Category: Culture

Animal healing

The power of our beautiful creatures to heal us.

Yet again, another example of a post almost writing itself.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, I published a post about being sensitive to the world around us.

Then this morning there was a new post from Sue Dreamwalker under the title of Fear of the Future. It was uncharacteristically downbeat for Sue.

Now most who follow me know I try to bring a positive touch within my posts… Yet to be quite honest with you all I am really struggling right now to lift myself from the doldrums of my own thoughts.

The key to conquering our fears lies in awareness. When we identify the irrational thoughts that frighten us and replace them with positive affirming ones.

Argh… all easier said than done..

You would think with my inner Knowing, and my Spiritual mind I should be the last person to take a nose dive into that Pit of depression.. Especially when I dredged its depth before and vowed that I had been there done that and worn the T-shirt and I refuse to wear it again.

I could blame it on my Fall which left me feeling bruised with aching, muscles which are still healing.. And I could blame it on grief as I lost a very beloved Aunt last week. I could blame my fatigue on me deciding to move a whole wall of books out the spare bedroom with wrists still recovering from the sprains of the fall.. And I could blame it on the weather being cold and miserable.. I could even blame it on the state of the world, or the Planets .. I have a whole host of excuses I could fall back upon to justify why I am feeling tired and jaded..

Many left comments including me. I spoke of the reward of hugging a dog. My words included:

I don’t have answers other than to feel what you are feeling. All I hang onto when I spend too much time thinking of my own mortality is that the answer, the answer to the moment, is to bury one’s face into the warm, soft fur of a dog. They seem to sense my need at these times. (And that isn’t meant to sound like me devaluing the love and affection that I receive from Jean!)

In other words, that contact with the warm dog holds me in the present and before long the reinforcement of living that present, loving moment puts the unknown future into perspective.

Another comment was left by blogger Rajagopal that included this wonderful tale:

The only thing that I have seen working in my life is to keep living, as much as possible, in the present. There is nothing to fear, either of the now or of the future.

In this context, wish to leave you with the story of the pregnant deer; in a forest, a pregnant deer is about to give birth. She finds a remote field near a strong-flowing river, that looks like a safe place, as she starts going into labour. At the same moment, dark clouds gather in the sky and streaks of lightning sets off a forest fire. The deer looks to her left and sees an approaching hunter with arrow pointed at her. To her right, the deer spots a hungry lion speeding towards her. What can the pregnant deer do? She is in labour! What will happen? Will the deer survive? Will she give birth to the fawn and will it survive? Or will everything be burnt by the forest fire? Or will she perish to the hunter’s arrow? Or does a horrible end await her at the hands of the hungry lion? Constrained by the fire on one side, the flowing river on the other and boxed in by her natural predators, the deer is apparently left with no option. What does she do? Well, she focuses on delivering and giving birth to a new life.

The sequence of events that follows is the Lightning strikes and blinds the hunter, who releases the arrow which zips past the deer and strikes the hungry lion. It starts to rain heavily and the forest fire is slowly doused by rain water. The deer gives birth to a healthy fawn….In our life too there are moments when we are confronted with negative thoughts and possibilities on all sides, so powerful as to overwhelm us. May be we can learn from the deer. The priority of the deer at that given moment was to give birth as safely as possible.

The rest was not in her hands and any change in her focus would have most likely impeded giving birth to the fawn. In the midst of the severest storm, we just have to maintain presence of mind and do what is in our control…the Cosmic power will take care of the rest…best wishes… Raj.

Finally, there was a recent new follower of this place. Her name is Emma and she writes the blog The Muse in the Mirror. Emma was kind enough to grant me permission to republish a post from last December about the healing power of Llamas. Enjoy!

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Llama Loving; The healing power of Llamas

emma1It’s official; I LOVE llamas. There, I said it, put out there for the world to know! I love their gentle, sensitive nature, friendly disposition and most of all their goofy, giggle-worthy expressions, which never fail to bring a smile to my face! Concerned that my llama loving status was bordering on obsession, I was beginning to question whether my love for these comical camelids was founded on anything other than sheer amusement! Thankfully as I researched further my findings confirmed that these beautiful animals are much more than a pretty (funny) face!!!

