In early January, a few days after we celebrated his 20th birthday, my beloved friend and wise teacher, Louie of the Light, left his physical body.
It is with both profound gratitude for all of the gifts of our life together, and deep sadness as I miss his immense physical presence in my life and in our home, that I share the story of Louie’s life and his spiritual essence, which continues and remains close to me and so many others whose lives he touched.
From our earliest years together, it was clear to me that Louie had a particular awareness and deep spiritual resonance with the energies of the Earth. He loved to sit on the earth, sleep on the earth, and sit in quiet contemplation outdoors.
Spiritual Work with the Earth
From our earliest years together, it was clear to me that Louie had a particular awareness and deep spiritual resonance with the energies of the Earth. He loved to sit on the earth, sleep on the earth, and sit in quiet contemplation outdoors.
When I communicated with him about this, he showed me glimpses of what he experienced, felt, and understood. Louie loved his cat body, and enjoyed the usual things about being a cat with a safe place to be freely outdoors. Yet, there were many other layers to what he was up to, universes of understanding, energetic work, and awareness that I could understand only incompletely from my human perspective and experience.
I often would say that I understood that Louie was a spiritual and energetic adept, an advanced soul whose understanding and abilities I could only partially understand and comprehend. My job was to keep him safe, fed, housed, and well-loved, and he would include me and teach me when he could.
Louie the Teacher
Louie became one of my first and most dedicated teaching partners in animal communication. From the first classes I taught in 2009, Louie was there by my side. Over the years, he worked with thousands of students from all over the world.
One of Louie’s special gifts as a teacher was to hone in on what each individual needed to improve their ability to communicate with animals. Even in a class of dozens of people, he could connect with each individually, feel their strengths, challenges, and gifts, and give them precise, specific advice and wisdom for their journeys. I witnessed this over and over again over the years; Louie would give people exactly what they needed to propel them forward on their path of connection and communication with all life.
Louie became a beloved elder, teacher, friend, and guide to many, many people. He had a funny, clear, direct presence and a no-bullshit way of being and communicating that helped people to drop their human ways of thinking and enter directly into deeper, connected ways of knowing.
Multidimensional Experiences
As I went deeper into my own spiritual journey with interspecies communication, Louie began to open up to me more and more about his experiences and awareness.
One time, a few years after moving to Arizona, Louie disappeared for several days. He showed me his energy dissolving into a rainbow sparkle of light, similar to what I had seen with the dolphins. A kind of “now you see me, now you don’t”, that I had experienced when spending time in the water with dolphins in deep spiritual connection. There would be a sparkling rainbow of light, and then poof, they were gone. This was the same kind of energy that Louie showed me.
There was a large grouping of boulders in our yard, between which Louie often spent much of the day. I understood that these boulders held a great and powerful energy, and that they also were the physical representation of a powerful energetic portal between dimensions.
After he disappeared, I looked and looked around the boulders, trying to find him. I searched everywhere. He was nowhere to be seen. I felt sure that Louie was gone forever.
Louie communicated to me,
“You’ll see me again, I’m not gone.”
And yet, my human mind felt that surely, Louie was dead, his body taken by a predator. There were great horned owls in our neighborhood, and I often heard them calling to each other at night. I’d told Louie that I was worried about the owls, concerned about his safety.
“Don’t worry about it”, Louie said. “I know the owls, and they know me. We have an agreement. I stay still when they are around, so I don’t trigger their instincts to hunt me, and they respect my body and the work I am doing. We’re fine. We have it all worked out.”
I remained concerned, but I’d learned not to argue with Louie.
But, when he disappeared, I thought that my worst fears had been realized.
A few days later, I was out by the sacred rocks, meditating, singing. Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, up popped Louie, his intense eyes and little face looking directly at me.
“I’m back!” he said. “I told you you’d see me again.”
He seemed a little disoriented, a little sleepy, and very, very hungry. He came into the house, ate and ate and ate, and left again for another 24 hours. After which, he came back, returned to “normal”, and nothing like this ever happened again.
When I asked him about it, he communicated to me that he had indeed left his body, in a certain kind of way. It was a fluid, easy coming and going. His body had gone into a kind of trance or stasis, alive, but very slow and still. He had traveled and was involved in deep spiritual work in the ethers, stabilizing chaotic energies, steadying, balancing, healing. When it was evened out, like a “cat purr”, he said, he returned. Many other beings were also involved in this work at this time. He was one of many. Stabilizing chaotic energies, aligning his own body with the “subterranean vibrations”, and balancing the energies of the earth and beyond.
As I said, I can barely understand most of this, and to this day, I have questions about it. Yet, over the years, I have learned to trust what I get, even if it doesn’t make sense. And this is one of Louie’s greatest teachings to me, and to many others, as well.
“Trust what you get, there are realms far beyond your human understanding. Feel, listen, immerse yourself in the teachings.”
