Huna Article

Huna International

How My Dog Taught Me About Focus
copyright by Jo Danieli 2001

I had a good friend. Maybe the best I could ever have I would say, if I weren't a Huna-person. But as I am, I know, I can always have good friends like Kimba.

Kimba was a dog. WAS. His physical appearance ceased to be alive some days ago. He died under the wheels of a speeding car. He taught me so much, and when he was alive I wasn't aware of how much of a friend he was.

Let me tell you:

After my brother had died of cancer in 1993 I decided that I need not be considerate about what other people thought my life should be like. And what I should do or not. So I fulfilled a wish I had had all my life: to live with a dog. I adopted a beautiful being from the animal shelter in 1995. It was love at first sight. Kimba was a mixture of a Bavarian mountain-hunting dog and other dog-races. Light brown with dark ears and mouth, and a white tail-top made him so sweet. His tail wagged all the time. He was the most friendly being alive. He was sweet as a whole personality. He was the softest and most loving being I ever knew. He seemed to trust unconditionally in the goodness in beings.

When I adopted him, I was a hurt and angry person, because of my brother's death and the terrible circumstances of life in my family. Kimba gave me balance and focus. I focused on educating the dog, and it was so good to have somebody around all the time who was always happy to see me.

People told me I was too strict with Kimba. Maybe I was. But I saw that dogs are not safe in the world we live in, so I insisted on him obeying my orders so that he might be safe on the streets of Vienna, among people, and also at my work as a journalist and graphic designer. It felt so good to be with him. I wanted him to be safe. And he trusted me.

After three years, my focus of life changed. I suddenly felt like I was in a cage, almost choked by other people's rules of life. If you have a dog, you always get to know people because they hate dogs or love them too much. They feed them with chocolate outside the store where the animal is waiting for his owner; they let the animal sleep in their beds and eat from their plates; they call you bad because you are strict with the dog, not allowing him to eat out of everyone's hands and run to everybody. I had to find out that the world is not always dog-friendly. Wherever I went there were restrictions. No dogs here, no dogs there. Keep them on the leash (even outside in nature), don't let them bark, don't come into restaurants or hotels or camping areas, not this, not that.

I felt discriminated against with my dog. And the worst thing was that some family members started to be against Kimba. They worried about their clean homes and expensive carpets, were afraid that I would ask them to care for the animal for a while so that I could be without him at least some days, didn't like the dog's smell, the way he looked and whined with joy or displeasure.

If you have a dog, you are observed by him all the time. He depends totally on you. And there is energy in a dog's glance, believe me. Sometimes you cannot stand it. If you are out with him and want to meditate, he will come and whine for your attention. Really, sometimes I was not happy about never having quiet time for myself. But not often. Mostly I was happy with him. Besides the fact that I always had a bad feeling about leaving him alone at home. I was never calm and relaxed when I was out, because I thought the poor one would wait and be sad and bored, until I learned to trust more that he would accept his life like I accept mine. And he was a very relaxed and nice dog. So he must have felt okay.

But I started becoming stressed because very often I found myself with people who were stressed with him. Visiting my mother was the worst. She claimed to be allergic to him (but the allergy showed even if he was not there). I didn`t want him to lose hair, to whine, to bark, to run around, just so that he might not upset people. I wanted to avoid bad experiences for the both of us. This led to the fact that whenever I was alone with Kimba we had great times. But when I was among people, I became stressed. And this had its effects on the dog, too. On one hand he became nervous and kept trying to come closer; on the other he showed me slave-like behaviour, looking at me poorly and accusingly, and I felt even more guilty and hated this.

I remember that I started to get upset easily, and became more strict with him. Unnecessarily, sometimes. I didn`t beat him, but yelled and kept him silent. On the other hand, I did everything to bring him and myself out of the city. I moved to a place with even more green, jogged with him every day and didn't take public transport, walked instead every day to and from work so that he could run. It was good for me, too. And truly, there may have been no dog in all of Austria whose owner cared so much about him having enough opportunities to run. I fed him well, and he was always healthy.

To make it shorter, I got in contact with the Huna philosophy and discovered the patterns I was living by. There were times when I apologized out of my full heart for treating Kimba in an upset manner, and he always forgave me. I became sick several times as I started to work with my Ku and got ready to face my inner world. I found deep, dark holes, but also my very power of manifesting. My power of manifesting sometimes thrilled me, and I decided to learn to deal very carefully with it.

