Cats, Dogs, Twins, and Constellations
I was involved in a great discussion of ways in which household pets become identified with, not just their owners, but others in the family system--even deceased relatives. To begin with, I asked people to relate interesting experiences with pets as they came to mind. One person spoke of a hospital cat that always came and sat with someone who was about to die. Another told of neighborhood pets who exhibited totally unusual behavior when her father died--several came and stayed on the porch steps on the day he passed. More about this in a minute.
I summarized an article by Kari Drageset from The Knowing Field (the international constellations journal) that describes 4 family constellations done for clients wanting clarity around relationships to their pets. In three of these, the representations in the constellations pointed strongly towards the pet being bonded systemically to a re-absorbed, or "vanishing" twin of the client. As the clients came to see what lay behind their issues with the pet, they were able to feel and honor their grief in terms of its real source. But what's this vanishing twin thing?
In case you're not tuned in to vanishing twins yet, with ultrasound scans, we now know that about 13% of all pregnancies begin as twins. But only about 1% of these emerge as twins. What happens is, around the 3rd or 4th month usually, one twin dies and the tissues are absorbed into the placenta. This, it turns out, tends to leave the living child with very real, but unexplained sense of loss, survivor guilt, and a number of other issues in life.
On the other hand, the 4th constellation was different, and displayed the typical independent and possessive qualities cats often show. In this case, representatives for a childless client and her totally beloved cat were placed on the floor. Although the cat and the client showed great interest in one another, and eventually laid down on the floor in each others arms, the cat representative refused to speak much of the time, and just exhibited the sounds and behaviors of a cat. One woman in the workshop circle, allergic to cats, started sneezing and had to leave the room.
Towards the end, however, the cat spoke. To paraphrase briefly, what it said was: "when one is a cat, one is just a cat. I want to be your number one. But it's only about me as your cat, not as a child you can't have." So here we see the pet saying essentially, hey, I'm just me in your family system and don't load me up with anybody else." Kari, the author and facilitator, thought maybe also there was a triangle with the client's husband.
A most interesting book that relates to this general topic is Rupert Sheldrake's Dogs that Know when their owners are Coming Home, and other Unexplained Powers of Animals. He's done some really careful research that seems to prove that about 51% of pets know when their favorite owner decides to leave elsewhere and start home. There doesn't seem to be any other way to explain their behavior. They even know when the experimenters are trying to trick them by having the owners change their minds halfway home and go somewhere else.
But look, it makes sense really that family systems, our "family souls," would include intimate domesticated animals. We are social organisms, as well as individuals. For hundreds of thousands of years, passing of life and love on through generations has depended also upon cherished animals who rely upon and also contribute to the family group's survival and happiness. There's something deeper and older going on here that the explosive growth of language and conscious thought in recent centuries has cut us off from. It's a connection we need to accept, understand better, and most of all--RENEW.