Elder Years
In the last years of his life, Louie slowed down just a bit. He was content to spend most of his time here in our New Mexico home on the portal (a covered entrance to the front door, with access to a fenced area with trees and a small garden.) He often hid himself under the bushes, resting deeply in meditation with the Earth.
Our evening ritual was to spend the last moments of daylight, after I watched the sunset with the dogs on the other side of the house, sitting together in a rocking chair on the portal. As the light slipped away and the stars came out, I would hold Louie on my lap. We’d commune with the trees and the stars, and sit quietly together in presence and love, appreciating the preciousness of these moments. I knew that they would not go on forever, though as we sat together, time was irrelevant and there was only the eternal now.
In early 2020, Louie felt the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and let me know that something big was about to happen in the human world, though he did not say or know exactly what. Shortly after the world went into lockdown, Louie had an emergency surgery to remove a large benign mass in his liver. I shared about the miracles of that experience, and Louie’s recovery, in the post: Louie the Wonder Cat.
In the years since Louie’s miraculous recovery, I have had the sense that we were on “bonus time.” We were managing several physical issues that are common in older cats, and for the most part, Louie was strong and vibrant. He slept more, but he continued his deep work with the Earth, his teaching with me, and enjoyed the simple pleasures of his daily life: eating his food, greeting visitors at the front gate, sitting with me and with friends in the rocking chairs on the portal, and occasionally, hunting mice. (He had given up on the birds long ago, as his missing rear leg made it hard for him to pounce. The birds, and I, were grateful for that reprieve.)
In the end, Louie’s body simply gave out. The issues we were managing cascaded quickly, and within a matter of days, it was clear that Louie’s body was done. He was uncomfortable, and there was nothing more that we could do for him. It was clear to Louie, to me, and to our veterinarian, that this was the end. In Louie’s characteristic, straightforward way, he looked me straight in the eyes with his usual clear intensity.
“I want to get out of here!” he said, and I knew precisely what he meant. His body had done all that it could do, and he was ready to lay it down.
He died peacefully and quickly, with the help of our kind and compassionate veterinarian. I buried his body under the piñon tree he so loved, next to his beloved portal.
The Spirit Continues
Louie didn’t miss a beat. In his last days, he didn’t have the experience that many beings do of moving back and forth between the spirit world and the physical plane. My understanding of this is that Louie was so familiar and adept with the spirit world and multidimensional awareness that he did not need this time of transition.
Similarly, there was no time of rest, healing, or transition when he entered the spirit world. He simply picked up where he left off, doing his energetic work with the earth, surrounding me and the other animals with his loving, vibrant presence, and visiting his close friends scattered in various places around the world.
Though I have been deeply grieving, the grief is a mix of gratitude, a deep sense of blessing, and ongoing and continuing connection with Louie. It’s as if the grief of the physical loss and my ongoing relationship with him, the unfolding understanding of who he was in his body and continues to be as a spirit, and the gifts of our time together, are running on parallel train tracks. I cry and I laugh, I give offerings of praise and gratitude, and I wonder how to live in this new reality of not having Louie’s physical presence with me.
Our family is reorienting, feeling much like spokes of a wheel that has lost its hub. We’re rearranging, resting, and figuring out what it’s like to live in this new configuration.
Every time I come home, I still expect to see Louie bounding to the gate of the portal. I still hear his voice at certain times of the day and night. I feel his presence immense, and very particular, most of the time. I sit on the portal without his body in my arms, and I cry. It’s just how it is. All of it mixed up together, love and beauty and loss and connection.
Louie has made it clear to me that he is able to continue his planetary work in an even more expanded and powerful way since leaving his body. He’s relieved to not have the hassle and the distraction of not feeling well and having to deal with the burdens of a body that no longer functions well. He hasn’t skipped a beat, and as before, I am only partially able to comprehend his work and the energy that he is sharing with all beings in many realms.
Louie’s Legacy
I am in the process of collecting stories and the wisdom that Louie shared with people all over the world. If you had an experience with Louie in the animal communication or Reiki classes that you would like to share, you’re welcome to email me. Louie has also communicated that he remains available and may continue to show up in courses and with people who have previously connected with him, depending on what he is up to with his planetary work and the level of focus and energy it requires. The journey continues!
With Louie’s inspiration and guidance, I am setting up a scholarship fund in his honor, in connection with the Rescue Partnership Program, to provide animal communication training to individuals and organizations who are committed to working with rescue, advocacy, and humane education through interspecies communication.
I am filled with gratitude for all of the sensitive, loving people all over the world who met, saw, learned from, and appreciated Louie. I feel so blessed to have had almost two decades of living with him, learning from him, and loving him, and I am touched by his impact on so many lives all over the world.
Donations to the Louie Scholarship Fund may be made below. May his light, his love, and his legacy live on.
