Animals

Obviously, this is a big subject. Maybe it's trickier to deal with because some of us see more animals that appear to be suffering than we see people. If I don't use the word "suffering" and try to reduce the emotionalism inherent in naming what I see, I can just say describe what I see when I drive by a feral cat colony nearby, but I don't think that helps. I am looking for neutral terms. I understand that I attract what I see. I have an explanation from Abraham for almost everything, but not this subject which is why I think it comes up so much. Death is no longer a reason for me to get upset: it's a glorious transition and quick; I need not infuse in with stories that make it bad. I need a different Abe perspective and an explanation of an Abe perspective. Esther saw a hawk with a captured animal for dinner that was too heavy and the hawk crashed into the side of the Monsterbus. She says there was a time in the past when she would have pulled over and cried for 15 minutes, but now, she sees it as almost funny how the universe orchestrated this event to grab her attention when she was thinking thoughts of being overwhelmed -- as the bird was. I don't have enough words to make good sense of that story. It feels incomplete! On the Abe CD about pets, Abe refers to a group of chickens that peck the ill chicken because they don't want that energy, but there are countless examples of animals that do the opposite. Last week, my friends witnessed a bird standing beside another bird of like kind that was dead at the side of the road, and they witnessed the live animal just standing there, but howling and cackling in a way that captivated their attention. I don't have the words to fill in this story to make sense of it or make it jive with the chicken story. I get impatient with the indignant animal lovers that show up here, inevitably, every so often, but then, I have no problem with things dying and I have no problem, therefore, being part of the food chain. Less than 1% of all charity dollars contributed in this country go to animal welfare -- just an example that I interpret as meaning people who feel a divine connection with other people sometimes give dollars or build houses or do stuff for humanity coz it makes them feel good, whatever 00 but far fewer people feel that connection with animals. If I attract a crying, wounded child to my path, before I spend much time figuring out the message of my creation, I will do something that impacts the child in a way I judge to be an improvement. There is a niggling issue about people's willingness to do the same for an animal. And the though just bounced to mind that it's because we judge people to be a superior force and form of life.

The Secret Life of Pets: Excerpted From 2005 Workshops