Llama Therapy

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Llama Marisco visits patients at Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center in Washington, USA. © Jen Osborne Photography

I squealed in delight when Colours Magazine published the story about The Delta Society, a non-profit organization that licenses animals for therapy

Holly Barto hugs a therapy llama at Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center, USA © Jen Osborne Photography
Holly Barto hugs a therapy llama at Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center, USA © Jen Osborne Photography

in USA. The adorable photo’s lay testament to the happiness that llama’s bring to residents at Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center in Washington, USA. Llama Marisco (pictured above), and Llama N.H. Flight of the Eagle (pictured right) are trained therapists, who spread comfort and joy as they stop at each bed to kiss the patients or have a hug. Resident Holly Barto remarked that…

“It was heaven. Just emotionally – to be able to touch an animal and hold an animal close.”

Another example of the profound healing benefits of llama’s can be seen in this adorable video below showing Rojo the therapy llama and Napoleon the therapy alpaca from Mtn Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpacas, in Vancouver, WA USA. A non-profit corporation, which offers therapy teams to visit hospitals and schools in the area. The expressions on people’s faces are heart warming to say the least!

“Who knew such fluffed-up, carrot munching mammals could bring so much joy.”

Laughter is the best medicine.

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Llama Dave is disgruntled by the fact I was munching in on his dinner!

If I am having an off day, the first thing I reach for is a funny llama picture. Better still, a visit to the local llama park soon blasts my bad moon into infinity and beyond! A good giggle-fest at the Ashdown Forest Llama park, in East Sussex, dissolves the blues and confirms that laughter really is the best medicine! (See my picture gallery below to see me with some of the residents of the Ashdown Forest Llama park!).

There’s a very good reason behind the saying Laughter is the best medicine. Research suggests that people feel less pain after a good laugh, because it causes the body to release chemicals that act as a natural painkiller. ‘Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University, who led the research, believes that uncontrollable laughter releases chemicals called endorphins into the body which, as well as generating mild euphoria, also dull pain.’ (BBC)

It is common knowledge that animals in general make us happier and brighten our spirits. A growing body of scientific research now suggests that interacting with animals can make us not only happier, but healthier too. That helps explain the increasing use of animals for therapeutic purposes in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, schools, jails and mental institutions.

The use of pets in medical settings actually dates back more than 150 years, says Aubrey Fine, a clinical psychologist and professor at California State Polytechnic University. Fine who has written several books on the human-animal bond says:

“One could even look at Florence Nightingale recognizing that animals provided a level of social support in the institutional care of the mentally ill,”

So there you have it, next time you’re feeling blue, you know what to do! Head on out to your nearest llama park to insight those warm fuzzy feelings from a fluffy four legged llama! Check out my favourite selection of Llama and Alpaca pics below, guaranteed to bring a smile to any face!!

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Note: That last photograph above is only one of a wonderful collection of Llama photographs that Emma included in her blog post. Do drop across there and admire all the wonderful pictures.

The incredible healing power of hugging an animal.

Sensitivity to the world around us.

The more we give up, the more we ‘own’.

It is a very common, understandable trait of us humans to put our own lives first.  I mean that much more in the psychological sense than in the sense of our daily activities although what we think and feel, inevitably, influences how we behave. One of the fabulous qualities of our dogs is that they are so much more sensitive to the world around them than to their own internal thoughts and feelings. Right from the early years of having Pharaoh in my life I was aware that he ‘read’ my emotions easily and soon became an instinctive ‘friend’, especially when I was troubled.

Years later, all of the dogs love it when Jean and I are in happy, positive places and you can see how our human states of mind link so directly to the mood of our dogs.

All of which is my introduction to an essay recently read over on the Big Think blogsite. Specifically, one about living empathically. The essay is called: Let’s Make 2015 “The Year of Living Empathetically” and here are the opening paragraphs:

Let’s Make 2015 “The Year of Living Empathetically”

by JOAN COLE DUFFELL

I began the new year on a very positive – and inspiring – note after reading Eric Liu’s latest commentary on “Radical Empathy”.

