Honoring Early Animal Communicators: Elizabeth Severino

This series highlights the inspiring breakthroughs of early animal communicators, who began their professional careers over thirty years ago. This article is derived from the “Featured Animal Communicator” column in Species Link, The Journal of Interspecies Telepathic Communication, Issue 64, Autumn 2006. You may well be as amazed at Elizabeth Severino’s accomplishments as I am.

When Elizabeth Severino attended my animal communication courses, I was impressed with her diligence, sweetness, and creativity. Besides being an excellent animal communicator and healer, the scope of her knowledge and ability in many fields is extraordinary.

Elizabeth & Alex by MCM Photographers

Elizabeth is a Dean's List graduate of Vassar College (Latin, Psychology), earned an IBM-sponsored M.B.A., holds a D.R.S. (Doctor of Religious Studies, with a concentration in Spiritual Healing) and a Doctor of Divinity Degree, is a former Fortune 500 executive (Vice President, McGraw Hill), a successful computer company entrepreneur, computer wizard, co-founder and first President of The Association of Personal Computer Professionals, co-founder and first Chairperson of The Society for Grateful Living, co-founder and first Executive Director of the National Reiki Association, and founding treasurer of the Tri-State Holistic Health Association. Whew!

Elizabeth's life has had three very strong tracks: one in spirituality and connection, one in creative and artistic pursuits, and one in rational thinking, logic, and math. For decades, Elizabeth's career was in the computer industry, where she won many performance awards from companies including IBM, McGraw-Hill, Datapro Research, and Auerbach Publishers. She was the only employee in IBM's history to win every award a competitive analyst can win. While serving at IBM, she was an award-winning co-designer of the prototype architectures (CP/67, TSS, TSO, Arpanet) now known as the Internet. She is fascinated with peak performance and high accomplishment and is a graduate of Tad James' Creating Your Future seminar and a 1995 graduate of Anthony Robbins' Mastery University.

In her creative and artistic pursuits, Elizabeth is a true "Renaissance Woman." She is a published author, published poet, commercial artist, and a singer who performed once at the Academy Ball at the prestigious Academy of Music in Philadelphia. In New York, she was a certified interior decorator, award-winning ballroom dancer, and choreographer whose credits include two award-winning operas.

Spiritually, Elizabeth's fascination with all paths leading to the Divine surfaced early and has continued throughout her life. Languages have also always been a passion for Elizabeth. Her skills with Latin, Greek, French, and German helped her immensely in her work with Oxford University's Greek New Testament and she finished her first ordination as a minister in the 1970's. She then earned a D.D. in Comparative Religion and now holds a Doctor of Religious Studies (D.R.S.) from American World University. She received her ordination as a spiritual healer through renowned spiritual healer, Ron Roth's Celebrating Life Fellowship in 2002.

Her accomplishments are chronicled in dozens of Who's Who books nationally and internationally. She is the author of Guide to International Computer Systems Architecture, Do it Yourself Vibrant Health: Mind, Body, and Spirit, Reiki: The Healer's Touch, Diet to Raise Your Spiritual Level, and The Animals' Viewpoint on Dying, Death, and Euthanasia.

Elizabeth realized she is a healer because of a near-fatal boating accident. At the time, she was the CEO of a computer consulting company specializing in the design and installation of computer networks. The accident and the epiphany she experienced changed her life dramatically. She studied and become an expert in the energy therapies of multiple cultures, including Prana (India), Qi Gong Breathwork (China), Reiki (Japan), Neuro-Associative Conditioning (U.S.) and Huna (Hawaii). As an intuitive advisor, lecturer, workshop leader, and spiritual healer, she specializes in helping people feel healing grace.

Elizabeth tells a fascinating story of her childhood interest in nature and healing and her passion for communication with animals.

In the Beginning
I’ve had a strong connection with and interest in animals and healing animals for as long as I can remember. My maternal uncle, Robert Patton, was very well known for his healing abilities with animals using “laying on of hands” and for his compassion in attending animals who were dying. He was a frequent visitor in the 1950’s to our large, Chester County, Pennsylvania farm, where we would walk the woods together and speak with everything. I watched him as he worked with kitten and puppy litters and many other animal events. I felt I was a part of the animals and they were a part of me.

