animal companions
grace our lives with unconditional love, loyalty, generosity, wisdom, and compassion. They seek to learn from us in return.
By sharing essences with them,
we can enhance our life journeys and fulfill the reasons we are together.
In so doing, we deepen our sacred bonds and support the interspecies bridge for us all.


Like humans, other animals are embodied spiritual beings with emotional lives. We all feel joy and pain, courage and fear, pride and inadequacy, love and grief. We all experience happiness and know when we are loved. We all feel satisfaction when we are able to live our lives in safety and contentment when we can live in accordance with what is important to us.

Companion animals develop particularly complex emotional responses and share many life stresses with their human friends and families. Challenges such as traumatic experiences, inadequate time in nature, crowded living conditions, learning new things, fears and social anxieties, loss of purpose, loneliness, and grief are universal experiences shared by all of us.

There are many amazing stories about heroic animals who protect or rescue humans from harm. No less heroic yet much more common and subtle, are the daily efforts many companion animals make to help their beloved human guardians with their own challenges. While they may not understand specifics of human stresses such as money and career worries, animals are highly aware of our feelings and often seek to help us with them. They may play or entertain us when our moods are low, and comfort us with their snuggling, licking and purring nurturance.

Some animals tend to absorb and mirror our feelings and uncertainties in their efforts to understand and assist us. They may reflect our feelings back to us and show us where our attention needs to be when we are unaware or not engaging in good self-care. These are all ultimate expressions of our animals' unconditional love for us.

Animals ideally live for the most part in the Now, naturally feeling their emotions fully as they occur and then releasing them. Excessive or overwhelming feelings, and those that do not actually belong to them personally, may not be fully processed in the moment and released from their energy systems. Accumulated residue and unprocessed content can eventually develop into mental or emotional disharmonies which have the potential to become deeply embedded as time passes. If left untended, such backlog can develop into undesirable behavioral patterns triggered by similar current events, or lead to persistent patterns of anxiety, depression, or even illness even if an animal’s basic life needs are being met and they seemingly have an essentially comfortable life with people who love them deeply.

Animals and Essences

Animals are blessed with an innate attunement to the many dimensions of the natural world. They are inherently attuned to the energies and consciousness of the plant kingdom, feel the vibrations of rocks and other minerals, and palpably attune to the energies of sun and moon, wind and water. Wild animals seek out herbs and other plants which can soothe their physical imbalances. Many are keenly aware of planetary changes. Domestic animals can often be found cozied up to trees, shrubs, flowers, and stones which offer them particularly beneficial energetic qualities. Animals confined indoors may seek out house plants and crystals, and dream of walking on the earth or soaring through fresh air. Even animals who have never experienced the outdoors in their entire lifetime have intrinsic awareness and ancient memories of the natural world, and some yearn for it through buried instinctual cellular memories.

Animals also have a natural ability to rise to the highest vibrations offered. They typically release their emotional and energetic imbalances when presented with an opportunity to do so. They don't cling to their wounds like humans can do. They don’t need to analyze things in order to heal, or question their ability to heal without due cause. They do not experience skepticism when it comes to essences; on the contrary, they are quick to recognize their vibrational qualities and will generally embrace them when offered. Most animals respond very quickly to essences and truly love receiving them. They belie the scientific view held by many about essences having only a placebo effect.


Effectiveness

Vibrational essences can often peacefully dissolve and release embedded trauma and negative mental-emotional patterns held in animals' energy systems, thereby restoring a state of inner equilibrium. They are profoundly effective for all living souls, whether wild or domestic, footed, pawed, feathered, finned or scaled--even insects and plants! When essences are appropriately chosen, animals are quick to recognize their harmonizing qualities and welcome their assistance. The radiant wellbeing which follows exemplifies true mind-body-spirit harmony.

Offering essences to our animal friends is also a wonderful way to deepen and celebrate our relationships with them. And when animals are serving their human friends as guides, teachers, helpers, or teamworkers, sharing essences with them can shed great light of awareness, enhance personal growth, and foster better mutual understanding and cooperation.

Essences are very useful for animals recovering from trauma, adjusting to new living circumstances, or undergoing training programs. Essences are also a remarkably effective and benign tool for use when rescuing injured wild or abused animals, as well as feral cat colonies. For these populations, essences can greatly ease fears and aggression and ease handling. Please see our Animal Shelters/Rescue page page for further information.

Custom essence work is generally preferable, most beneficial and efficient. However, when individualized attention isn't possible or necessary, readymade essence combinations can be very helpful. For a summary of Shining Spirits ready-to-use preformulated combinations, please see our Prepared Formulas page.


Easy and Safe to Use

Vibrational essences are easy to use even with animals who resist other forms of intervention. Grumpy, depressed, shy, elderly and ill household animals, careworn service animals, retired racing and show animals who have lost a sense of purpose, and others who resist medications or other kinds of intervention usually appreciate essences and exhibit a newfound interest and willingness to heal.

Most animals readily accept essences in one form or another. A short period of creative use can support even those who exhibit initial reluctance, reticence, or suspiciousness. In encouraging animals to accept their invisible support, essences can help relieve thoughts and feelings that have kept an animal stuck and withdrawn. They heal in accordance with each animal's personal timeline and willingness, offering a fresh lease on life so they can begin to emerge and enjoy their life and their family with renewed interest, hope, equanimity, humor, enthusiasm, and vitality.

Giving essences to animals is simple, noninvasive, and nonthreatening. They can be given orally in their water bowl, topically, or environmentally. Because they don't interact or interfere with other healing substances or modalities, essences are a wonderful adjunct for animals undergoing medical care. There is always a pleasant and effective way to offer essences. They are ideal support for tender and sensitive hospice and transition stages, and can offer profound support for grieving families at the same time.


Disclaimer

Shining Spirits services are intended to promote emotional healing and body-mind-spirit wholeness.

Information provided herein and services offered are not intended to and should not be used to replace appropriate medical assessment, attention or care.

Responsible medical and veterinary advice should always be sought and heeded.