Every now and again, someone in my coven decides to do a ritual on animal magick, and so it was that evening. In guided meditation, we were to meet one of our animal guides. I was curious because I hadn't worked much in ritual with animals. Being a Leo, I've always had cats, and cats have witnessed many of my workings; as all cat companions know, cats love to soak up energy and will sit down right in the middle of ritual space given the chance. Also any human being who sits down to meditate clearly desires to pet a cat. But these cat interactions were the extent of my animal ritual experience. I half-expected in this meditation to get a cat spirit.
In the darkness flickering with one candle, our high priestess led us into trance. Down into the earth, step by step, we walked, then along a path flecked and spotted with golden sun that poured through gaps in the leaves; bark and mud passed below our feet. We came to a special spot, and each of us, with a few exceptions, met one of our animal spirit guides.
Mine was confusing. It spun around in circles so fast I could barely see it; mainly it was a whirl of motion. White, grey, black, brown; also, somehow, blue; all mixed together, multicolored, spinning. I got that the spirit might be a little dog, mischievous and fey but friendly to me. When we questioned our guides, he seemed to indicate I was on the right path. I could get little more out of him, and I think I regarded the meditation as a dud. It seemed disappointing only to get a little dog -- no wolf, no cougar, no bear, nothing spectacular, just a little dog full of mischief, who didn't have much to say, though he clearly liked me.
That, I think, was in the spring. In late summer I got married, and directly afterward we had puppies. One was a black standard poodle, a little fuzzball with fur in her eyes, and one was a blue merle miniature Australian shepherd -- a little dog with a white ruff, white underparts and paws, copper points on his face and a heavy light-grey coat with black patches. He had one brown eye and one blue. The ride to our house frightened him, and he was sick in the back seat. It was only later we found out he liked to spin around in circles.
I have always loved shepherd dogs. I grew up with a collie. I like that they give you their allegiance intelligently, by choice, not abjectly but as a partner in the household enterprise. But my liking of dogs was overlaid during my adolescence with an aversion to my brother's dog, a daschund-Chihuahua mix who regularly bit my ankles. When I moved in with my husband-to-be, he had a Chesapeake Bay retriever, a standard poodle and a neighborhood terrier that the Chesapeake had adopted. I hit it off with them, but none of them was my dog. The poodle, who was 18, passed on; the terrier disappeared under mysterious circumstances (he was always a rover); the Chesapeake was getting elderly and needed some companionship while we were at work. She perked up a lot after the puppies came.
And I fell in love. For whatever reason, the little shepherd dog allied himself to me. He was certainly courteous to my husband Harold and let him rub his belly and provide all the accouterments. But I was the shepherd dog's mistress -- or rather, he was my noble protector.
The poodle was easy to name; black as night, she became Nyx, for the Greek goddess of night. It took us a long time to name the shepherd. Finally, Harold came up with "Oberon," and Oberon he became. With his air of a prince in exile, he merited the name of a fey king.
It's hard to tell you exactly how Oberon added to my rituals. It was a matter of atmosphere. When we circled out in the yard, Oberon was always there, but all the dogs were. I do remember one ritual in which we asked to see the fey. I counted everyone down into trance, told them to let go of preconceptions about the fey, told them (as I believe) that the fey can appear as animals, energy, pictures in your mind or indeed any shape. I told everyone that the fey's presence tends to make you laugh or smile and tingle, and that if you want to meet the fey you must be open to doing so using any sense, so the fey can communicate as they will. I asked everyone to notice and commune with the beautiful place where we stood; I asked everyone to be in their body and senses and then to look toward something natural, a flower or tree or grass clump, allowing their eyes to unfocus and their ears to open. Everyone asked silently that the fey introduce themselves.
Then I took my own advice, grounding and getting into my body, tuning my ears, unfocusing my eyes. The first thing I saw was my little dog, staring at me from across the circle, smiling.
He had an otherworldly air, and I worried about him. In the Celtic lore of the fey, their land is also the land of the dead, which is why "fey" also means "fated," as in fated to die. Oberon always seemed wistful, half here and half there. He would sit under the flowering mock orange bush (nearly a tree) and survey his domain like the prince he was, yet it didn't seem enough. Perhaps it was that, as the smallest dog, he was never going to be alpha. Or perhaps his air of noble disappointment only meant that he wanted sheep. A dog of many talents, among them singing -- when my stepson used the wah-wah pedal on his guitar, Oberon had to bay -- herding was his chief joy. The downside of Oberon's instinct was that he liked to herd the cattle of the road. Cars.
Intelligent dogs are easy to train to avoid naughtiness when you're around. But when you're not around, they often figure out you won't know to punish them. So it was with Oberon. We trained him not to chase cars while we were home. When we seemed to be gone, he resumed his native rights. My friend Nola pointed out that if you're going to herd cars, it's better to be a heeler than a header. Oberon was the latter.
It was an overcast day, raining on and off. I was home, though Oberon probably thought I wasn't. Some kids came to the door: shocked, scared. Someone had been driving too fast -- not them, they said hastily -- they were sorry....
I ran out. In the road about twenty yards from my house, Oberon lay, still warm but beginning to stiffen. He had a snarl on his face. He was going to stop that damn car if it was the last thing he did.
I carried him home through the rain; that was when I discovered the truth of the saying that the dead weigh heavier than the living. I cried, of course. Harold came home, and he cried too. He dug a hole in the back yard, as I stood beside him. Our tears mixed with the rain.
The next day we had a service, which I adapted from Ed Fitch's A Book of Pagan Rituals. In it, I told Oberon:
For the world beyond is a land of eternal summer, and of joy,
Of endless bones, and sheep to herd,
And lots of people to snoozle you, and dogs to boss around.
Far from the cares of this world, with happiness and youth anew.Then I laid a bough of fir at the head of his grave, and said:
As the evergreen grows and prospers
Both in summer and in winter, year after year,
So also does the soul of a dog continue from life to life,
Growing stronger, wiser and deeper.Harold laid daffodils on Oberon's body in the grave and said:
May the servants of the gods
and the fey who love you
Escort you with honor
To their own land
Of beauty and joy and long grass to hide in.
We said "Blessed be," and my two stepsons threw daffodils into the grave. Then we each threw a handful of dirt onto Oberon's body, and Harold filled the grave. Later we planted a mock orange for Oberon there, though I don't think he sits below it and surveys his territory now.
The king of the fey visited us for a year and three seasons, and I still miss him. But the fey don't care to stay long in this world, and their time is not as our time. Whatever Oberon's reasons for coming and going so quickly, I respect them. But I would tell my readers to be careful of aligning your animal companions too closely with the spirits of the otherworld. A parrot I knew named Oberon also died untimely, for a reason no one ever discovered; one morning he was simply dead, having been healthy the night before.
Yet Oberon the dog came to me as a spirit before he took on flesh, and I always had a sense he was going to leave soon. I would rather that he'd come to me than not, even if he did only stay a short time. After we put his body in the grave, the day before the service, I sent him good energy for his passage. The rain had stopped as Harold dug, and when I gave Oberon energy, a rainbow appeared. I felt he'd taken the energy, was happy, was gone.