Strangely enough, I could not establish a relaxed relationship with Kimba any more. He seemed to be in the way. I had found out how much I wanted to travel and to live in a different place than in Austria. Several times I found people to look after Kimba when I was abroad. And it was always difficult for me to travel, as I wondered so much whether he would have a good time without me. And I found less and less opportunities for dog-care. I would have never brought him to a shelter for the time when I was travelling. I'd rather not travel than do that. People seemed to be jealous of how I just allowed myself to travel, though, and they refused to take the dog. I still loved Kimba, but he became a stone on my leg. So I decided it would probably be best to find a new home for him.

I tried. And I found different people. But whenever it came to saying goodbye to this wonderful, sweet being, I couldn't give him away. It was like trying to give a child away or a part of myself. I loved him too much. We were so close and understood each other so well. And I slipped into a deep conflict. On one hand, I couldn't travel with him, on the other hand, I couldn't give him away.

This summer I decided to travel to Norway to work on my book there. The second motive was that I wanted to give Kimba the opportunity to feel like the mountain-dog he was and to run around and climb with me in the beautiful Norwegian mountains. I had always dreamed of camping with him. I relied very much on him being a guard and watch dog. I felt totally safe with him, as he, now six years old, was an experienced dog and let me know by a dark "Wooff!" whenever there was somethng suspicious around us. So that was what we did: we traveled three weeks, camping, hiking, having a good time.

But I still thought of giving him away. Everybody who saw us said, "But it is your dog! He admires you, and you love him. You cannot give him away!" Then the time came when I was invited to visit a friend under the obligation that the dog should not come because of a cat living in the home I was to visit. One afternoon talking with a woman who thought of taking Kimba at least for a while, I felt so deeply that I didn't want to give him away that I decided to visit that friend anyway. If he didn't want us, okay, then we would both leave. Strangely enough, I almost stopped myself from going there three times. It didn't feel right. But I had to overcome some old patterns and decided that this time I wouldn't give in to other people's rules: respect, yes, but not at the cost of my own beliefs.

I must admit, however, that something had happened within me. The thought "Everything would be so much easier without this dog" popped up in my mind very often. And Kimba reacted: he started to get on my nerves by constantly whining and trying to be near me. I did my best, but I became nervous. Especially when we arrived at that place where the cat was, and the friend who didn't want a dog around.

It went well for several days, nevertheless, and we did some great hiking. No problem with Kimba, but I watched him, worrying that he might be too loud, keeping him silent all the time. Several times I couldn't help hugging him for being my friend and just being there the way he was.

One evening (it stays light very long in Norway in summer) we started on a bicycle tour. I thought of rewarding my dog for being so quiet and nice many hours and let him run. And he run he did. I watched him happily, saw how beautiful he was, galopping and looking around on the beautiful fjord between the mountains of Sogn og Fjordane . And I thought on my bicycle: "I will never give you away. I will always find a way to be with you. You belong to me! Maybe we will go to India by car."

Two hours later, on our way back, Kimba wanted to run down a slope. I told my friend who biked ahead that I didn't want Kimba to run too fast because he might stumble and fall, like children do when they run too fast. But my friend went ahead in a high speed, not caring, and I kept Kimba beside me. I saw, how much he would have loved to run, how vivid he was and ready to speed up, and I thought "My god, I am controlling him all the time. He can take care of himself. " No cars. Only a small, quiet fjord-street on this evening. No danger. And so I let him run. And how he ran!

Then I saw the lights of a car approaching, and Kimba and my friend were ahead, approaching a steep curve. I heard the sound of the car and that it was going very, very fast. Anxious, I stopped my bike, suddenly almost out of breath with fear. "No", I whispered, knowing that something terrible was coming up like the sun in the morning. I saw the car lights becoming stronger, my friend slowing down. He had to drive close to the edge of the street, to the waterline of the fjord, and Kimba, running there, had to give way to the bike. And I saw him wanting to run behind the bike out to the street so that he wasn't overrun by the bike.

"No, no!" I screamed. My voice was strange, not wanting him to run further out to the street. And he, good, trained, dog that he was, stopped and looked back at me. And I was on the other side of the street! I was so frightened I hadn't noticed that. In order to make Kimba's life safe I had trained him to always be on the same side of the street as me, so that he need not change sides and come into danger.

Now he heard me yelling and obeyed. He thought I wanted him to come to the other side, and he acted like always, as he trusted me so much.