The founder and CEO of Citizen University, Liu shows us that laying aside our egos – our need to be in the right – in favor of standing in the shoes of others, is key to addressing so many of the problems that we (once again) confronted in 2014.

This insight – without question – is a wake-up call to our country as 2015 unfolds.

That’s why I think we should resolve to make 2015 “The Year of Living Empathetically.”

We need to make the practice of empathy our New Year’s exercise regimen, our social-emotional diet for the next 365 days.

  • Let’s practice empathy at home, with our spouses and kids.
  • Let’s practice empathy in the workplace, as we give and receive feedback, and credit others’ contributions generously.
  • Let’s practice empathy in the classroom, especially when kids are struggling and need our support.
  • Let’s practice empathy in public service, as we encounter people who look different from us, and whose lives matter every bit as much as our own.
  • Let’s practice empathy as we encounter people on the street, who may be less fortunate, and are just as human.
  • Let’s practice empathy when resolving conflict, whether interpersonally or on a global-political level.
  • And let’s practice empathy in local and state governments, and in the halls of Congress, so that we might truly listen in order to solve real problems

If all this sounds like a tall order – you’re right; it is.

As Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, points out, empathy is a challenging personal choice that requires us to become vulnerable in an effort to connect with another person.

It is not a long essay, so do drop across to here and finish reading it.

As is the way of ideas, serendipity is always actively working ‘under the hood’.

Why do I say that?

Because as soon as I was clear about what I wanted to offer you for today, in to my ‘in-box’ came the latest TED Talk. A talk from Ben Ambridge entitled: 10 myths about psychology: Debunked. It so resonated with today’s theme and is offered below.

Published on Feb 4, 2015
How much of what you think about your brain is actually wrong? In this whistlestop tour of dis-proved science, Ben Ambridge walks through 10 popular ideas about psychology that have been proven wrong — and uncovers a few surprising truths about how our brains really work.

Ben Ambridge is the author of “Psy-Q,” a sparkling book debunking what we think we know about psychology.

Why you should listen?

Ben Ambridge is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Liverpool, where he researches children’s language development. He is the author of Psy-Q, which introduces readers to some of the major findings in psychology via interactive puzzles, games, quizzes and tests.

He also writes great newsy stories connecting psychology to current events. His article “Why Can’t We Talk to the Animals?” was shortlisted for the 2012 Guardian-Wellcome Science Writing Prize. Psy-Q is his first book for a general audience.

Dr. Ben Ambridge with his book: Psy xxx
Dr. Ben Ambridge with his book: Psy-Q.

If you want to learn more about the good Professor, here is his webpage on the University of Liverpool‘s website. And here is Ben Ambridge’s personal webpage that lists many, if not all, of his publications.

I honestly can’t find a better picture to close today’s post about sensitivity and empathy than this one below:

Empathy for another in its most beautiful shape.
Empathy for another in its most beautiful shape.

Voting for hope.

Considered reflections to yesterday’s post.

Yesterday, I published Bitter Lake ripples, a post that, in turn, was my response to the fabulous comments left by readers of my earlier post Oil, money, banks, guns and blood.  The overall feeling I read in those comments was one of terrible uncertainty about these present times. Or in the words of Sue Dreamwalker in response to a comment left by Patrice Ayme.

I have to say Patrice.. I agree with your comment here… And yes people are not understanding the whole of what is going on.. The Truth of it would seem unbelievable..

Patrice, in a post published on Monday entitled Arm Ukraine, Disarm Bankers sent shivers down my spine with the suggestion, the strong suggestion, that Ukraine, if not handled properly by ‘the West’ could be a tipping point into another major war between Europe (and the USA?) and Russia.  Here’s an extract from Patrice’s post:

The way it was said, in conjunction with Putin’s recent admission that Russian “volunteers” were fighting in Ukraine, is basically a declaration of war. On top of this, the head of the Eastern Ukraine rebels declared that he was raising a 100,000 men army. This means he expect tens of thousands of Russian troops (Putin’s “volunteers”) to cross the border.

