Reiki on the River

Floating with dogs is a mixed bag.  The experience can be bad or good, and a lot of that depends on the dog you are with.  I don’t really have much beef with a dog that likes to ride in the boat with you, or one that is disciplined enough to stay with you and do what it is told.  I’m not crazy about floating with a group of wild undisciplined canines that run all over the place.

See, when I am floating, I like to see the sights, listen to the sounds, watch the birds and sometimes catch a magical glimpse of a four-legged wild creature.  When you have a pack of dogs running all over the place, up and down the banks of the river, nosily sniffing, digging after smells, and crashing through the underbrush, you don’t really get to see many birds or animals.  They are long gone by the time you get where they were before the pack came along. 

On the other hand, dogs love to float.  It is like being in Doggy Disney World, with all the rides open and no lines.  My best friend Jeri and I float together, and she has a dog that believes it is his right to float whenever she does.  After all, he has been doing it all his life.  When he sees the canoes get loaded up, he loads himself in the truck, and Jeri just can’t bear to crush his expectations.  So Marshmallow almost always floats with us.  Well, he runs and swims while we float.  His mistress frequently calls him by his “Indian” name:  He Who Crashes Through Bushes Like Herd of Buffalo. 

I wanted to float on my birthday, and even though it was raining in the morning, the radar told us that it was going to turn into a beautiful day.  So Jeri and I decided to float the 8 mile stretch from Steelman’s down to the campground.  The day started off to be no different from any other wonderful day on the river.  I saw a great horned owl fly across in front of us.  He had all the annoyance of a day sleeper required to sign for a certified letter from the IRS. When he found a new, quieter perch, he faded into the background the way only an owl can.  You can watch them land on a tree and know exactly where they are sitting, but their camouflage is so perfect that if you look away from the spot for a moment, when you look back the bird seems to have completely disappeared.  I sometimes think this may have been the inspiration for the Cheshire cat. 

The water was at a good level — we really only had to walk twice to get through two rapids that had big rocks and not enough water to float fully loaded canoes over them.   We never had to carry our canoes, though.  Even with the down trees and log jams there was always a way through.  We did our usual trash patrol along the banks.  I saw a lovely little garter snake sunning himself on a log, and a big black snake crawling into his hole in a root wad.  We got inspected by otters twice, and saw a beaver or an otter towing a branch across the river.  Both Jeri and I looked and said “Isn’t that GREEN swimming across down there?”  For a minute I was thinking “River Dragon” but actually  it was something being taken home for dinner or home decor.  

What transpired after lunch was so amazing, I will just quote what I wrote in my journal that night after I got home:

We decided to leave the puppies at home and only brought Marshmallow with us.  I tell you, I am getting tired of floating with dogs.  If Jay and Jeri want the wildlife around their place killed, well fine.  But the life on the river deserves to be unmolested.  Last week we rescued a young fawn from Marshmallow, who was trying his best to kill it — simply for the joy of killing, out of blood lust rather than hunger.  Today was another experience in the same line.

Now granted, I would not have had the opportunity to go through this experience if Marshmallow had not done what he did.  But.  It was righting a wrong, so I don’t know.

Anyway, this is what happened.  Marshmallow found another fawn.  Jeri and I were down river, behind a log jam which we couldn’t get over easily because the water was very deep and the current swift.  As we stood in the water below the curve and impotently shouted for him to STOP and COME HERE, Marshmallow single-mindedly pursued and attacked.  The fawn tried to escape by swimming the river, and before our horrified gaze Marshmallow dragged down the little deer, finally holding her down in the shallows and drowning her.  Once she stopped struggling, Marshmallow magically regained his hearing and was happy to come to us, wagging his tail and so proud of his accomplishment.  I stood there appalled and called him an asshole, and Jeri said “Well, that’s that.  He was just being a dog.”