It may take some time to forget what followed.

The sounds. The understanding. Finding the light spot that was Kimba in the gras far away from the road.

The terrible dismay. The shock of holding the broken body of my dog and seeing his eyes open. Hearing the noise of his blood and brains in his head when I lifted his nose. Understanding that he didn't live any more. That he was gone, leaving me alone. The knowing that I hadn't yet given him all the Aloha that I could have.

I learned: never postpone showing your love to another being.

And also: You may influence the lives of other beings, but you can never determine their destiny. That is what Serge King wrote me after I told him about the accident, but of course there is mutual influence.

When I kneeled, screaming and sobbing beside my dead dog, I found myself thinking "Thank you, Kimba", and I was even more shocked. Because I never, never ever wanted him to die. Serge said that it really was Kimba's Aumakua who had decided that it was the time and the place, not mine. Okay. Maybe. But being alone in dark Norway with the still warm, but dead best friend I ever had, I suddenly felt our connection more then ever. And I felt more guilty then ever. I was totally alone. Within seconds, some things became clear that I hadn't been able to make a decision about for months.

I had not been aware enough of my thoughts concerning my dog. I had trained a lot to keep the fact in mind that energy flows where attention goes. But in my work on myself I didn't come far enough to embrace my dog's life to the farthest possible extent. Serge advised me to do Kimba and me a favour: to force my mind to focus only on the good times with my dog. I will. It is so hard. But I want to do good for him, still.

When Kimba was six months old, the same thing happened to him like the situation in which he died, but that time he survived. And I went on bicycle-tours only two times in his life: The day after I got him at the age of three months and the day when he left me, to stay in Po for the near future. He was six years and three months old.

At the moment I am sitting in a library in Lillehammer, Norway, and looking into the room after having written all the above, I find myself not believing that Kimba is NOT waiting out there for me to come back. In a way I want to believe that he is, even in another dimension. But on the other hand I want him to be free.

A friend told me after Kimba's death: "He was very serious in not wanting to be with another owner. He was and is your dog. He set you free."

Yes. He was the best friend ever. But, I thought, why did we humans develop in such a manner that we must experience things the way we do? The answer is there, where Kimba is. We might think, "It is nature" but who knows how much we decide what nature is?.

Maybe Kimba and I had lived together in other lives that made it necessary for us to meet under certain circumstances again, which we did. Maybe our relationship is not over yet.

Anyway, for this lifetime he is with me forever and everywhere, wherever I go. I respect his mana and will use mine to make sure he understands how much I love him, wherever he is. In an inner ceremony I put all the energy of positive experiences I had with him into the pit of earth between two rivers under a waterfall, where his body was buried by me and decided that it might radiate the Aloha-colour Turquoise out of there forever so that all people coming to visit the Feigumfossen , one of the biggest waterfalls of Norway, will profit from Kimba's wonderful, loving nature. And he will always have people around, he loved them so much.

I want to close with only one thing: People, be aware of what you do on your own behalf and on the behalf of others to satisfy their belief systems. Never forget to be honest with yourself and keep your true inner feelings as the highest priorities. If I had done this to the extent I am able, Kimba might still be alive. He wouldn't have gotten constant messages of me wanting him to be somewhere else and not with me because life seemed so difficult in a world of restrictions from dog-enemies. It never really was difficult. It was only me who wasn't clear about my own focus. It was I who made decisions about how to see life with Kimba. Now I owe it to him to live the best Aloha-life possible. That is what he died for (apart from his own motives).

That is all I can do.

P.S.: Some weeks after Kimba's death I spent some time with another dog. He is very similar to my dog, and in a moment of despair and mourning I asked Bastian to greet Kimba's spirit for me. "Bastian", I said, brushing him like I had brushed my dog before, "you are a dog and may have a better connection to the other dogs in Po." Some time after I had done that, a strong thought popped up in my mind, practically out of the blue: "What", somebody asked within myself, "if you tried your best to prevent Kimba's death, but his Aumakua had already decided the time and the date long before? And you tried to keep him in this realm and protect him in a way? And that is one of the reasons why you wanted to give him away? You felt something like danger for his life and wanted him to be safe. And you thought he would be more safe further from you. That's why you were always concerned about his safety ..." (Of course I also considered the possibility that my Ku-and-Lono-team tried their best to find ways of thinking for me to make it easier for me to bear my best friend's death. Who really knows?)

Copyright Huna International 2001