What Dreams (and Dogs) May Come

by Comma L. Williams

My beloved four-legged companion Kiva lived with me for almost seventeen years, my constant companion, hanging out, traveling, and accompanying me on amazing adventures. She radiated sweetness and love. She loved every being she met. She reminded me and taught me to see goodness all around me, to delight in the sunshine, the snow, the rain, to greet everyone with an open heart first. Living with Kiva transformed my life—grounding me, reconnecting me with nature, enabling me to expand, open my heart, and grow into my spiritual path. And it all started with a (transformational) dream.

Peru, April, 2006. I’m here with my teacher and colleagues from my spiritual community. We’ve been here for ten days, traveling to sacred sites and learning from the shamans traveling with us. We are at the end of our trip, spending a few days in Cusco, one of my all-time favorite cities. There is so much I love about being in Cusco. One of the things that always catches my attention is the dogs who wander the streets. They are not like the dogs I’ve seen in the streets in Mexico or other countries, who appear feral, undernourished, dirty, and are often angry. These dogs seem weIl-fed, friendly, and act as though they also have jobs to get to as do the humans.

I’m not much of a dreamer, but this particular night I have a dream so clear that I can close my eyes now and be right back in it. Not only that, but I also had this dream three times that night. Each time, at the end of the dream, I wake up, go back to sleep, only to have the same dream all over again. In the dream, our group was in Cusco. We had just finished a despacho ceremony. A despacho is the most sacred offering one can make—to the mountains, Mother Earth, Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, and our Star Brothers and Sisters, to any and all of creation. It is filled with prayers, blessings, and requests for guidance. In waking time, when the despacho has been created and blessed, it is most often burned to get to spirit quickly, or buried, which composts more slowly but can ensure a deeper, more profound response from spirit. In my dream we are at the end of the ceremony and I ask, “What are we going to do with the despacho? We are in the city. We cannot burn it or bury it.” And each time, a voice says to me, “You have to feed it to the dogs.” I wake up thinking, “Feed it to the dogs!? What? That doesn’t make sense.”

The next day I tell my dream to the shaman we are traveling with. He says the dream is telling me that I need a dog in my life. That the dog will help me to both ground and expand. I burst into tears. The shaman tells me that means what I have just heard is Truth, my spirit recognizes that and the tears are my heart coming to the surface. I’m both excited and in some disbelief. My last dog, Jessie, crossed the Rainbow Bridge fifteen years prior and my heart had been so broken I couldn’t imagine having another, different dog.

Back home, the dream and its message are constantly on my mind. I wonder if I will still be able to travel the way I have been. I wonder how I will manage long days at work and have a dog. All the while checking on adoption websites to see if “the dog” will make itself known to me. It became clear in a journey that I would be looking for a yellow lab. I’d never had a purebred before and had some (minor) guilt about wanting to go that route. There just weren’t any yellow labs in the shelters.

In May, I had some work in Oneonta, New York. A colleague and I spent several weeks going there, facilitating three or five days of classes, and coming home. The last day we were there, a man walked in wearing a dark green shirt with a yellow lab embroidered over the pocket. I went over and started talking to him about that. As it turned out, he and his son bred yellow labs and had a litter of eleven almost ready for adoption! Well, this was both good news and – yikes! Until now this was a great idea but I didn’t have to act on it. We couldn’t coordinate a time for me to go see the pups that night though. I got his contact info and went home.

A couple of weeks passed. I hadn’t done anything about it yet, except share the story with friends. On Pride Day in June, it was pouring rain. My friend Shelly had stayed over so we could go to Pride together, but neither of us were in the mood. Suddenly she says, “I have an idea. Let’s go get your puppy!” So, I called the breeder to let him know we were coming and we took off on a 4-hour drive to Oneonta to see the pups. I was so sure THE puppy would be obvious to me. I mean, how much more spirit-guided could this be? We got there in late afternoon. He took us to the barn – where there were eleven adorable puppies running around playing with each other.

There was one crazy puppy who kept running across the barn and mosh-pitting into its siblings. An intense bundle of energy. I couldn’t decide—they were all so cute! We got a motel room for the night and I asked for a dream to show me which puppy I should pick. I woke up the next morning – no dream. I was frustrated. While Shelly showered, I sat by the stream behind the motel and did a meditation journey asking for guidance. The image of a dog, maybe two years old, came to me. I knew exactly which puppy it was. The “crazy” one! I realize now that she was excited I had shown up and was trying to get my attention in the midst of all of her siblings. The vision was showing me what a beautiful spirit she had and how solid she would become. It came to me that her name was Kiva. I called the breeder, told him which one I had chosen and what her name was. He said he would use it while he had her. I had some travel coming up and couldn’t take her home that day. We agreed I would pick her up in a month.

One month later, another friend and I went to get her. There were only two puppies left. I got out of my car and saw her in the field. I called her and she came flying across the field and, literally, jumped into my arms and stayed there. My friend had to drive us home because Kiva did not want to be off my lap. The seventeen-year adventure had begun!