Out On A Leash Exploring Nature With Her Terrier – Terry
Shirley MacLaine is an Academy Award winning actress, activist, past life time traveler, and bestselling author, who never goes anywhere without her beloved 25 pound terrier, Terry. MacLaine recently released her new book, Out On A Leash, Exploring the Nature of Reality and Love, a deeply touching and humorous memoir about how her relationship with Terry has made a profound change in her life. The book presents an inspiring perspective, alternating from MacLaine and Terry’s point of view on unconditional love. Tired of the city life with it’s stress and competition, MacLaine writes about her life in New Mexico, where she engages with only her closest friends, enjoys a simpler life, and celebrates the endless love she receives from Terry. MacLaine explains, humans say they love you, whereas animals just do it, “Terry has slowed me down, letting me understand that time is just an invention of man. Her tolerance gives me peace. Her free spirit gives me courage. She knows my thoughts as though she were a part of me. She’s my confidante, my sense of home, and my deepest venture into the intimacy of myself.”
MacLaine who’s known for her metaphysical books, believes she has a past life connection with Terry. “She’s truly some princess I once knew in Egypt,” says MacLaine. “I have nine other dogs on my ranch in New Mexico, but they’re not indoor dogs. And the other nine know she’s royalty”. When asked why she needed a tenth dog, MacLaine replied, “For the mice. I tried cats but the outdoor dogs did in the cats. I saw this one in a pet shop and had a premonition – especially when I learned she was a rat terrier.”
Out On A Leash is filled with MacLaine’s thoughts about nature, spirituality and the concept that we humans are creating our own self-destructive path through war and aggression. Terry has given her hope for the future with her constant example of living in the moment. “We humans, tethered as we are to the past and fearful of the future, sometimes end up dragging ourselves through the present,” MacLaine writes. “Terry is a creator of the world she wants to see, she in inventing the world in every moment. I believe this is the way God intends for us to live.” In Terry’s words, she sees MacLaine as a well-intentioned human who still has a lot to learn. Although she enjoys the time they spend hiking through the mountains and running along the beach, Terry (who calls MacLaine – Mistress Mother), thinks that she takes life too seriously and carries the problems of the world with her. Terry claims, “Although she seems to be one of the free spirits of the planet, she has never really thrown caution to the winds. She has always had a way of making sure her survival was insured. She thinks that is her job in life. I know that mine is to help her get over that.”
We can all learn from animals if we only take the time to see the world through their eyes. MacLaine enlightens, “Terry has taught me so much. I’ve tuned into nature through her. I even know where worms are in the pecking order. I’ve gone into the natural world of insects, trees, flowers. Because of her noticing them, I understand they all have things to say. Because of Terry I can commune with the reality of the nature around me. I now know that trees are not just something holding up people’s houses.”
Speaking of pecking order, when Animal Fair asked MacLaine what type of dog her famous younger sibling Warren Beatty would be if reincarnated as a dog, she quipped, “a hound dog.”
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