Topic: The Creatures

[Nichi]

"The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality."

~Arthur Schopenhauer

[Nichi]

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

Henry Beston - "The Outermost House"

[Ke-ke wan]

 

[Nichi]

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Nichi]

The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous. 

~Emile Zola

[Michael]

The new dog we are looking after until we pass him off to Julie's brother, is such a smart Collie. He was a trouble dog, which is why he's been serially rejected, so we rescued him off the grid and have been trying to humanise him for Julie's brother.

It is so pleasant to be thrust into another animal being - but his learning capacity is a god-send.

[Nichi]

The new dog we are looking after until we pass him off to Julie's brother, is such a smart Collie. He was a trouble dog, which is why he's been serially rejected, so we rescued him off the grid and have been trying to humanise him for Julie's brother.

It is so pleasant to be thrust into another animal being - but his learning capacity is a god-send.

If I'm not mistaken, border collies almost always make it to the top of the intelligence scales, compared to other dogs. So they can learn! 

Back when the channel Animal Planet was getting started, there was a beautiful lady who gave shows on dog training. Can't remember her name. She owned and trained border collies, and would often say that their intelligence gets them into trouble. They like complex tasks, and if you don't give them work and activity to do, "They'll make stuff up .... And you won't like that!"

She also liked to tell the anecdote of a sheep herder in the UK, an old man who would say to his border collies, "Time to get the sheep," and so they would, over acres and acres, by themselves. They pretty amazing.

Edited to add: Patricia McConnell was her name - she shows up in this video:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pORF_PVW8Q

[Nichi]

Injustice by Farshchian

[Nichi]

Birds and Fishes by Farshchian

[Nichi]

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

-Mark Twain a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910)
What Is Man?, 1906

[Nichi]

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

-Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

[Michael]

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

-Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

yes, good insight. Nice thread V.

[Nichi]

BLESS THE ANIMALS OUR RELATIVES

 

Does anyone realize
Anymore
That the word animals
Comes from word anima
Meaning soul,
The prime animating force...
Animation...
The life force...
Leaping and jumping,
So alive.

For years
Some have insisted
Animals have no souls.

This cannot be right...
Otherwise animals would
Be named the non-anima
Instead of dear anima-ls.

We can no longer
enjoin debates, rather,
we would spend that time
soul on soul, for we see
Humans have souls.
Animals have souls.
... and we ought mention
also trees and butterflies
and mountains and
starry night sky...
anything that causes us
the goodness of awe,
has a soul...
anything, anyone
who causes other souls
to pour love & tenderness.

A Soul knows a Soul
when it sees one.

Period. The End. Return.

(ENORMOUS affirmative chorus
of bleating, woofing, cawing, mewing,
meowing, mooing, squeaking, huffing,
stomping, singing, winging, roaring
in the background...

and that is just the humans...

thence comes in on second bar
the ENORMOUS affirmative chorus
of calling, talking, murmuring,  laughing,
cheering, yodeling, nattering, chattering,
humming, drumming harumphing, thrumming
of the anima-ls...

so much so,
and in such cacophonous harmony
one can hardly any longer tell
which song belongs to which soul.

Just right.)

 

Poem: "Bless The Animals Our Relatives," from La Pasionaria, The Bright Angel, Collected Poems of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés 

[Nichi]

The Fifth Day of Creation

[Nichi]

"We’re certainly a dominant species, but that’s not the same as a keystone species. A keystone species is one that, when you remove it, the diversity collapses; we’re a species that when you add us, the diversity collapses. We can change everything, dictate everything and destroy everything."

- Michael Soulé, a founder of the field of conservation biology, 2002