Blessed by the Animals
Last week my husband called me from the back yard. “Come quick, come see what I found.” I ran to the back door where he was, holding out his arm, and there in his hand sat a teeny green frog, about the size of a thumbnail. I oooed and aahhed over it and thanked him for calling me. The frog had jumped onto his arm while my husband was unrolling the garden hose, its temporary home. “How wonderful!” I said. And then I thought some more about it and I realized I was jealous. Jealous of the fact the frog had jumped on my husband’s arm and not mine. “Well he deserves the frog more than I do,” I found myself thinking, as if any of us deserve such things.
Today I began to think more about this. I remembered when we had first moved in. My husband was at work and I saw a mound in the grass moving out the back door window. Upon closer examination I found to my utter delight it was a box turtle. This time it was my husband, an affirmed reptile lover, who was jealous and even admitted to being so. Okay, jealousy of such things is obvious and on the surface in children. Yet we were dealing with adults here who, it seems, covet visits from animals. We cherish an interchange with a creature. And why?
I remember the Sunday night a few years ago, apprehensive about a challenging week ahead, when I saw a stag in the woods behind our house. I called to my husband to come see him. He was stunning with huge antlers, an imposing presence. And suddenly I knew everything would be alright. Because I saw the stag in the distance– majestic, princely, beautiful. A sign.
And how thrilled we are to have a snapping turtle return every year to lay her eggs in our driveway. We feel privileged. Again, blessed. Or when with delighted guests, we saw a giant luna moth flying in the porch light one night. And the countless times a butterfly lands on one’s body, on a shoulder or head, or a dragonfly visits an arm or a sleeve. And, of course, the beautiful hummingbirds. We even had a hummingbird nest in our Black Birch. Such visits feel so special– to have these delicate, beautiful creatures near us. Even when my least favorite reptile makes an appearance out from under his home on our back deck, a tiny garter snake, the spirit soars.
Research has shown how having pets is therapeutic. We feel blessed by the animals who trust us. We feel their trust and it is pure, unalloyed by human characteristics. We don’t deserve such trust and yet we receive it as a gift. We have made contact with a being of a different species who lives in a different world whose being synchronizes with different biological rhythms. The native Americans believed animals to be spiritual guides that have much to teach us. Psychology tells us Nature is a natural antidepressant. An animal can disarm the most defensive, bring out the goodness in the criminal, and bring a smile to the face of the young, old and in-between.
And, yes, animals can be pests when they get into where they don’t belong or become aggressive or defensive in a bad way. But our world is a rich, vibrant place because of them. Animals bring us out of ourselves and into the experience of awe. Their innocence lightens our loads, allows us to share the “mystery of the other” with others, drawing us closer to our friends and family. We share the world with animals and they share their hearts with us. And their innocent interactions with us are blessings from God.
Welcome to samples of my work in various art forms showcasing “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.” “Eye-locks” is a Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir in narrative form that describes the triumph of love over mental illness.
MOONSIDE 
Dear Ellen,
Everything depends on how we look at a thing, from which point of view. Every point of view contains motives – so the mind in us can unfold in one way or another. It can react in accordance to its motives behind, jealously, and selfishly, and appear in many other colors, but it can also, on the basis of inner knowledge, enjoy every creature, however small it may be, if the mind is aware that everything is God, that everything dwells in Him and He dwells in everything. Then we see how we also look at animals, with an angle of vision that rises even above the mind. Means also that we see in animals our brothers and sisters in a lower form. They too have a soul. However, their consciousness is limited. An example for it: A bulb can contain different wattages. So we say that humans are equivalent to a 100% bulb (luminosity) and animals may achieve 70% of that luminosity, while plants may achieve say 40% of that brightness or consciousness. But light is light, more or less and water is water – and soul is soul, more or less….
Thank you so much for your good examples, dear Ellen.
I wish you and yours all that is good for you and I also hope that you are well.
