Heart Reading … Day 62
The hearts of our animal kin
I trust in the intelligence and dignity of all life — and it is sometimes easier for me to trust other species than humans. I love to look into my dog or cat companions’ eyes and appreciate the trust that their eyes mirror back to me. But the news today has my heart aching for animal kin that have no reason to trust me or any humans whatsoever.
This evening I heard about the slaughter of 1,428 dolphins — for sport — in the faroe islands. The few media reports I read on this focused on the tradition of this activity, which I do not want to understand, and the gruesome and heinous way in which these intelligent beings were murdered. These reports did note that community members were outraged but there were no community members quoted, no outrage documented. How outraged are people? I want to know.
I am the kind of person who prays regularly for all creatures. Two days ago, after I prayed for the safety of the little ones getting ready for fall, in less than 10 minutes I had watched both a squirrel and an opossum get run over by cars in front of me; an hour later I saw a dead raccoon on the highway. Today I saw both a porcupine and a coyote laying dead on the side of the road. I feel for them as if they were kin.
What is it like to adapt to not just climate change and ever increasingly intense and unpredictable storms, fires, and droughts, but more and more of one’s habitat disappearing along with food supplies, shelter, and migration routes?
As if the free and resilient animals living in nature didn’t have enough to contend with, they have to navigate around the traffic patterns of people in metal boxes barreling down highways and humans (at their worst) murdering masses of a species just for some grotesque and perverted sense of domination.
I spent some moments today watching birds fly overhead — some in flocks murmuring and other larger birds flying independently. I also appreciated a few butterflies flapping their wings in brightly colored flowering plants. I take heart in the knowledge that I have no idea how it is that these beings can be so resilient.
Traditions are held very tightly by communities which feel defined by them. Traditions give people meaning and a sense of continuity. I don’t have as great of an appreciation for tradition as some people, certainly not a people that has been celebrating the murder of a species that is not even “harvested” for its nutrients. But I do believe that traditions can evolve and that if a community were able to come together in dialogue about the ways in which the world begs our adaptation, the sense of continuity can not only persist for the human community, but also the wider animal communities struggling to coexist with us.