Animals from my earliest years offered companionship, inspiration, sanctuary, and opportunities to be of service. Animals also became my refuge. As a student in the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, I expressed my passion for animals and nature ubiquitously. Classroom work, art, sculpture, jewelry making, choosing poems to memorize, songs to sing, interpretive dance, books to read, essays, stories, or poems to write were about animals or some aspect of nature. It seemed clear a career with animals, such as veterinary science or biology, was in my future. I felt connected and happy.

We moved from the farm and chaos, trauma, emotional distancing, and the strong influence of dying and death began to manifest. While I learned well the life-long skill of handling crisis and trauma, these changes dramatically altered my originally happy and trusting personality and began to turn me into an “assess-what’s-needed-and-get-the-job-done accomplishment machine.”

The Power of Prayer and Persistence
In third grade, a diving accident nearly severed the lower half of my left leg just below the knee. A local doctor immediately inserted surgical stitches without anesthesia using a curved upholstery needle threaded with horsehair. He told my mother that I would definitely never walk again without crutches or a brace. She thanked the doctor for his opinion and promptly spent much of the next year using spiritual healing, making sure I would not only walk but also dance. This created a very strong experience of the power of persistence along with the power of faith and intention in prayer; and an equally strong experience about the limitations of medical doctors or other perceived authorities.

Then, my mother started to turn abusive toward me. I had previously adored my mother and now I began to distrust her. I didn’t know then that my mother was getting sick. As fourth grade started, my great uncle began to molest me. My mother ordered me not to say anything about it to anyone because we were living in his house. “He will become angered and throw us out,” she said, “and then where will we live?”

I was stunned and didn’t have anyone to turn to. Although I knew my dad loved me, he worked a lot and frequently wasn’t home. I became very quiet and withdrawn, retreating to my animals and books. Whenever my mother left me alone in the house, I hid in a small opening between our freezer and the wall. I prayed fervently for something to change, using the same intention and persistence that my mother had earlier modeled for me.

A few months later, the roof above the portion of the house where we lived caught a neighbor’s airborne burning leaves and burst into flames. Our portion of the house burned down. My parents were forced to move and I never saw my great uncle again. This helped deepen my belief in prayer.

Our family’s difficult circumstances continued, with one crisis after another. My refuge during our family’s difficult times continued to be my animals, whom I loved, and my schoolwork, at which I excelled.

Devoted to Nature
In fifth grade, my teachers, concerned that I was too narrowly focused on animals and nature, called a conference. They forbade me to do any more projects on or about animals or nature. My mother supported the intent to diversify my interests. I felt devastated. I cried for weeks, until I realized a doorway was open to my interests. I was taking the train to school and could easily stop by the Bryn Mawr library on the way home, read whatever books I wanted, and take a later train. Our houseman, the only person home when I got home, kept my secret, as did the librarian.

Soon after, our family had another major change in circumstances. I left Baldwin and began schooling in the Lower Merion Public Schools. I was really looking forward to ninth grade biology, where I felt I could again fully express my passion for animals and nature and openly embrace the possibility of studying veterinary science or biology.

A frog and a tarantula changed this aspiration.

Our biology professor was going away and wanted someone to take his tarantula for a while. I volunteered without first asking my mother if I could bring a tarantula home. The biology teacher carefully placed his nameless spider in a jumbo, restaurant-sized mayonnaise jar fastened at the top with pierced wax paper and rubber bands.

“Biology teachers never name their animals,” he stated emphatically, ”because we may have to experiment on them or kill them for science.” I took the jar home and quickly hid it in my bedroom, fastening an official Do Not Disturb sign on my door.

In the middle of the first night, I awakened with the distinct feeling that something was breathing near my bed. I glanced first at the window’s moonlight stream and second at the mayonnaise jar. As my eyes focused, I filled with hyper-vigilance as I realized that the jar was empty. Immediately I “saw” that the tarantula had extended her legs, inched her way up the side of the jar, and popped off the waxed paper top. She was now loose in my bedroom.

