By Dana Lovell, Minnesota

I adopted an orange-and-white adult male tabby cat named Austin. He was rescued from life as a laboratory cat, and his trust in people was low. Austin was gentle, observant, and reserved. He never meowed. Occasionally, he would look eye-to-eye with someone and express deep love without a word.

Austin often showed up in my dreams. He expressed himself by sharing what I call heart messages that communicated directly between us from the love center of our being.

About eight years after he came into my life, Austin disappeared while I was away on a trip. I asked my trusted inner guide, the Mahanta, if Austin was OK. In answer to my question, I had a dream in which Austin ran freely through a springtime landscape. The dream showed me that he had passed on from his physical body and was moving happily toward his next experience on Soul’s journey.

Austin sent me a heart message in this dream: “I’ll see you again. Thank you for everything.”

I replied with a heart full of divine love: “I welcome you back in my life anytime you choose, dear friend.”

Austin’s Return

Dreams are very real to me, like an extension of my waking life. I take dreams to have deep meaning because so many times something in a dream has played out in my life. Although my dreams had assured me that everything was OK spiritually with Austin, I hoped he would let me know through a heart message that he was happy.

I had two dreams that showed me Austin was making choices about his next incarnation. First, he shed the orange color he’d had as a cat and became pure white. Then he tried on different animal shapes until choosing one in which he looked like a small dog. In the next dream he was a puppy rolling around in a pug body. He even giggled in a dog kind of way. I was so excited for this Soul. The dream indicated to me that Austin was going to come back as a dog.

In the dream that followed, I brought a pug puppy in a basket to the loving home of a family with children. The family was excited and had already bought lots of dog toys. This Soul was looking forward to a whole new experience: playing with children, going outside for walks, and giving the occasional bark.

When I delivered the basket to the family, they embraced the puppy with joy and enthusiasm as if they’d been waiting for him to arrive. Moving into a pug body to be with a good family seemed to me like the perfect choice for this Soul to grow and regain trust in people. I’m not a dog person, and even if I were, I couldn’t adopt a dog because of my work schedule. Austin had been led to the body that best suited both of us at the time.

After I’d had the dream of Austin’s reincarnation, a good friend, who had adopted two pugs, told me many people are fans of this breed. Her words confirmed that being a pug was going to be a loving experience for this Soul I had known as a reserved, somewhat cautious cat.

And I still look forward to the blessing of sharing my life with the Soul who had mastered the art of sending and receiving heart messages.