This is not contained. Putin is billowing out of control, all by himself. One has to see what the combination of Putin’s dictatorial powers, media control, psychology and sinking economy leads to. Let me spell it out.

Once Putin has conquered Ukraine, he will push for more: he is already partly occupying Moldavia, WEST of Ukraine. Putin is also messing up with Hungary: there were street demonstrations about this, just yesterday, in Budapest. Putin uses the fact that Hungary is extremely dependent upon Russia’s fossil fuels. Merkel, who desperately wants to avoid war with Putin, flew to Budapest in emergency, to sort the situation out.

Patrice continues the warning of possible terrible times ahead in a subsequent post: Mental Inertia, Evil’s Friend, published yesterday.

Just as it takes a long time to erect, or change a vast building, so it is with the brain. The brain has inertia. Thus psychological inertia.

This mental inertia is why human beings tend to go on with a task, or with an attitude, once they got launched into it (a Jihadist laden with explosives just flew by).

Once a force is applied to an object, for example a propaganda to a brain, it tends to gather momentum, and develop ever more inertia.

Putin of course creates his own propaganda, and then can listen to it, reinforcing his deviance, in a self-reflective way. It’s all the more efficient if others repeat his ideas, and he listens to them. Actually that’s not just a problem with Putin, but with all Great Leaders. (And that’s one reason why Great Leadership has to be discontinued, and replaced by Direct Democracy.)

This amplifies the inertia.

By not fiercely opposing Putin, one collaborates with him. It is not just a question of sanctions. Putin is a liar, and an aggressive one, he should be publicly called for what he is.

Thus in terms of my own personal ideas, I freely admit to struggling to see things clearly.  Simply because I find it very difficult to get to the heart of these international issues through not having access to clear, impartial commentators who know what they are speaking about. As Patrice infers much of the media is corrupted by self-serving agendas.

However, on balance, despite Patrice Ayme being a ‘nom-de-plume’ and me having no idea who the person behind the label really is, I do trust his (?) writings and believe that Patrice writes from a position of having very good access to the inner workings of the US Government. (I am not privy to anything to support my proposition; just my guess.)

The other commentator whose opinions and judgements are trusted by me in equal fashion is George Monbiot. Mr. Monbiot has been gracious to grant permission to me for his essays to be republished here on Learning from Dogs.

On the 28th January, Mr. Monbiot published an essay that in words better than I could write encapsulates my response to the comments left on my Bitter Lake ripples post. Here is that post from George Mobiot.

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The Lamps Are Coming On All Over Europe

28th January 2015

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th January 2015

Here is the first rule of politics: if you never vote for what you want, you never get it. We are told at every election to hold our noses, forget the deficiencies and betrayals and vote Labour yet again, for fear of something worse(1). And there will, of course, always be something worse. So at what point should we vote for what we want, rather than keep choosing between two versions of market fundamentalism? Sometime this century? Or in the next? Follow the advice of the noseholders and we will be lost forever in Labour’s Bermuda triangulation.

Perhaps there was a time when this counsel of despair made sense. No longer. The lamps are coming on all over Europe. As in South America, political shifts that seemed impossible a few years earlier are now shaking the continent. We knew that another world was possible. Now, it seems, another world is here: the sudden death of the neoliberal consensus. Any party that claims to belong to the left but does not grasp this is finished.

Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Fein, the SNP; now a bright light is shining in England too, as the Green party stokes the radical flame that Labour left to gutter. On Tuesday morning, its membership in England and Wales passed 50,000(2); a year ago it was less than 15,000. A survey by the website voteforpolicies.org.uk reports that in blind tests (the 500,000 people it has polled were unaware of which positions belong to which parties), the Green Party’s policies are more popular than those of any other. If people voted for what they want, the Greens would be the party of government.

There are many reasons for this surge, but one of them must be a sense of popular ownership. Green party policies are determined democratically. Emerging from debates led mostly by younger members(3), they feel made for their time, while those of the major parties appear trapped in the 1980s.