I felt I had two choices. I could call for my parents’ help and they would kill me when they realized I was completely responsible for letting a tarantula loose in our house. Or, I could take my chances with the tarantula.

I chose the tarantula.

Moving carefully and slowly, being extraordinarily alert in the darkness to every whisper of the lightest touch on my skin, I reached into my bed’s headboard to fetch my hidden flashlight. A click on and a sweep of the room immediately revealed the tarantula spread out on the wall at the foot of my bed.

I planned to catch the tarantula in the mayonnaise jar. I picked up an art board to slide over the jar’s mouth. I totally focused on getting the tarantula safely back into the jar.

My maneuver worked with one glitch. The diameter of the jar’s mouth was smaller than the diameter of the spread-out tarantula. Heart pounding, I quickly and firmly pressed the jar against the wall to capture the tarantula, but the jar’s mouth cut off the outer parts of her feet.

I now had an extremely agitated tarantula contorting wildly in the mayonnaise jar and bumping against its sides with surprising strength as I moved the jar’s mouth onto the art board. Leaving a slight opening for air, I balanced heavy things on the art board atop the righted jar. I began talking to the tarantula, sending her images, explaining that I simply had to have her stay in the jar because the other humans in my house would be very frightened of her being loose. As I spoke, she calmed down. She trusted me. I felt great compassion for her. I told her that I was so sorry about her feet; but that my leg had healed and grown back together and her feet would, too. I felt her belief. Her feet did eventually grow back.

I realized that I simply could not intentionally ever harm a being with that much trust in me. Biology was out.

Shortly after this episode, we were supposed to dissect a frog in biology class. I couldn’t do it. Humiliated at my classmates’ laughter, I cried; but I felt it was a violation to cut into a dead body that still felt to me to be a living being.

Autopsies were a necessary part of veterinary science. In my mind, being a veterinarian was now out, too.

I had to pursue other careers. This exploration took me to languages, psychology, English composition, art, music, dance, chemistry, history, and math. My animal passions stayed outside of school. I became very involved in dog obedience training, showing dogs in adult classes as a tenth grader in high school, participating as a volunteer in the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair every year, and tending to our multiple family pets.

The gift of deep connection with nature was sidetracked in eleventh grade when my father died suddenly and my Mother gave my animals away.

In the Family
My dear Uncle Robert moved in the 1960’s to a commune in Loveland, Colorado. He became the local “vet” there and was known regionally as an animal healer. Around the time he died, in the late 1980’s, a deep dissatisfaction with my current life, including my marriage, overcame me. It may be that the animals guiding my uncle now focused on me, compelling me to continue his important work. At the time of his death, I was the President of The PC Group, a computer consulting company specializing in the design and implementation of personal computer-based networks.

A lot had to be changed in my life to make room for a concentration with animals and healing. The Universe happily obliged with major life-altering events, including a near-fatal boating accident in the late 1980s that involved what I later learned to call an epiphany and a near-death experience and awakened a deep sense of various healing modalities. I was led into becoming a Reiki Master, studying, and being certified in a very wide variety of other energy healing techniques, which I immediately applied to animals as well as humans. It was a tumultuous time for me. My personal uncertainty and deep insecurities created a fight within me, as I transformed from being the proud president of an influential consulting company to being a humble energy therapist, healer, and animal communicator.

The journey to balancing the heart and the head had begun.

Looking back, I now realize I was doing animal communication as part of healing touch and energy therapy sessions with animals from the late 1980s. Touching an animal compassionately with the intent to hold a consistent resonance of healing peace is an opening to receive back from the animal. Many animals had helped me along the way. I began to offer seminars on healing touch.

Teacher Tanuka
Once, a tarantula and a frog changed my future for me. Now, a dog would change me forever. In 1991, a cocker spaniel who named himself Tanuka (Cherokee for “Little Bear”) came into my life. Tanuka was an Easter gift from my daughter and a friend who was also a Reiki Master.

“He has to be with you,” they observed. “He doesn’t have spots like normal dogs; he has three giant heart shapes, one on his crown chakra, one on his back heart chakra, and one on his base chakra!”

I already knew my animal guide was Bear. This was Little Bear.

