All living things have auras, it seems. And not long ago, I had my aura read.

The woman who did the reading said my “auric field” was almost entirely blue, which was a rather rare thing, and that it meant (among other traits) that I was intuitive and a peacemaker, and probably a writer or a poet.

As I understand it, our auras maintain a dominant color throughout our lives, but they can fluctuate in shade and hue and intensity depending on our states of health and spiritual wellbeing and awareness.

I’ve read, too, that auras can grow and shrink in size and strength with our sense of self and intentions. Some folks can fill a room with theirs; while others drag their auras along behind them in broken bits and ragged edges.

Some believers use the term “aura” interchangeably with “personal space,” or they may call it an individual’s “energy field” or even one’s “spirit.” But whatever it may be termed, according to the experts it accounts for a great deal of who we are, how we are perceived by others, and what we believe about ourselves and those around us.

It is said that our auras can be polished and tended to – rather like a transparent shell or a room of our own that we take along with us through life. And, occasionally, our auras apparently need that – a bit of spiffing up and airing out, clearing and cleansing, renewing, repairing, healing.

I’ve been thinking and researching rather a lot lately about auras and personal space for a number of reasons – not the least of which is the eight-year-old mixed-breed dog I recently brought home from the shelter, who now goes by the name of Quincy.

Quincy does not comprehend the concept of respecting personal space or boundaries. From the very start of our relationship, he has been continuously and insistently plowing through mine. And the cat’s. He pokes into, stretches out on, and squishes around every corner and crevice of our personal spaces and auras – at every opportunity, under every circumstance. He wants to be on top of me all the time. He sits on both of us and puts us in his mouth and gently chews on our edges. It’s a behavior I’d like to dissuade. But first, I wanted to understand it better. And so, I began to look more closely at what I already knew, and then I tried to learn more.

It didn’t take much study or discernment to conclude that there probably could be no better way for Quincy to try to get to know me – and Tuppence the cat – than to walk through and hover within our personal spaces, our auras. Perhaps with his enhanced dog senses he can even taste our colors and inhale the scent of our strengths and vulnerabilities. Perhaps he wants to wallow in my energy field to feel what it is like to be loved and safe after a very long time of struggling alone. Perhaps he has memories to be revived by touching my humanity. I suspect there are things to be forgotten, left there to heal.

There is much I don’t know about Quincy. There is much he does not know about me. All we have to trust is our instincts. And he, being so much more in tune with his, knew immediately how to walk through my soul to read me.

In the book “Featherfoot” by Victoria Collins, the wind Sophia says: “For I inhabit the spaces in between, where auras mix and hearts reach out and knowing hovers …” I think it may be just so with Quincy and his need to enter into my aura, my personal space, right now. I don’t believe I’ll make him stop just yet. Perhaps, instead, I’ll try to walk around inside of his.