Spirituality With Animals

Hello so I’m back again with another post, today I wanted to talk about spirituality and walking that path with pets. I have had 5 hamsters but only 3 since my own spiritual awakening and through the ups and downs it has been quite the journey!

So I’m an animal lover, possibly more than I like being around people! I always understand animals more than humans as it’s so simple and clear so if you haven’t already guessed, I’m a hamster lover.

I have had 5 hamsters throughout the years, Bella, Oreo, Tinkerbell, Buddy and Mara. I’ve loved all the animals with my whole heart and they will always be with me. Now I wanted to talk about my spiritual experiences with my five hamsters as they have all been different, but I also sort of wanted to dedicate a blog post to these animals. I lost my last hamster Mara just over two months ago and sometimes I realise I’m still trying to mentally understand and heal from this experience.

So spirituality can sound nice and peaceful in thought and sometimes this is true but other times it’s one big punch in the face and a wake up call! This couldn’t be more true when it came too my hamsters.

So Tinkerbell came into my life in 2018 in middle of my awakening and I struggled with her a lot to understand her, she wasn’t very happy for a long while and I believe this was because of my mental well-being and I just didn’t really connect with her.

After a few months and many escape attempts we grew closer and she became an important part of my life. She would sit in bed with me, always waited for me to wake up in the mornings, and loved her treats! she was your average crazy female hammy. Then one day she wouldn’t stop chewing her bars, so I discovered storage boxes can be replacements for cages so I got her one. That first night in her new home I went to bed with this anxiety that she would escape as there was no lid but I ignored it and went to sleep. I went tour that afternoon and never checked on her, i was in a cafe taking to my friend when I just suddenly thought “Tinkerbell has gone”. I couldn’t shake this as I just had this gut feeling and had to go home to be sure, and to my surprise she really was gone. To this day I don’t know what happened to her or where she went but I just was heartbroken that she was all alone, I would sit out in the garden hoping she would by some miracle just show up but she never did.

This was my first real experience with just knowing something and just having this “feeling” that something was true. I never forget this experience as I just remember feeling so confused as to how I knew this was true. I believe you get this “gut feeling” sometimes when the universe knows you need to be prepared for something.

My next hamster was Buddy and I got him in 2019! He was the most peaceful, and caring hamster I’ve ever had and I think the one I had the most connected with. The first day I got Buddy he was friendly and wanted to be held, he loved cuddles, treats and sleeping on my lap. He once escaped one night when I was in bed, from his box but instead of running away he climbed my bed and just appeared on my lap! He was the best and the first time I realised there are real souls in these little animals.

Buddy one day got really sick and started loosing a lot of weight, stopped eating and couldn’t open his eyes. I took him to the vets and they told me he had cancer and would need to be put down, I didn’t truly know what to do but I brought him home because I wanted to spend one more night with him. I put him in my bed that night and remember just thinking “what if he dies right now” it was really awful but I didn’t want him to do so soon. The next morning I took him to the vets and they put him down.

This whole experience for me was quite traumatising as I just just kept flashing back that night with him laying in my bed hardly breathing and just wishing he would get up and be okay again. I really struggled after he passed on and it did send me into a depressive episode that was the worst I had experienced in a long time.

This was a blessing in disguise though because it was the first time I had a “ghostly” experience that actually gave me a sort of epiphany. As one does who is figuring out a spiritual life, so about two weeks after he had died I had been asking for him to visit me but obviously I had been so lost in my depression that I couldn’t been on the right energy for him. So I was slowly feeling more like myself and went back to nature that week and then one night I had this dream that he came to me and then that very next day I just had this feeling that he was around me but there was this happiness around him and positivity. I can’t fully explain to you what this truly was but my whole life I have feared death and how you can just disappear but it was through Buddy dying I had this epiphany that you are a soul in a human body and no one just vanished.

Finally Mara was my last hamster who died just over two months ago, I’m still healing from this but I found this a lot easier to deal with. I only had sadly for Mara for 5 months but she loved food, nature, of course she loved attention!

Mara was the first hamster who helped me see that sometimes an animals happiness means taking them back to there element. I’ve had 5 hamsters and she helped me have a different kind of epiphany! She was a lovely hamster but she had so much energy and constantly wanted to go out, so I one day decided to take her outside which I know is probably a touchy subject for animal lovers. This really made me realise something so obvious it’s ridiculous! Us as humans go to nature when we are stressed or need an escape, why would it be different for hamsters, or any other animal? As it’s their home too and I think I would just freedom if I was stuck in a cage from the day I was born! So I would regularly take Mara outdoors for 5-10 mins and I proved my point because she never once ran away and would go a certain distance and then turn around and come back to me as she was nervy at first of all the new sounds. I would pick flowers for her and she would just sit and eat next to me.

Mara sadly passed away from unknown organ failure at 5 months old which was a real shock for me but for a few weeks before I kept saying that she was loosing weight but I never thought anything really of it as she was so young and seemed content and happy. when she was put down for the first week or so I felt crazy because I was completely fine, I mean I buried her, cleaned, and packed up her home without showing any emotional and didn’t really think about it until about a week later when my life slowed down and I stopped making myself busy and it hit me. I just think my brain couldn’t comprehend what had happened and I was walking around like she had gone for the weekend or something and would be coming back soon.

“You are a soul in a human body”

So this was my experience with my spiritual awakening during the ups and downs with my pets, I learnt that sometimes the universe will send a sign if you listen, then you will hear. I learnt that there is life after death in whatever form, and that connection to nature expands to all forms of life, and we all need to go back to the earth sometimes.

So that’s it and I apologise if this was a more serious and depressing post than usual but it’s an important lesson I’ve learnt and wanted to share. Thank you for reading this if you’ve made it this far and the next post will be less morbid I promise!