanced and activated than it is now. We had more super-human attributes, with regard to intuition and psychic capacities especially. Our enhanced DNA was eventually mutated to allow more fear-based emotions and expressions, making us easier to control.

Myo was helping the ancient Atlantean Masters to anchor those old healing modalities and frequencies onto the planet, so that they may serve those who are being born now and who have much more of their ancient DNA activated. I felt crystalline and shamanic energies, plus I saw sacred multi-dimensional geometrical structures and symbols, but they all went far beyond my capacity to make sense of them. The shamanic energies had much different focus, depth, breadth and vibrations than those in the tradition I have learned. In practical terms, Myo helped me through this to heal my own relationship with the energies of Atlantis, which in my past-life work has revealed many a deep-wound. Myo helped me to feel the utopic era in a way I never remembered up until now. Such a gift…

I felt so much awe by the magnitude of Myo’s undertaking, even though I never doubted her capacity as a healer and spiritual being. And then, in the journey, Myo told me, “You are anchoring these energies too. We’ve been working together with this for months. It’s your own self-limiting beliefs that prevent you from being conscious of the many things you are creating in dreamtime and that you are capable of creating.”

Myo let me know that because of our self-limiting beliefs and filters on our imaginations, so many of us are oblivious to all that we are capable of creating and that we are creating here and now in our multi-dimensional reality.

I really loved how after all this time with Myo, I could finally hear her “voice” and message with crystal clarity. Through our Stargate Shamanic Journeys, our bond grew closer than ever before.

But Myo’s body, at this point, was experiencing remarkable changes. Still, when I offered a walk, she was up and ready to go. We just went much shorter distances, focusing on special places in close proximity on the property, and we moved much more slowly. By Wednesday afternoon, October 26, however, Myo seemed to be complete with our special, little walks. I felt like she might be ready to transition, but she was very drawn to the outdoors, and it was a particularly warm and wonderful day. I bundled up in a blanket and laid in the yard with her and SunBear, so that we could journey together. For the past couple of days, her eyes were more away than here. You know that look, right? She really didn’t seem very conscious of her body at all. Still, as we journeyed, several times she popped her head up and looked out over the driveway, as if she was looking for Dana to come home. Indeed, it was just about that time, but he was stopping at the store on the way home and delayed slightly.

Suddenly, she got up and walked off through the yard. SunBear and I followed at a respectful distance, to allow her to have her own experience, but curious nonetheless. She walked to the grove of junipers to the south-east of the house. At each tree, she walked to the east side of the base of each tree and began to dig. She would dig a few minutes. Pause. Check in with her guidance. Then move to the next and begin again. After 15-20 trees, she found the Goldilocks tree, just right. She laid down.

SunBear and I sat too, nearby but not too close, quietly holding space. I went into journey. I saw her in her wolf lifetime, one she came to heal in this life. In that life, Myo was wolf cub whose mom was killed by researcher Eskimos. They took baby Myo as a research animal. Some years later, she escaped from them, and tracked her way back to the place she knew as infant. A family lived there when she returned, and they tried to incorporate her into their family. Because of her wildness and trauma, they were unable to train her away from her unpredictable behaviors. They released her into the wild, but continued to feed her and keep an eye on her. In my journey, I saw how isolated she felt – with no pack and no human pack. Instinctively, she hunkered down into the trees, much like the coyote I mentioned above, and waited for her body to surrender life. She showed me how she wanted now to surrender her place in our pack, so that we could go about our lives without having to care for her, much like she would have done as coyote or wolf.

“Myo, we are evolved, as we are sticking together through this,” I told her. She got up and followed me back to the house.

We walked her briefly that night at bedtime, but it was obvious that her systems were shutting down. The next morning, it seemed quite likely that this would be her last day, barring any miracle. She was actually much more embodied this day, and she let me know that she wanted a conscious, natural transition, not a medicated or induced one. She was very sick, and fortunately Dana and I were able to support her together, holding her, cleaning up after her, and gently encouraging her to follow her path.

I had never engaged in psychopomp work while tending the physical body before. I have to say, it was complex, amazing, and exhausting. Myo and I stayed in journey throughout the day, even though we both focused awareness on her physicality as well. Each time I’ve shown up in service this way, the images of “heaven” show up completely uniquely to the one I assist. In Myo’s vision, there was a British meadow filled with high-energy herding dogs and several sheep to herd. A man in a tweed hunting suite, circa 1900 I think, with a whistle in his right hand, stood left of center in the field. There was no fence at the perimeter of the meadow, yet the dogs and sheep stayed neatly contained in some invisible boundary.