It just went all through me, this acceptance of the murder we had witnessed.  I was suddenly filled with anger and energy.   Outrage propelled me and my canoe back up river.  I honestly don’t know how I got there, but when I did I yanked my canoe up to the shore and almost flew over to the bank where the fawn was lying in the shallows.  Her spirit had flown her body, her eyes were filmed over.  I pulled her from the water and carried her to the gravel bar.  I have never felt such a completely limp body.  The negative voice in my mind was saying, “Ellie, this is not the movies,  you are not going to bring her back to life like John Travolta did to the dog in ‘Michael’.”  I told the voice I knew this, but I had to try anyway.  I laid the fawn on the gravel and pushed on her ribs gently.  Water flowed out of her mouth.  By this time, Jeri had joined me, and asked “Is she alive?”  I said I didn’t know, but I didn’t think so.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I started doing Reiki.   I felt a huge surge of energy flowing through me, all my Reiki guides touching my back and crown.  Once the energy started flowing, I started doing CPR.  Then I suddenly flashed on our vet getting a calf started after a bad birth, so I hung her upside down by her hips for a minute, swung her gently from side to side.  More water flowed out of her.  Then I cleared her airway, and continued CPR.    Jeri blew into her mouth and we saw her chest expand.  With the next compression, I felt her heart begin to beat again.  Jeri gave her another breath, and then she gasped a couple of times.  More Reiki.  Jeri started rubbing her all over with short sharp strokes, stimulating circulation and nerves to fire again. 

Her little legs were limp and useless, so we rubbed some more as she tried to breathe.  She was choking, and I remembered the hold Marshmallow had on her neck as he held her under water.  My Reiki guide Mariah told me I must pick the deer up, so I did.  I cradled her in my arms like a shepherd holds a lamb.  Her head was supported on my forearm, and I placed my hands at the spot where Marshmallow had tried to crush her windpipe, and focused all my energy there, sending waves of healing and love into that bruised neck.  Immediately, she stopped coughing and choking and began to breathe easier.  I did more Reiki.  Jeri kept rubbing her legs and hips and I held her close to my heart and kept putting energy in her.  Jeri said “Those eyes are brightening.” 

She let out a good bleat then, and in that moment Jeri and I both sensed the doe’s presence nearby.   I literally felt the rage of the mother coming from the sycamores behind me, and started praying we would not get attacked.  I was not really wanting to be flailed by deer hooves.  The fawn’s legs started to move, and I put her down for a bit.

We decided at this point that the thing to do was to get the dog out of the area before we left the fawn to her mother’s ministrations.  Jeri had to go upriver to get him; he had been an interested bystander and was waiting for his second chance at the fawn, and had stopped listening to her again.  Once she got up there where he was rummaging around on the bank, after a certain amount of browbeating and exortation, he loaded in her boat.  We decided she should head down the river while I stood guard.  The fawn was thinking about leaving the area before we got the dog corralled, so I picked her up again.  Then I knew she’d be fine, as her legs flailed and she struggled a little in my arms.  I  told her, “Wait a bit, and you’ll be okay.”  I held her,  gave her more energy as Jeri started paddling down the pool below the log jam.  I watched as my canoe escaped from the bank, floated down into an eddy and nosed into the bank about a hundred feet downstream.  I stood on the gravel bank, and the sun flooded down on me and I swear I felt like I had been transported to a different space entirely.  There was no angel chorus, only the warblers and finches singing a paean to the beautiful day.

Finally, Jeri was far enough downstream and Marshmallow had stopped trying to exit her boat.  I put the fawn down.  It lay there for a couple of moments, curled in the sun on the gravel bar.  I took a couple of steps back, and then heard “chuffing” in the sycamore saplings on the gravel bar.  The fawn heard it too, and struggled to its feet and headed into the brush where her mother awaited.  I swam down to my canoe, pulled myself up onto the bank, and burst into tears of of awe, wonder, joy and thanksgiving.

I know all my Reiki guides were there and today as Jeri and I brought an animal back from the other side of the line between life and death, and it was totally amazing.  REIKI WORKS.

That’s my  journal entry.  I really don’t want to float with dogs any more.