I keep hearing stories about pets being in tune with the state of their owner’s qi. A woman’s dog curls up and takes a nap when she’s grounded and relaxed while practicing taiji but leaves the room when she’s not. A man’s cat throws up when he’s feeling stressed.
And once when I was doing qigong in the woods, feeling quite blissed out, I became aware of a presence near my right hand, looked down, and saw a large black nose attached to a large black dog. The dog very gently sniffed my hand and then walked away.
It was very cool. Neither of us was perturbed. I do have to admit that I had encountered that dog in those woods before. And our mutual non-perturbedness might have been different had the animal been a bobcat, a coyote or a bear, which have also been seen in those woods—although then again, I’ve heard that wild animals can read a person’s energy and know what he or she is about.
But still, it was very peaceful, very cool.
My cats, on the other hand….
Sometimes they’ll come into my study when I’m doing qigong and rub around my legs. In the beginning I fancied they were attracted by my flowing qi. Then I thought to look at the clock and realized they were lobbying to be fed, which they begin to do about an hour before the earliest time I might possibly feed them. They were not the least bit interested in my qi.
I was disappointed.
So much for my animal magnetism….