2026 marks my 20-year anniversary as a professional animal and interspecies communicator!
It’s a milestone that has caused me to reflect on all of the gifts, challenges, twists and turns of this path that is the deepest calling of my heart, and I thought I’d share a few of these reflections and memories.
On New Years Day, January 1, 2006, my beloved cat in spirit, Freddie, came to me in a powerful communication and shared,
“This is the year. This is the year you commit fully to your path as an animal communicator.”
You can read more about Freddie and our journey together in the essay, “Guru Cat”, in The Karma of Cats.
Because I had learned by that time to trust Freddie completely, and to trust his guidance and wisdom, I listened. I took the first steps on this path that has now led me to where I am today, and which I expect to continue, in some way, for the rest of my life.
I started my professional life as a classical pianist and music teacher. While I loved that work in many ways, I had come to a crossroads, was experiencing burnout, and truth be told, was much more passionate about my work in animal rescue, rehab, feral cat TNR (trap-neuter-return), and spending time in nature with the wild ones of all species.
From the time I was a child, animals and trees were my closest companions. I often entertained myself by wondering, “How do they see the world?” and I’d try to feel, and slip into, their perspective…a practice that I now recognize as a form of communication, and one that I teach to my students.
When I think about these early years, and recognize my animal companions as my first and most important teachers, I can see the origins of my life as it has unfolded, each step leading me to where I am today.
I was 41 years old in January, 2006. In the following few years, my life changed dramatically as I left my music career, moved to Arizona, and began an intensive time of study and training in animal communication, meditation, Reiki, and other spiritual practices. I began offering animal communication consultations professionally, and soon after, began teaching, first animal and interspecies communication workshops and classes, and later Reiki and Animal Reiki classes.
My practice evolved organically, and before long, I was busy full-time with consultations, classes, and workshops. I began to receive invitations to travel to teach, and met many wonderful animals and their human companions along the way.
In those early years, I did consultations both at a distance, by phone and email, and in-person. I traveled to local and regional dog and horse clubs and shows, rescue organizations, and private ranches, where I had the privilege of working with animals of many species.
Most of my early workshops were in-person gatherings. I began with small groups, and over time, the groups started to grow. Soon, I became involved with one of the first distance-learning programs in the animal communication world, Animal Spirit Network (2006-2012), a collaborative educational community founded by my colleague Carol Schultz, teaching in partnership with Kristin Hadley and many other animal communication and healing professionals. In those early years of online and distance learning, we taught via teleconference–a great technology at the time that allowed us to host calls and classes for larger groups. It was a wonderful time of collaboration and partnership with many of the leaders in the field of my generation.
Soon, technology made it possible for me to put my animal communication and Reiki curriculum completely online. I taught my first online animal communication class in 2012, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
In 2017, I created one of the first Professional Animal Communication Certification programs that was offered completely online, which enabled students from all over the world who may not have had access to this training in their local communities to receive a comprehensive training program with lots of personal support and mentoring.
I love being able to reach people with this easy and accessible technology from all over the world, and over the 14 years of teaching this way, I’ve taught thousands of students, some of whom have gone on to become professional animal communicators themselves.
Here are a few images from some of the classes and workshops over the years:
I was also guided to spend as much time as I could with whales and dolphins, learning from them, listening to them, and often facilitating group trips and retreats for students and colleagues. From the Atlantic humpback whales in the Silver Bank, to the Atlantic spotted and bottlenose dolphins of Bimini, to the grey and blue whales of the Baja California, Mexico, to the belugas and fin whales of the St. Lawrence in Quebec, these journeys were a deep immersion in cetacean consciousness and wisdom, and they developed my interspecies communication capacity in ways I could never have imagined or predicted.
Here are some photos of those times:
I’ve seen many changes in the interspecies communication world in these two decades. There is more and more openness, awareness, and understanding of the spiritual essence, sentience, and wisdom of more-than-human species with each passing year. People are more open, and when they decide to cultivate their abilities to hear the animals and other species, they develop much more quickly than they did in the earlier years of my teaching. There is now much more interest in academic research and study about this field, and a recognition that something important is happening, whether or not it is fully understood or defined.
Of course, our world has changed also. I could not have imagined back in 2006 the challenges we would be facing as a planet and as a species now. I could not have imagined the multiple threats here in America and around the world, nor the utter devastation of rapidly compounding impacts of climate change. With each passing year, and the continuing polycrisis, I have felt more and more urgency in this work, and a strengthening of my dedication to continue to speak, write, and teach to create deeper understanding and community with the other beings who share our planet. They often know much more than we do, and so listening to them with humility, openness, and willingness to learn, is more essential now than ever before.
As I look forward, I intend to continue to speak, teach, write, and create programs that help people connect more and more deeply with the animals, plants, trees, and other humans of our world This time calls for the best that each of us has to give…and each of us has something that we can do, share, and create.
As I celebrate this anniversary in 2026, I would love to have you join me on this journey. More than ever, our world needs our voices, our hearts, and our willingness to hear and understand the wisdom of the more-than-human world.