Let me give you a flavour of the political transformation the Green Party seeks. There would be no prime minister of the kind we have today, no secretaries of state. Instead, Parliament would elect policy committees which in turn appoint convenors(4). It would also elect a First Minister, to chair the convenors’ committee. Parliament, in other words, would be sovereign rather than subject to the royal prerogative prime ministers abuse, leaders would be elected by the whole body and its various parties would be obliged to work together, rather than engage in perennial willy-waving.

Local authorities would set the taxes they chose. Local currencies, which have proved elsewhere to have transformative effects in depressed areas (see Bernard Lietaer’s book The Future of Money(5)) would become legal tender(6). Private banks would no longer be permitted to create money(7) (at the moment they issue 97% of our money supply, in the form of debt). Workers in limited companies would have the legal right, following a successful ballot, to buy them out and create cooperatives(8), with funding from a national investment bank.

The hideously unfair council tax system would be replaced by land value taxation(9), through which everyone would benefit from the speculative gains now monopolised by a few. All citizens would receive, unconditionally, a basic income(10), putting an end to insecurity and fear and to the punitive conditions attached to benefits, which have reduced recipients almost to the status of slaves.

Compare this vision of hope to Labour’s politics of fear. Compare it to a party so mesmerised by the City and the Daily Mail that it has promised to sustain the Tory cuts for “decades ahead”(11) and to “finish that task on which [the Chancellor] has failed”: eradicating the deficit.

Far too late, a former Labour minister, Peter Hain, now recognises that, inasmuch as the books need balancing, it can be done through measures like a financial transaction tax and a reform of national insurance(12), rather than through endless cuts. These opportunities have been dangling in front of Labour’s nose since 2008(13), but because appeasing the banks and the corporate press was deemed more important than preventing pain and suffering for millions, they have not been taken. Hain appears belatedly to have realised that austerity is a con, a deliberate rewriting of the social contract to divert our common wealth to the elite. There’s no evidence that the frontbench is listening.

Whether it wins or loses the general election, Labour is probably finished. It would take a generation to replace the sycophants who let Blair and Brown rip their party’s values to shreds. By then it will be history. If Labour wins in May, it is likely to destroy itself faster and more surely than if it loses, through the continued implementation of austerity. That is the lesson from Europe.

Fearful voting shifts the whole polity to the right. Tony Blair’s obeisance to corporate power enabled the vicious and destructive policies the Coalition now pursues(14). The same legacy silences Labour in opposition, as it pioneered most of the policies it should oppose. It is because we held our noses before that there is a greater stink today. So do we keep voting for a diluted version of Tory politics, for fear of the concentrate? Or do we start to vote for what we want? Had the people of this nation heeded the noseholders a century ago, we would still be waiting for the Liberal Party to deliver universal healthcare and the welfare state.

Society moves from the margins, not the centre. Those who wish for change must think of themselves as the sacrificial margin: the pioneering movement that might not succeed immediately, but that will eventually deliver sweeping change. We cannot create a successful alternative to the parties that have betrayed us until we start voting for it. Do we start walking, or just keep talking about the journey we might one day take?

Power at the moment is lethal. Whichever major party wins this election, it is likely to destroy itself through the pursuit of policies that almost no one wants. Yes, it might mean five more years of pain, though I suspect in these fissiparous times it won’t last so long. And then it all opens up. This is what we must strive for; this is the process that begins in May by voting, regardless of tactical considerations, for parties offering a genuine alternative. Change arises from conviction. Stop voting in fear. Start voting for hope.

http://www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/labour-tories-vote-osborne

2. Green Party office, by email, 27th January 2015

3. http://bright-green.org/green-movement/how-the-green-party-changed-itself-to-make-the-greensurge-possible/

4. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/pa.html

5. http://www.lietaer.com/writings/books/the-future-of-money/

6. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ec.html#EC678

7. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ec.html

8. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/in.html

9. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ec.html

10. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ec.html

11. http://press.labour.org.uk/post/87284550049/long-termism-in-public-finance-speech-by-chris

12. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/22/labour-radical-counter-greens-peter-hain

13. I was not the first to propose these alternatives to austerity Peter Hain has just discovered, but even I had got there by 2011: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/march-26-protest-aims-first-draft

14. http://www.monbiot.com/books/captive-state/

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I said that Mr. Monbiot’s words were much finer than my own. No better illustrated than by his closing three sentences:

“Change arises from conviction. Stop voting in fear. Start voting for hope.”

