The wisdom of animals

If we were all to go mad tomorrow it would probably be because we tried to find out who was to blame for the mess we’re in at the moment. Because we’d have forgotten to share the blame around and in particular forgotten to blame ourselves. But then it’s pointless to judge and blame anyway – what’s done is done. It’s best surely, to move on. Towards repair. It’s that reluctance most of us have to glance in the mirror, to look for a reality that might be different to the one we know, and not to find something that scares us. How much better to see a reflection that confirms the way we are going, that shows how to continue to repair. Not just the crows feet on our face but the newer understandings we’ll need for repair. For a start, an understanding that we aren’t as strong as we appear to be. That, after all, we aren’t ‘the dominant ones’, and that there’s an urgency to earn a new reputation by losing that very sense of dominance.
Our history has been so black because we’ve never had any real interest or concern for other beings. In consequence, we’ve become outcastes in our own world, our superiority leading us to believe we can control all the other animals and life forms. But to those of us who don’t see them as inferior, we’ve come to respect the animal world and see that in many ways it is a wiser world than our own. It would be good to explore the reasons for this … but there’s not enough time. For the present it’s all about repair. We’ve strayed so far from the natural order that we need to get back ‘home’ as soon as possible, to where we can exist together, peaceably. And we can learn to do this from the animals themselves. If we have a lot to make up for then they have a lot to teach us. But nothing is possible on that front unless we are at least following vegan principles.