I have been fortunate to have many moments of contact that seem to be outside the norm. Some have been in dreams, some between me and other humans and some have involved animals, most often wild ones. I often think about these experiences and why these moments of contact are so significant.  

The concept of “other” has a great deal of psychological significance and is often used in a judgmental way, meaning that someone or something is alien (and therefore usually experienced with fear, hatred or discrimination). This is not the way I am using it here; rather I use it to indicate that the encounter is significant to me specifically because it is with an “other” or in a manner that is outside the usual or “normal” framework in which I communicate with the world. These are two of the experiences I have had.

THE DEER WHO WAS NOT AFRAID.  I am waiting outside for a friend to come pick me up.  We have several apple trees in the yard and deer often come to graze there.  But deer are skittish and vigilant and even when I am in the house I have to move quietly to the window and stand very still if I want to watch them.  My eye catches movement at the boundary of the yard where it meets the overgrown field.  Several deer move cautiously toward the trees.  I hold my breath and stand motionless.  A young doe moves slowly in my direction, eating a few apples as she moves through the trees.  Suddenly she notices me and stands still observing me, as I am observing her.  She is only about 10 feet from me. Is she trying to decide if I am a threat, or is she simply learning about the creatures that inhabit her world?  At this moment my friend drives up the driveway, gets out of her car and slams the door. The deer does not act startled by the noise, but stays motionless, studying me. I gesture to my friend and she walks quietly to where I am standing.  The deer does not run away, but moves closer to us.  It is as if she understands that we welcome her presence and mean her no harm.  

A GLANCE ACROSS CULTURAL BOUNDARIES. We are in the marketplace in Pisac in the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  We are there with our first child, a daughter we are adopting from Peru. After several years of infertility, I am ecstatic to be carrying an infant in a Snuggli. The market is lively and colorful, the fruits and vegetables amazing in their size and freshness.  I am looking through the eyes of a tourist, someone who has the unearned fortune to live in a rich country and the means to travel thousands of miles to fulfill my dream of motherhood.  A Quechua woman, beautiful in her dignity and splendid in the colorful clothing and headpiece that identifies her village, sits on the ground next to a large array of vegetables. She is holding a child.  Our eyes meet and she smiles at me.  I smile back.  Our lives and experiences are so different that we might as well be from different planets.  And yet in our smiles we speak the same language.  We are mothers and therefore we are not strangers.  It has been over 35 years, but remembering that smile still brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart.

I think moments of connection like these are significant because we live within so many false boundaries–both self-imposed and placed on us by social convention. When these boundaries are broken we are able to see the world from a different perspective, and really understand how we are all bound together in the same web of life.