Bitter Lake ripples.

Reflections on last Thursday’s post.

Last Thursday, I published a post under the title of Oil, money, banks, guns and blood. It was such a departure from my normal style of blog post that I anticipated that it would slide by without any comment. Wrong! It had the highest readership of the week and attracted some powerful and insightful replies. So much so that I expressed the desire to reflect on those replies before responding. Thus, today’s post is my response to your comments and feelings.

First, Hariod Brawn of the blogsite Contentedness responded, in part:

Now, where are we? Val’s words are a good place to begin: “Nothing is what is seems, or will ever be the same again.” Nobody knows for sure, but piecing together fragments of world events, my instinct (fwiw) tells me that we are in the incipient stages of the collapse of the 20th.c. paradigm. Neoliberalism has failed; further than that, Capitalism has failed – we have no free markets where it counts; they’re all rigged. Politics has failed too, having been bought out by the corporates. [There are over 30,000 lobbyists in Washington alone] All that Western Governments have to offer is a doomed re-run of failed practices (same with Japan actually). Worse still, they have gone down on their knees and begged the financial sector to create a fix. The private banks have been given access to vast sums of QE cash at virtually zero interest in order to continue rigging markets (via their agents) all to their benefit whilst also creating huge market distortions in asset bubbles. Has the wealth they created trickled down? Has it hell. Whilst all this is going on, and as the film so clearly demonstrates, the Middle East looks like fulfilling its promise of the last century as being the flashpoint for warfare on a vast scale. And of course, if by some miracle we escape financial collapse, and world peace is not threatened by warfare, then the environment is going down the pan because – guess what? – our politicians have failed us once again. I have said enough on this.

Hariod then went on to recommend the films of Chris Hedges that will be featured on Learning from Dogs at a future date.

Then Val Boyco, her blogsite being Find Your Middle Ground, wrote a response before viewing the film:

Without being informed yet … my thinking is that the world we live in is so complex, stressful and fast that we can’t absorb everything that happens. We simplify and label, in order to make sense. We chop and segment in order to understand, but we miss the full story and many have lost the ability to grasp the bigger picture…. or are too fearful of going against the expectations of others and becoming one of “them” instead of one of “us”.

Then reinforced by her comment after watching the film:

I just watched the movie Paul. It is powerful and very disturbing. As you say, it undermines what we believe is real. It also reveals the complexity – misunderstanding – manipulation – corruption – opium, oil and the struggle for power – naivety – chaos.
In the dualistic fairy tale world of good vs evil it has created a nightmare of errors.
Nothing is what is seems.
Or will ever be the same again.

There was a comment from Patrice Ayme:

Giant American global corporations, the 200 largest ones, do 100 billion dollars of tax evasion through Luxembourg alone. Each year. Many are media companies. Wonder why stories make no sense?

Juncker directed that. Now he is head of the European Commission, and insist Greece shall pay every single penny.

As it happened, my dad was among a European group of geologists working for the Afghan government, who discovered Afghanistan’s riches… In the 1970s. All hell broke loose shortly thereafter.

I write about these sorts of things, day in, day out. But most people prefer the opium of feel-good…

Patrice then went further in offering a post over on his own blog that carried the specific title of Great Bitter Lake. Let me quote a little from that:

“Bitter Lake” is about the conspiracy between American plutocracy and Saudi plutocracy. Plutocrat Roosevelt was freshly flown from Yalta, to the Great Bitter Lake, on the Suez Canal. The idea was to steal the Maghreb, and the Middle East from the French and the British, by making a theocratic alliance.

