This is a story of magic afoot. Some might call it the best of co-creative manifestation. Spirit definitely has a hand in this. You decide, but I ask you to take seriously the lessons embedded in the story.

I was still recovering from a heartbreak that hit my life without warning. I was doing well enough, back in my life with pleasure, seeing friends I loved and basking in their warmth, watching the Star Magnolia my children gave me for Mother's Day eight years ago (grown from a two foot bush to a ten foot tree) as it burst into thousands of blossoms on the day I arrived home from a long journey. These things were good, balm to my spirit, healing in themselves. They were not, however, enough.

I didn't know what "enough" might be, but I was clear I hadn't yet touched that point. Then a friend came to visit with her dog, a goofy black labradoodle that I'd watched grow from a pup to an adolescent. Leila, the pup, had once spent an entire hour chasing a moonshell around the floor of my office. Every time she would nudge it with her nose and try to bite it, it would roll off in another direction. Leila would follow, and the game was on! Her Dogmom and I laughed ourselves silly at the sight, so it's not without merit that I say Leila is a certifiably goofy dog.

This second visit was also fun, and ended with me smiling in a way I hadn't in a long time. The next day, a client arrived with his face radiant with joy to announce that he and his wife had just gotten a puppy---a labradoodle from the same breeder as Leila---and were, he said proudly, having the time of their lives. His joy was infectious. By the time he left, I was feeling that joy too. Then, out of nowhere, came one of those messages from Spirit that isn't exactly a "voice," but is almost like someone's speaking to you.

"Get a puppy" came the command. I laughed it off. I haven't had a dog in 15 years and no longer live a dog lifestyle. I travel too much, and travel is very much a part of the future I imagine for myself. No puppies for me.

"Get a puppy!" the voice persisted.

With some time on my hands till the next client arrived, I went to the computer and searched the engines for labradoodles. The breeder lived four miles down the road. Another pause in my resistance. Then I remembered that all through my days and nights of grief, I had been telling myself and others that I was quietly "waiting for my next instructions." It seemed like they, or at least one of them, was here.

Still brushing the idea aside, I nevertheless called the breeder and asked if there was a time I could see some of the pups before they were distributed to their new homes. "Sure!" she said, "Come out tomorrow. We still have Duke, Tia and Lily here but they'll be leaving in another day."

I had no car. Mine was being driven north that very week by my son and his newly betrothed, so I called my neighbor---the one whose two children are practically my best friends---and asked, "Would you like to take the kids on a puppy field trip?" The next morning we were off bright and early.

Duke, Tia and Lily were a delight: small, fluffy balls of rust-colored fur with button noses to die for. The kids loved them, and so did I. Falling in love was instantaneous. But the most touching part of this visit for me was when Kelly brought in her adult dogs, one by one, and Isabella, the grandmother of this litter, came right to me, curled into my side and placed her head on my thigh. There she lay for the entire visit, pouring out love.

Athena, the mom of my buddies Lauren and Lucas, poked me and whispered, "She looks like she's your dog! You just look right together."

Well, the short version of the story is that I can't afford a puppy; these dogs are quite expensive, although to hear their families tell, worth every penny. Still, I have two adult children about to be married this year, and any extra money I have will go toward their weddings. What as I doing, thinking about buying one of these puppies?

Yet the words came out of my mouth anyway. "Kelly," I recklessly asked, "what would be the next step?" She explained that I would need to leave her a deposit, and a female pup from the next litter, planned for late summer, would be mine. I paused, thought, wondered about my sanity, but was fully prepared to say yes to the joy I felt in the presence of these dogs.

Then Kelly broke in with another possibility,"...unless, that is, you want to become a guardian family."

"What's a guardian family?"

"I have a commitment to breed the very best dogs I can. I don't like to overbreed any of them. So I need healthy, sweet-tempered females to be future mothers, and we can't care for any more family dogs. We already have four, plus the puppies. So I take the best female out of a litter and place her in a good home where she belongs to that family. They get her for free on the condition that she is bred three times in her first five years of life. Then she's spayed, and her breeding time is over. Would you be interested in that?"

I was interested. By the time I left, Kelly and I had struck our bargain. I would become the owner of a labradoodle pup in mid-Fall, while she would have the assurance of the pup being placed with someone who really loved the dogs (and was loved by them, since Bella had apparently "chosen" me), could be with the pup much of the day, and was willing to train her, eventually, as a therapy dog.

The power of intention is strong. Most of us fail to take it seriously or to use it well. Our thoughts go off in all directions, effecting this and effecting that, and we take no responsibility for what help or harm they generate. I'm the same unconscious way most of the time.

But this lesson with these puppies taught me something. If one clearly wants something, asks for it with a whole-hearted yes, and it's in the best interests (or one could say the greater good) of all, it will be given.

And how do we know what's in the greater good? Simply by the joy we feel in the experience. The idea of co-creating or manifesting isn't about a way to grasp or "have", but about a way to "be" in the world, which is joyful. The joy I feel in a new idea tells me that my spirit's fully on board with the idea, that it's likely part of my spiritual path (even if I don't know why). And in following that experience of joy to the point of asking for, or activating the intention for that which is congruent with my path, I put into motion a request Spirit will go to work on providing...not always in the form I want or the timing I choose...but the lesson is there that Spirit will provide if we take the steps to be very clear in our intentions and to activate those intentions with steps of our own.

Then what? Time to allow. Time to receive. Time to step aside and wait for Spirit to go to work on our behalf. Time for the next litter to be born, nursed, and raised to the point where they're ready to go home to their new families. One of those families will be mine, and that's as big a surprise to me as I could imagine. A puppy, after all these years.

I don't know why a puppy, although I have some glimpses. I suspect it has to do with learning more about unconditional love from the truest sources: our creature companions. I don't know who: she isn't even conceived yet.

But I do know that something magical passed into my life and made it possible for a heart still broken to say "Yes!" again to life, and to do that wholeheartedly, with no holding back.

At some point, there will be more to this story. For now, I tell it occasionally to people and watch their resistances melt, see hope come alive in their eyes, hear them laugh with me at the very strange ways in which the Spirit moves in and through our days.

And so it is.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Meredith Jordan,