Tanuka was the biggest catalyst for becoming a professional animal communicator. Tanuka spoke to me very audibly and clearly from the very beginning of our time together. The energy with him was like the communications I had with animals when I was a child on the farm.

Tanuka’s first teaching occurred shortly after he joined me when we were walking together. My neighbor, Noeline, burst out of her home crying and clutching her dog, Shayna.

“Shayna fell down the stairs; I know her leg is broken!” Noeline cried out.

Tanuka looked compassionately and inquisitively at Shayna. The two exchanged an energetic communication. I knew they were communicating, but I didn’t get the content. Tanuka then turned to me, took one end of his energetic thread connection to Shayna, and connected it to me, much like taking a sliver of a spider’s web and carefully attaching it elsewhere. I instantly received an X-ray image of Shayna’s intact leg.

Out of my mouth came, “Noeline, her leg’s just bruised, she’ll be just fine.”

“It’s broken, I know it’s broken, I’m taking her to the vet,” Noeline wailed.

We continued our walk. A few minutes later, another neighbor, Joanne, approached us. She was walking with her dog, Max, and a woman I would soon find out was her mother. Immediately Joanne said, “Oh, Liz, I’m so upset. Our new kitten is missing; we can’t find her in the house!”

Tanuka and Max connected. Again, I didn’t perceive the content. Tanuka again took his end of the energy thread and attached it to me. Again, instantly, I saw an image. This time, the image was of a kitten hiding in the back of an upstairs bathroom vanity.

”Joanne, did you check the upstairs vanity in your bathroom?” I inquired.

”I didn’t have those doors open today, she couldn’t be in there,” Joanne replied.

”Yes, she could,” her mother interjected. “I was in there this morning!”

We continued on our walk. By the time we reached home, Joanne had left a message saying they had found the kitten in the vanity. Later that day, Noeline called and confirmed that Shayna was just bruised.

Tanuka looked very satisfied.

Continuing Education
During the early years of Tanuka’s training me, I made sure Tanuka was present at all animal and healing events. He co-facilitated a 1992 Healing Touch for Dogs class I offered. A student in the class noticed our connection.

“Are you an animal communicator?” she asked.

I hadn’t heard those words before. I asked her, “What is that?”

She replied, “Someone who does what you and Tanuka are obviously doing, talking freely and easily and telepathically with each other.”

She told me about a book, Kinship with All Life, by J. Allen Boone, and recommended that I buy it. I read Boone’s book several times, soaking in its energies at multiple levels.

The same student taking a Reiki class soon after told me about Penelope Smith, whom she called “a professional animal communicator.” I immediately found and absorbed Penelope’s books and audio recordings and later took three courses with her. I realized I was indeed doing what animal communicators do and had been for quite some time. I was excited. I began to offer animal communication sessions.

The bulk of my education regarding connection continues to be my conversations with beings of all kinds. I have traveled to twenty-three countries. In every country I visit, I make a point of speaking with and learning from, the animals, trees, mountains, waters, animal guides, and whoever or whatever else is there to connect with, in form or out.

Given my current concentration as a veterinary intuitive, another important educational path has been working with gifted, holistic veterinarians. I wanted to know exactly what information that either a patient interview or an energy sensing could provide that would be relevant and/or helpful to veterinarians and how I needed to word it. I wanted to know what vets’ major questions were, so that I could coach my human clients appropriately after receiving potentially relevant information from their animal friends.

For the human client aspect of being a professional animal communicator, important training has been my life-long fascination with human behavior. I took a college-level class in psychology while still in high school, continued with psychology as a minor while a Dean’s List student at Vassar, and concentrated on human behavior, motivation, and empowerment in all my subsequent business management classes, positions, and activities.

I have a strong track in my life in spirituality and energy healing. I was first ordained as a multi-faith minister in1977, and in 2002 was ordained as a spiritual healer.

Multiple Fluencies
I feel like I have lived multiple lives in one lifetime. I’ve had many careers, all of which have contributed to what I do now. I have a strong education and work ethic and this has helped me continue to grow. I’ve always had a fascination for how people think and what makes people tick. This has helped with counseling humans and animals alike.

