I loved the article, it inspires me to think in new way about our relation to animals, it might be quite difficult for me to understand this relation very well because im not in contact with animals on a daily basis, but i can understand some of what you wrote about the connection,
this reminds of guy who was hired to work in my uncle land in Shufat village not far from Jerusalem, and one day while my uncle was away from the house, his dog was barking and crying, so i looked out of the terrace to see whats wrong with him and i saw that the guy who works for my uncle was beating him violently, i screamed on him to stop that and it was stopped but the dog was already bit like hell. and then when i talked to the guy about his act he said that he quit the cigarette days ago and he was angry and want to load off and bit the dog.
its noteworthy that not in All Arabic cultures animals are respected, but those who raise cattle and birds and pets, they behave different in their daily life with others, I remembered how we held funeral when my son’s piny pig died in the cold snowy day in Jerusalem.

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I can’t say I planned in advance for all these interesting journeys. Some yes, but most came from following threads of trails that entered my life.

There’s a famous quote by 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard:
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”.

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Hope you are reading the follow up articles about animals cause they are answering your questions – the new one is How to Put a Baby Elephant to Sleep and there will be more…getting into more depth and detail about the techniques to engage with wild animals.

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Wonderful article, thank you for this. I am blessed to work with animals in this way as a career. As a child I was always aware that animals could “read our minds”. They always knew when I was sad or sick or lonely. It was only as an adult in my early thirties that I discovered that we can actually understand them in the same way. It is indeed a natural ability that we as modern humans have forgotten. Through our conditioning and belief systems we have contracted the great separation sickness, which I believe every human on this planet feels the pain of on some level, even if they are not consciously aware of it. People are slowly waking up and I truly believe that the only way to save the planet (or rather ourselves) is to be consciously aware of and in tune with the other beings whith whom we share the beautiful Earth.

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I do not know if now we are able to talk again with other animals, but I am sure that we could in the past because we share the same origins and probably we still have that skill in our genetic memory and can be reactivated. And if not so, there is something that we can do which is to practice our capacity of understanding who we are, body and mind, to bring togetherness to our relationships, both with ourselves, with our human peers and with the rest of the living creatures around us.

I think it is not easy to take that step towards regaining unity when we have been taught to despise the ‘wild’ part of our nature, so bringing also a sense of destructive detachment from wildness everywhere else in the planet. In fact, the mention of the word wildness reveals the ancestral fear to lose control, something that takes over us and gets away our humanity when in reality wild life has nothing to do with lack of control.

But somehow I have confidence in that we will become aware of the necessity of recovering our internal and external unity, because we need to revive old ways of communication that will make us more human by acknowledging our animal nature.

It is not by coincidence that the areas that are considered most ‘advanced’ are also those where wild animal life has been almost completely eliminated. Is it not a signal of the obliviousness in which we have left our internal wild life?

Please, Azriel continue exploring and keep us updated
Marijo

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Like humans, some are friendly and engaging, making eye-contact or more, while others are shy.

Whether they bring messages or listen to our thoughts/words I don’t know, but they are worth preserving anyway, just because of their sentience and what they give to the world.

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Thanks for informing me about this well crafted article.
Captivating, moving
Thought provoking, inspiring
Mind expanding
Take a chance and try
communicating with other beings
in our world
and out

~Steven

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I had recently been listening to ‘The power of now’ and had just heard the part about how animals never hold tension in their bodies for long. Eckhart gives the example of a male duck who has a fight with another duck to win the attention of a female. He loses, and immediately shakes his body furiously, ruffling all his feathers – and in this way frees himself from the aggressive energy of the fight. Then off he swims calmly, as if nothing had happened.

As I walked past the lake in the park, I saw this very thing happen with my own eyes, and then realised that I too could choose to do this. Instead of holding onto experiences as stored tension within my body, I could consciously let them flow through, ruffle my feathers, and continue my way.

I’m wondering now, that maybe as we learn to relax more and more deeply, letting life move through us in this way, if we’ll simply open ourselves to a realm of experience where communication, beyond words, will be effortless with all of the life around us? As well as bringing about a gorgeous atmosphere of health in our being. Hmmm.. thanks for the food for thought, looking forward to the next article

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Right on! If I had to compile a list of best books on this topic David Abrams’ “Spell of the Sensuous” would be right at the top.

I too have often wondered about the experience of indigenous people who have been moved to cities. I’ve wondered what it feels like via their eyes and hearts.

I imagine that some of them experience a degree of shock that is beyond what we can imagine. What do you think?

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