As enticing as this version of heaven might be, Myo was reluctant to travel through the entire tube of light to reach it. Her love and loyalty for Dana, SunBear and me kept her vacillating in her conviction. And so I invited all of our higher-selves to present themselves. That version of Dana, SunBear and me stood on the other side of the meadow, letting Myo know that we would always be together. Our higher aspects stepped fully into the meadow, and Myo travelled further “in” than she had before. It turned out that the man with the whistle was someone Myo knew from another incarnation.

He helped her to see that her soul has wings that spread far beyond this one lifetime, and that choosing to surrender to the light would allow her the eagle view in which she might see the broader perspective.

Outside of our journey connections, Myo and I disconnected from each other in practical terms, so that she could focus on her own energetic experience and so that she would refrain from focusing on helping or healing me, as was her normal mode of being. I must admit, her attention on me and my well-being may have contributed to her own health imbalance, as it’s been a year of huge physical/chemical transition as part of “the change,” plus so much inspired creation keeping me engaged for very long days. I also acknowledge that Myo’s experience is very much connected to the bigger picture of her soul-path and our soul-contracts with one another. In spite of our reduced physical connection, her fierce loyalty and love, along with mine, created a bond that was challenging to sever, right up until the end.

At that point, Myo’s breathing changed to deep cycles of letting go followed by panting cycles of rest. These cycles seemed to mirror child-labor breathing patterns to some degree both in sound and in sensation. I received two physic messages at that time. One was that I was to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary movements in her body to help to gauge her level of consciousness and to discern what might constitute pain or not. As an aside, thankfully, her form of cancer isn’t particularly painful. Second, I was to surrender non-interference at this time and command her, as this is what she waited for now.

“Go now, Myo. Go and play. We will always be together,” I told her.

Her “labor” breathing continued. Several times she began to slip out through her exhale. Each time, SunBear sensed it and came to smell Myo’s nose. He would let out a little whine, and Myo would drop back into her body.

“Tell Myo, ‘goodbye,’ SunBear. Tell her it’s ok and that we’ll all be ok.”

Dana had fallen into a light sleep with his arms gently around Myo, while I cradled her head. Dana woke then and told her too, “Go play, Myo. It’s ok. We’ll always be together.”

In journey again, I could see Myo enter the meadow, greeting us all up there in her heaven. She warmly greeted the man in the tweed suite, free and happy, though still a bit tentative.

I whispered to Dana and SunBear, “her spirit has passed on. If we don’t jar her body, she can stay up there.”

So we quietly held space awaiting her body’s final release. About ten minutes later, her body involuntarily stiffened and jolted. She moaned and electrical impulses ran through her body, even though I could clearly feel that her heart had stopped. After a few moments, her body stilled once more. At peace.

I’ve not felt “that in touch with my emotions” for years and years. Yet I howled in pain, in loss, in rejoicing her freedom. I held her in my arms, and caressed her beautiful fur, like I would never let go. And I never will. I will always hold her love and wisdom. She and I did not always have an easy love, but it was so expansive because of what she taught me, because of what we overcame together… the way we created harmony through our sheer willfulness, out of love and a desire for complete union of sacred souls.

Heart-broke, wide open… I hadn’t cried that much since I was young, so melancholy then, when I thought that perhaps the world was void of love. With Myo’s passing, I cried, I wailed, not because of the absence of love, but because I discovered how absolutely full of love this world truly is.

Dana, SunBear and I held a candlelit shamanic death-rites ceremony that evening. The rains came and washed our spirits, our sorrow. Now she lies on the boundary of the enchanted forest at OdaBe, the place where we have always gone to connect with the Ancestors of the Land. She lives with them now. She lives anywhere and everywhere. She is eternal. And always will be.

Beloved Myo, over the Rainbow Bridge, and may divine blessings guide your way on always. What an amazing finale we all co-created following one not-quite-long-enough adventure in energy, spirit and in form too.

And we are healing and adapting to a new way of being. SunBear becomes more fully expressive of his healer self as he takes a role in the office, working more closely with me.

SunBear Selfie

New beginnings for us all. Always together. In new ways.