I enjoyed a long and successful primary career in the computer industry, ultimately serving as a multi-national Fortune 500 Vice President and then founding my own computer consulting company. Working as a top executive who communicated with people in all stations of life in multiple countries, cultures, and languages helped me to continue to do that now.

Music, art, and dance have always been a part of my life. Dancing, teaching dance, and doing choreography helps with connection, lead, and follow in orchestrating the energy of a communication session. A career as a commercial artist helped me to draw what I see from lost animals’ perceptions. This helps their humans more easily locate them. Many animals love music and frequently will energetically sound to me the music that they love in their environment. A four-year professional musical career enables me to render this audibly to humans, who generally love this particular sharing from their animal friends.

I have studied over fourteen natural languages. This has helped me understand the energy of intention that precedes spoken language and to do animal communication sessions in other languages besides English. I have a passion for ancient wisdom languages and pure vibrational resonance languages. This has helped me understand the basic tenets of sound, especially healing sounds, which is especially useful for quickly raising the spiritual energy in a session or a room.

I have another passion for healing through prayer and touch. I earned my doctorate in this field and received ordination as a spiritual healer through Ron Roth, one of the most powerful living energy healers. The many healing modalities and prayer forms I’ve learned along the way have helped me enter a state of deep compassion when working with my clients and have helped me get myself out of the way during sessions.

A life-long love of the ways of the mind of brilliant physicists, mathematicians and engineers, several of whom have always been in my deep inner circle of friends, has allowed me to absorb the principles of quantum physics and the holographic universe. Together with my extensive computer background, this has allowed me to learn with relative ease the comprehensive consciousness interface I use along with animal communication sessions to help create wellness for our animal friends by removing energy blockages and balancing frequencies.

I love to write. My first poem was published when I was seventeen. Careers in writing and publishing have helped me prepare and edit publications and other teaching vehicles in animal communication. I love to speak in front of groups and have done so since fourth grade. This has helped me with speaking easily in front of groups of all sizes and teaching workshops nationally and internationally.

Animal Communication Practice
I first started including feelings and sensations received from animals in touch therapy and energy therapy sessions performed for and on animals in the late 1980’s. I started offering animal communication sessions in 1992. In the beginning, I felt I had to be physically with the animal in order to establish a connection.

When Tanuka came into my life, things changed rapidly. Tanuka introduced me to the White Brotherhood, MAP, Pan, and the Devas. He orchestrated my working with a Hawaiian Kahuna and shortly after, studying with Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

At first, I relied on Tanuka, feeling that if he were present, I could receive images of anything, including an absent animal or a present one. Then he helped me realize I could “see” the animal in situations whether he or the animal was with me or not.

I had a series of abilities sprout after that. I could be on the phone with a person who was with the animal, and I was touching the animal as I might if I were present with him or her. I could work from a picture or something physical of the animal, wherever the animal or person were geographically.

When a veterinarian asked me to figure it out, I found I could teach animal communication, or more correctly, help people unblock to remember how.

Tanuka and a cricket taught me to see essence energies or spirits that had left bodies. I started to receive contact from and be in communication with the Master Souls of different breeds and species. Then I could work with a picture or something physical of the animal, whether the spirit was in form or not, wherever it was.

I found I could locate where the animal was, whether the person knew this or not. I could receive images that were so clear from “lost” animals that I could draw what I was seeing. I could do all of this in person, via telephone, via mail and over the internet.

More evolution happened when I found that all I need for a connection is the presence of love. I could receive communications from an essence energy/spirit that had left its body and was letting me know where we could find the body it was going to inhabit. This latter is especially helpful in guiding people to find the living bodies into which reincarnating spirits have arrived.

My general practice has evolved from connecting mostly with animals, to connection with everything, which is where I started as a child. Now my practice as an animal communicator spans virtually all issues and all species.

My specialties include veterinary medical intuition, healing, behavior resolution, nutrition advice, trauma rehabilitation, death, dying, and euthanasia assistance, all-issue counseling, helping with reincarnation, lost animals, and of course-human concerns such as “Is my animal happy? Does he like his food?”. I use flower essences, homeopathy, nutrition, counseling, spiritual healing, and some aspect of the dozens of energy therapies I’ve learned. I am such a synthesis of the modalities I’ve learned that it would be impossible to point to any one that I use exclusively. I AM the modality now.