Best regards
Didi
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March 2, 2023 at 12:52 AM
Dear Didi, I sent you something with love and gratitude. Please look up… https://stockdalewolfe.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=6484&action=edit&jetpackSidebarIsOpen=true
I hope you can get the post.
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March 5, 2023 at 10:14 AM
Dear Ellen,
I am sorry to say that I am not allowed to open or read it. This is what I received:
“Sorry, you are not allowed to edit this item.”
Thanks for your good-will, dear Ellen 🙂
Love and light, consciousness and life
Didi
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March 5, 2023 at 11:00 AM
Then just go to Stockdalewolfe.com. it is the first post after introductory post. Please look. It is for you with big gratitude.
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March 5, 2023 at 11:20 AM
My dear Ellen,
Thank you so much for dedicating your great photos to me. Thanks a lot, my dear friend. When I have a close look, especially to those photos from India, then I remember my first time when I travelled to India in 1994. There, in Kirpal Sagar was a World-Conference on Unity of Man. When I entered the Indian soil in Delhi, I had a very strange feeling, there was a smell of old blankets and I am sure that this kind of smell I have not noticed through my whole present life – it was like a glimps, a memory of a past life that I already was in India before, not in this life at this time.
So thank you so much, dear Ellen for sharing your good thoughts with me through these wonderful photos.
In gratitude and love
Didi
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March 5, 2023 at 11:51 AM
Dear Didi, I too feel some strong connection to India. I take real time live tours of India. That is where the pictures come from. And I have a friend who used to be my Hindi teacher as a close friend, family he says, though he is half my age, in Lucknow. So maybe in a former life…
Thank you again, dear Didi, for all.
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March 5, 2023 at 12:15 PM
I understand, dear Ellen 😉
Welcome, my friend and thank you too for your presence in my blog 🙂
Hugs and love
Didi
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March 5, 2023 at 11:47 PM
Hugs and love, dear Didi. I am having a real hard time. Got my “Light of Kirpal”. I hope I can calm down enough to read it. Thank you, dear Didi.
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March 12, 2023 at 2:12 PM
Dear Didi, Thank you so much for your very enlightening comment. You took my piece and added more spiritual truths to it. Dear Didi, I hope you are well. My husband is due to have hernia surgery and I am very scared. I try to foresee dangerous things for him to do thinking he is helping me but I don’t always succeed and worry so much. Please take care of yourself, Didi, and thanks so much for the visit and enlightening comment. With admiration, Ellen
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March 2, 2023 at 2:51 PM
Great post and pics! 😊
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March 2, 2023 at 10:14 PM
Thanks so much, Tom! Much obliged!!
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March 3, 2023 at 10:04 AM
❤
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March 3, 2023 at 7:52 PM
Thanks❣️
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March 3, 2023 at 8:29 PM
I love how you see the sacredness of all that God has created, the joy of His delight in all the creatures and people that are different, and still beautiful in their differences. Nature blesses us so richly because it’s so much greater than us. All we can do is stand in awe–like seeing constellations in the sky or coral reefs under the ocean. I love how you choose to see beauty in everything, my friend. Thanks for sharing this with us.
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March 4, 2023 at 1:49 PM
Oh Dayle, you always write such lovely comments. This one is extra special, may not be deserved but is definitely appreciated. You see with the same awe so I love how you see things in nature, too. It’s hard not to see. Thank you so much for your super comment, Dayle, my friend.❣️🙏🏽
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March 4, 2023 at 6:58 PM
The photos are wonderful and the way you write about animals is so touching. I too have received signs from nature just when I needed them.
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March 7, 2023 at 9:38 AM
Thank you, dear Julie. I need some sign now. Hard times. Appreciate your comment though!!! Thanks for visiting to a fellow animal lover.
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March 12, 2023 at 2:14 PM
I just read this and it’s quite wonderful. Love Lana
Sent from my iPhone
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March 19, 2023 at 3:52 PM
Thank you, Lana!!!❣️
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March 19, 2023 at 8:04 PM