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A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. May's Theme: "Cycles"
Volume 8 Issue 4 ISSN# 1708-3265



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 		Lifetalks
~Recycling and Ever Becoming: A Goldfish's Story~
with Dawn Baumann Brunke

Several years ago one of my favourite fish was dying — a goldfish who lived with others in a large aquarium. As I moved him to a smaller bowl, he related that since he was not quite ready to die, he would like to tell me something to share with other humans. At the time I was writing a chapter for my third book about the death process. So, of course, I was very interested to hear what the little fish had to say.

Death proceeds from one's consciousness; that is always the starting point, he began. He noted that although he was still connected to his body, he could already feel an expansion. Especially, he said, as I sat near him and connected in this way. Death can expand all of us, he affirmed, even those who are not dying, as we open to the larger experience.

First, I would like to tell everyone that being a fish is a wonderful thing. I love being a fish. I know many humans don't think this is a significant life, though I can share my experience that fish are very wise creatures. We have excellent observational skills. Perhaps you think we are not too smart because you can catch us with hooks and worms, or by nets. But fish see this in a different way than humans do. To us, you pick apart so many details whereas we come and go with the flow. We understand more than many animals about the nature of recycling; we understand that by you catching and eating us we become a part of you. We love this ever-becoming! Many of us become fish over and over again because the existence of a water-based life is joyful and what you call 'fun.'

I laughed as I wrote down these words. For a few moments, we were silent and joined in a lovely, heartfelt way. I felt his passing desire to be a bigger water creature, perhaps an eel or something long and wiggly in the ocean. He shared images of lives as a salt-water fish in an aquarium and, once, in a public aquarium where lots of people admired him. He was also a snake, kept as a pet, but found that life tiresome and dearly missed the water for, as he shared, I am primarily a water creature.

I have had many lives in the waters. I have access to these memories now because I am already partially out of my body. I have been eaten as just a grub, a not fully-formed anything. I have also been the eater. I have been many aspects of animals in lakes and ponds and rivers, and in the ocean as well. I have been snatched into the sky at death, taken by a bird — and thus I became part of the bird world. I have been eaten by animals of the land. And I have been taken by my own brothers and sisters of the water.

My message of death is one of recycling. Recycling the old so that it becomes part of the new. After my body is dead and my spirit has left, I would like to be used in that way, to become a part of something living.

From my perspective death is a stepping up of everything into another realm and a re-becoming of form. My experience of death occurs on many levels. On one level, I go to the bottom of the tank, the lake, the ocean, and allow my body to become again. I am plant, fish, soil, muck, ever re-becoming. In this existence I would like my body to be buried near a plant, so that I may flower and enjoy this house I've come to see as a home, as well as to remind you that we are all ever re-becoming. This is my fish teaching of wisdom: that of re-becoming.

On other levels, I am already in the multicoloured world of etheric dimensions. Swimming in water is a flying of the spirit — this is where I fly in the ethers as I swim. I convey this to you with words of poetry:

Multicolour bubbles, floating upward;
Turning with my golden tail;
Circles,
Bubbles,
Dancing Joy.

This is already who I am, who I've always been, who I am ever becoming.

Goldfish speak of joy and luck to humans. The ancient Chinese understood us well. Eat fish with joy and remember our wisdom and luck as we become one with you. If you ever need direction or wisdom, tune into fish. We have a sense of the world that is deep and soulful. I bring wisdom and luck to each of you as I expand into the beyond. I am — Liu Tu, Goldfish of Golden Luck Joy.

I had not known the fish's name up to this point. I was touched by the way he conveyed it as a farewell gesture, and by the generous message he shared. Several hours later, Liu Tu, Goldfish of Golden Luck Joy, swam out of his body and, once again, began a new adventure in ever becoming.


Dawn Baumann Brunke is the author of Animal Voices; Shapeshifting with our Animal Companions; and Animal Voices, Animal Guides, from which this article is partially excerpted. All three books explore the deeper nature of our relationship with animals, nature, each other and ourselves. For more, see Dawn's website.

Be sure to read the reviews of her book "Awakening to Animal Voices" in our May 2005 Issue and her book "Animal Voices" January 2006 Issue.

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