She was one of the seven puppies born to Wolf that were the source of my lifetime commitment to wolves, and from there to all wild animals.

Many people picture a black wolf with piercing yellow eyes as being evil. In actuality, Stardance was a charming clown. Even as an adult, she would flop on her back when we approached her, paws waving, belly up for scratching. At our request for her to go somewhere or stop doing something, she resisted by flopping onto her back and going completely limp, so whatever part of her body we tried to grasp, eluded us. She delighted and excelled in this. The only recourse was for Jean to pick her up wholesale.

and fling her across his shoulders. She would remain completely limp, her tongue lolling in good humor, as he carried her to wherever he wanted her to go—or away from whatever mischief he wanted her out of. It was impossible to be mad at her. Putting her down, she would gently grasp his hand in her mouth, asking him not to leave.

She lived a good life. When she was nearly sixteen, she began to fade. In grief, I wrote in my journal, “Stardance, beloved Stardance, black wolf with golden eyes...we found her a few days ago lying down, shaking, in a corner.” It was cold outside, but not so cold that a wolf would be shaking, so we brought her into the cabin for warmth and love. She walked toward it willingly, though at one point we had to help her by holding up her hind end.

The warmth of the heated cabin floor eased her, and she stopped shaking. We called our vet, Summer, because Stardance’s normally long slender legs were swollen. Summer diagnosed a tumor on her heart, ultimately fatal. She suggested we put her to sleep; she was sure Stardance would live only a day or two longer, at the most.

The age-old question we all must face and re-face anew when we have a being we love near the end of their time on Earth: Do we help them pass? Do we let them take their own path, easing their suffering as best we can? How do we know what they want? It is so hard when we so want to do what is right for them, yet don’t know what that is.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that if we interfere, we are disrupting the animal’s karmic path, and that this path is a necessary part of their life’s journey. I thought of Wolf’s involuntary passing and chose to let Stardance pass on in her own time.

We piled blankets all over the cabin floor so she could rest wherever she wanted. In my journal I wrote, “It has been five days since we brought her inside the cabin and she appears to be resting comfortably, going through her own process. That would have been five days, so far, taken from her had we euthanized her. Her presence fills the cabin with the bitter- sweetness of Life, the sadness but the richness she brings forth.”

For the past few months Jean and I had been at an impasse in getting along together. Years of stress, debt, long hours of work, combined with the continual worry about how we were going to feed the animals each week, each month, took its toll. Living in a tiny, unfinished cabin where we couldn’t get away from each other, with few creature comforts and six months of long, dark winters filled with blizzards and bitter cold, all combined to push us to our limits. Still, we held a common vision. There was something at a deep level holding us together that was beyond our understanding, something dimly sensed that we had to do as a unit.

Jean and I began to meditate every morning, although it was difficult to quiet down and begin to face things. Our meditations were a hybrid of silence and deep discussions, coming from the truest place we could find within ourselves. At the same time, Stardance was lying on our living room floor, only a few feet from us, finishing her life. We included her in our morning meditations, gazing at her, feeling her, sending her love. But I sensed something very precious, powerful and peaceful emanating from her to us as well. There are no words to express the beauty of this time we shared with her.

Each morning we expected to awaken and find she had passed on in the night; but each morning for ten days, the three of us spent this precious time together. At night I slept on the sofa to be next to her.

Our meditations with Stardance added immediacy, urgency, and poignancy to our work.

Jean and I were still struggling, but stayed with this new experience, because we wanted to be with her in what felt like a sacred way. We wondered at the fact that she hadn’t already passed on and asked Jill her thoughts. She was silent for a few minutes, then looked up and spoke softly, saying she had the impression that Stardance was hanging on until she was sure that Jean and I had made a commitment to work things out. In fact, the future of Earthfire hung in the balance; without both of us it would not work.

Stardance’s presence during our meditations made a deep impact on both of us, one that became more powerful with each passing day. Over those last days, we were both, in our own way, moving towards an inner personal commitment to her. After several days, we realized we were both at the same place and made the commitment aloud to her that no matter what; no matter how difficult, we would continue to work things out and follow our vision for the sake of the animals here and everywhere. That we would not give up. Each day strengthened that commitment. Even as she weakened, Stardance remained alert, eyes open, and her essence was very much with us all the way through to the end.

On the tenth night, Stardance passed quietly away. She almost seemed to be gently smiling.

My journal entry read, “She left peacefully, me lying next to her on the floor.”

Later I wrote, “I am feeling the reverberations of her death to the core of me and it will be a while until I have absorbed it all and can move on. I hope it is the beginning of a new chapter that she started, where we reach fulfillment of our dreams.” I asked Jean what he was feeling. He said, “If we had limited her life, none of this would have happened. She made an enormous impact on me and my life. Without Stardance I would not have gone into such deep self-examination. I wouldn’t have tried to understand why I was unhappy, how I [had] gotten this far with the help of the animals. I felt her happiness and enjoyment that we were talking from the heart. She challenged us in her way, and we challenged ourselves. She, who was there at the beginning, contributed to the continuation of Earthfire. She gave me an understanding of what we had built ‘unknowingly’ by instinct rather than by plan. She showed us the importance of what we were doing, and took advantage of the situation to emphasize that fact.”

When all this was over, I spoke with an animal communicator friend of mine, Penelope Smith, who has had a great deal of experience with animals passing over. I asked her about our decision to let Stardance pass in her own time. Penelope’s intuitive reading was that Stardance was grateful for the extra time; she was in and out of her body, sometimes on this side, sometimes on the other side, making the transition in her own time. I mentioned this to my friend Betty, who exclaimed, “That’s just how I experienced my father’s passing!” In their book Final Gifts, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, two hospice nurses, reported instance after instance of attending nurses sensing the back and forth transitions on either side of the veil as their patients neared their passing. Patients in hospice have the luxury of time in making their transition instead of being torn away by sudden death.

Stardance, too, had that luxury.

Is the process of humans and animals dying a similar process? If so, how important it is that we consider this possibility during our heartbreaking decisions at the end of a beloved pet’s life, or any animal’s end of life. Leaving the Earth is a sacred, solemn process, no matter what the life form.