The Big “I” and Connection
What is most important to me in my practice is to enter into a state of very high compassionate impersonal detachment and stay there. My personal issues vanish the moment I start a connection. I give voice to each animal as compassionately and accurately as possible, while also reflecting the animal’s personality. I sense the animal through a complete scan of ten energetic systems that I now know how to read; and share that sensing. I always first acknowledge with my clients the sacred energy of the Universe, and thank it for allowing me to be the vessel of service to the animal and the person.

I contribute to and learn from every session by virtue of being present and offering myself to the communication. I’m immediately different when I’m in an animal communication setting, an intuitive setting, or a spiritual healing setting. The moment any of these possibilities arise, I suddenly feel in-filled with Grace. I feel whole, complete, one-with, as if the only One there is the big “I” Who is working through me. The ego “I” is not there. All the issues I personally struggle with, including trusting myself or other people, recovering from being co-dependent, or recovering from various traumas, all these things just simply disappear. I don’t do the sessions. Grace does the sessions through me.

I love to facilitate the removal of blockages to natural abilities we all are born with. I hold the resonance of connection for students until they can do it for themselves, instilling in students a “You can do it!” attitude. I emphasize to students that we are all born intuitive and that we get it socialized out of us to varying degrees depending on our culture, country of origin, and life experiences; and that we can all get it back.

I let beginning students know that the energetics of connection need to be respectful, equal, compassionate, appreciating, not condescending, not submissive, and not co-dependent. I emphasize that the energy of deep appreciation comes first in any communication session.The animals will gladly teach and guide and help us be all that we can or want to be. I show students how to be present with an animal and allow the animal to speak and contribute.

With clients, compassion flows through me, and through that compassion, comes focus on the importance of human and animal viewpoints. Each animal is an exquisitely and uniquely intelligent being worthy of great love and respect. To most animals, we are open books; they are keenly aware of our emotions and mental images.

There is a presence of sacred energy, which is available to all of us and works through us. When I am doing veterinary sensing and voicing, I stress that what I receive does not mean that the animal has a particular disease (only a veterinarian can diagnose) but that it is very worth mentioning the energetics I receive to their veterinarians.

I asked Elizabeth to recount some of her most memorable experiences in her professional practice

The Power of Prayer
On the first day of an animal communication class, my sponsor, a wonderful woman from a local animal rescue shelter, was late for the scheduled 9 AM start time. I knew the class was very important to her and that she was picking up some rescue animals for the class. I decided to wait for her, which was helped somewhat by a few other students arriving late.

Suddenly I found myself saying, “I feel to start now. I also feel to offer a prayer for Eileen. Something has clearly happened and she and the animals need our prayer support. Let us pray.” I offered a prayer for her safety and the safety of the animals in her care. I looked at my watch. It was 9:30.

When Eileen and the rescue dogs came through the door about thirty minutes later, she breathlessly told all of us that she had locked the dogs and her keys in the car with the windows up and the engine off about 8:45 AM. It was a very hot day. Frantic, she called the police, who told her they couldn’t help but that maybe the fire department could. She called the fire department who agreed to help but weren’t sure when. She explained that the dogs had been in the car with the windows closed and the engine off and that it was so hot out they would surely die if not released soon. She was frantic.

Then all of a sudden, she said, about 9:30 am, she calmed down, the dogs lay down quietly and seemed very refreshed, and within five minutes, the fire fighter arrived with the tools necessary to pop up the locks and open the doors. The dogs were fine, with virtually no signs of having been in a very hot, closed car for forty-five minutes.

The Tan Box
John and Karen called, complaining and frustrated that their dog, Sage, formerly perfectly housebroken, had suddenly started peeing and pooping inside their house.

I asked them what had changed recently. They told me they had brought a new kitten into the home. I asked them if the kitten and the dog seemed harmonious or troubled with each other. They told me they seemed to get along well and this made Sage’s new behavior even more confusing to them.

