Double Bambi

I was running with my daughter’s dog when I heard “click, click, clippity-click” behind me. Could it be a woman in spikes? A jogging tap dancer? I turned to see a deer trotting behind us. Where did it come from? Although near the foothills, I was in a neighborhood where the homes are built close to one another. I stopped and she stopped. (For purposes of the tale, I am going to call the deer female, although – being that it is springtime, it could have been a male who had shed his antlers.) I had never been so close to a deer. Her ears were huge and oblong, and her eyes exceptionally large, round and doleful.

“Oh sweetie,” I said, thinking I was talking to Bambi. “You must have lost your pack! Follow us and we’ll take you to a park.” This was so city-chick meets wildlife. What can I say? I grew up in Phoenix and L.A. and watched way too many cartoons. I began to walk and the deer suddenly snorted and pawed the ground with her front hooves, which sounded like swords hitting the pavement. Suddenly lambykins didn’t seem so docile. Actually deer expressions don’t change like they do in the Disney films. She pretty much looked the same, except that she was staring directly at my daughter’s dog, Oliver, who was looking up at me for direction.

“Get her!” I said to the dog and the dog barked at the deer, but the deer stood her ground, snorting harder. This could escalate matters, so I stood between deer and Oliver and indicated for the dog to stay behind me, which he did like a good pooch. If I let my daughter’s dog get hurt, she would do a lot worse to me than any deer. But what was I going to do?

I thought of our horses and whipped a grocery baggie that I carried for poop from my fanny pack and waved it wildly at the deer who only snorted and pawed again. Evidently, deer are more closely related to bulls than horses. I unbuckled my fanny pack and began to swing it just close enough to watch the deer’s fur whooshing up slightly as the buckled passed by. I tried backing away, but the deer followed, so the speed of the fanny pack increased and now I added a savage dance that included sounds made by martial artists. I was worried that someone would look out from their window and call to their partner, “Honey, come look at this idiot mauling a deer.”

Finally the deer let us back up and when it was out of sight, Oliver and I bolted. I think Oliver’s compliance was a mix of good training and serious intimidation by my primitive dance. Thanks to Facebook, I learned that deer can do serious damage to dogs. Friends had spent $400 - $1000 in vet bills on dogs who had been attacked by deer, so it’s a good thing we got away unscathed.

But the story doesn’t stop here. I have been using the Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson with illustrations by Angela Werneke for 15 years, pulling a card when I was dealing with a particularly challenging situation, which usually averaged a couple of times a month. I am deeply connected to animals and they have been messengers throughout my life. But I didn’t think to pick up the deer card and read what it said when I encountered the real deer. However, the day following the incident, I decided to pull a card related to one of my daughters and a difficult situation she was enduring. It had been a couple of weeks since I consulted the cards. And, yes, I pulled DEER! There are no accidents.

In summary, the story of deer goes like this: she meets a disgusting and frightening demon who blocks the way to Great Spirit’s lodge. Demon wants all others to feel like Great Spirit does not want to be disturbed, but fawn is not afraid. Her fearless love and compassion astound the demon and “her love…penetrated his hardened, ugly heart”(53). He shrinks, like the Wicked Witch of the West and deer passes unharmed. The moral of the story is that deer proves the “power of gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of wounded beings.” But the personal key for me in this reading was: “Stop pushing so hard to get others to change and love them as they are. Apply gentleness to your present situation and become like the summer breeze: warm and caring”(54).

As a mother, I often think I’m supposed to DO something to HELP my children or I will be a failure as a mother. But sometimes they have to go through the given experience for a reason. All I could do was BE! So I released all judgment, expectation and worry, and instead offered love, acceptance and support when necessary. How simple was that? Next time when an animal appears out of nowhere I will realize she’s probably a messenger.