When I connected with Sage, he told me he loved the kitten, the kitten was a lot of fun, and that his humans loved the kitten and were very happy the kitten was in the house. Sage was happy that his people were happy. He then told me he was only soiling the middle of the living room rug. He told me he was extremely surprised that his humans were unhappy each time he did what they obviously wanted done inside their house.

I asked John and Karen if Sage was indeed only soiling in the middle of the living room rug. They promptly agreed.

Noticing what Sage had communicated, I asked him, "Sage, what is it that makes you feel that your humans obviously want your new behaviors inside the house?”

Sage promptly sent me images of his humans praising the kitten when it peed and pooped inside its tan litter box. He figured that was what they now wanted from him, too, since the images were so strongly in their heads. The only “litter box” he could find inside the house, he explained, that looked right and smelled right, he said, was in the middle of the living room rug. He was puzzled that when he did the behaviors his humans obviously wanted, they were very upset. He was very confused and saddened because he loved them dearly. ”Sage, show me the middle of the living room rug,” I requested.

Sage sent me images of the rug. It was a designer, sculpted rug. In the center, was a sculpted tan rectangle that was about the same size as a litter box!

Although I already knew the answers, I said, "John and Karen, do you have a sculpted rug in your living room? Is there a center rectangle that is tan? Is the kitten’s litter box tan?”

Their answer to all three questions was, “Yes!” The questions helped John and Karen start to understand before I actually moved into the explanation.

I thanked Sage and then explained to him that cats pee and poop inside litter boxes inside houses, and that dogs pee and poop on the ground outside houses. It’s just a difference that humans expect. Sage replied that he understood. He asked me to ask his people if they would make a big fuss over him when he peed and pooped outside again for a little while. He said they didn’t need to keep it up, just for a little while, after which, he said, he would be okay. I asked his people and they immediately agreed. Sage never peed or pooped inside the house again.

A Horse Gives Directions
On the morning of the first day of a weekend animal communication workshop I was teaching in Vancouver, British Columbia, I led the class outside to do a morning salute to the directions. The sky was very overcast. I had never been to the area before and didn’t know anyone in the class, since all the arrangements had been made by internet. I asked, “Which direction is east?” No one knew.

It came to me to ask the question differently. “Who knows where the sun first appears in the morning?”

Instantly, several horses in a field far to my left caught my attention. As a group, they ran to one piece of fencing, heads pointing over it in the same direction. One of the horses neighed to make sure I was paying full attention: “The sun first appears here.” I smiled broadly at the horses and thanked them.

What a way to start an animal communication class with people you’ve never met before! The students gave rapt attention to the class. Their focus deepened further when one of the students later confirmed via her dashboard compass that the horses had indeed pointed east.

Emergency Help
On March 27, 2000, I suddenly found myself walking across my counseling room floor, dialing a telephone number, which I then realized belonged to a client, Karen, and her cat, Tabatha. Before either of us even said, “Hello,” out of my mouth came, "Tabatha is suffering from allergies to chemicals blown into your yard from your neighbor’s yard. She’s desperately ill. Get her to Dr. Khalsa now.”

Karen told me Tabatha was indeed suffering and she was already in her car, en-route to Dr. Khalsa’s office for an emergency visit. Dr. Khalsa then wrote:

"On March 27th, 2000, I was able to confirm that Tabatha Cornell was suffering from chemical allergies. I was told this information by Tabatha's owner, Karen Cornell, as reported to her by Elizabeth Severino. I took a hair sample from Tabatha, to verify this information, and prescribed two remedies to counter the allergic reaction."

Tabatha recovered completely.

Current Activity Roundup
I’ve been invited to give a three-hour workshop on “Improving Practical Intuition” at the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association’s 2006 Annual Meeting. I’ve written six books, the most popular of which is The Animals’ Viewpoint on Dying, Death, and Euthanasia. I have two more books and a CD series on the way.

I like to do custom, on-site animal communication workshops in people’s locations, a number of which recently have been at colleges and universities. I like to do animal charity events. I offer an on-line Mentoring Program, designed for animal healers and communicators. You can sign up for a free E-Newsletter on my website www.elizabethseverino.com.

My newest service includes the use of a very high-level energetic healing approach for animals. This works in-person and remotely.

I’ve also developed a really funny stand-up comic routine!