At Yalta, Roosevelt had given half of Europe to his Comrade Stalin. (Plutocrats of the world naturally unite!)

Never mind that Poland had fought the Nazis courageously the Nazis, at a time when the USA was militarily and diplomatically collaborating… with the Nazis (or maybe, precisely, the Poles had to be punished!) Roosevelt had to be strict: the French had successfully escaped from the military occupation (AMGOT) he had set-up for them.

The movie “Bitter Lake” exposes (some) of the American plutocracy led conspiracies which led to the devastation, among other things, of Afghanistan, and other constituencies, thanks to the Wahhabist Islam it unleashed on the world.

Readers of this site will be familiar with the general ambiance.

One caveat: all what is in the documentary and makes American plutocrats (Roosevelt) and their servants (Reagan) look bad, is correct. However the real situation, the real badness is way worse. (For example the secret, official USA intervention in Afghanistan was under Carter, on July 3, 1979. However the real even more secret intervention, through the Pakistani ISI was even earlier and even more vicious.

So what is my response?

It is this:

In 1887, Oscar Wilde said, referring to the differences between the British and the Americans: “We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

By way of example there is a saying back in my old country that when something is “… going to the dogs”, it means an irreversible decline in standards; the phrase usually aimed at an organisation or even a country.

Many, especially those of my age, might nod sagely and reflect that something ‘is going to the dogs‘ in terms of the wider Western world.

Let me be specific. There are destructive and dysfunctional issues in modern societies that I would list as: Selfishness; Power & Corruption; Short-termism; Materialism; Population growth; Greed, inequality and poverty. It’s not an exhaustive list!

Now many would argue the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ about what precisely is wrong with Western societies in this 21st century but far fewer would argue with the underlying premise; that something is fundamentally wrong with today’s world.

Indeed, one of the things that is impossible to miss is the body language, the look on a face, the shrug of a shoulder, when one casually remarks that these are interesting times! From strangers and friends alike.

There is no question that what mankind has ‘enjoyed’ these last fifty years or so cannot be continued for very much longer. That the era since the 1960s of growth, materialism and consumption is running one very basic and fundamental resource dry. You know the one I am referring to: Planet Earth.

My hope is that the widely-felt feelings that something is fundamentally wrong with today, are the feelings man has always experienced, since time immemorial, when mankind has passed through the threshold between two eras.

My hope is that the new era, one that we quite possibly may now just be entering, a new era of sustainable living on this planet, of social and political changes to replace extreme levels of inequality, of stronger communities of like-minded persons, will be obvious to all, but especially obvious to our next generation, within the next ten years; possibly fewer than ten years.

One thing is for sure. The sharing of ideas and feelings as is the style of modern blogging is critical to the forming of the opinions that precede the changes that so many now see as unstoppable.

How NOT to sell beer!

Adding to the chorus of voices criticising Budweiser.

I’m going to republish in full what arrived in my ‘in-box’ yesterday from Howling For Justice.

But before I do that, let’s consider the ancient history of the wolf and the connection with our dogs of today. I shall do that by offering a small extract from something that I will be presenting at a meeting in Grants Pass on February, 10th.

Dogs are part of the Canidae species, a family including wolves, coyotes and foxes, thought to have evolved some sixty million years ago. There is no hard evidence as to when dogs and man came together but dogs were certainly around when man developed speech and set out from Africa; about fifty thousand years ago.

What is clear is that the dog represents man’s longest domesticated animal companion; by far. Some scientists believe that we have had the benefits of dogs in our lives for thirty thousand years. Indeed, some have proposed that the benefits of having tame wolves around us humans helped man be so successful a hunter and gatherer that it was instrumental, a mere ten thousand years ago, in humans first discovering how to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. Becoming the most significant single development in human history.

Because reflect that for a previous three million years Stone Age man, the hunter-gatherer, had engaged in activities as natural as the swoop of a hawk or the grazing of a horse.

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OK, on to that Budweiser advertisement.

Budweiser Takes Low Road – Demonizes Wolves To Sell Suds

thumbs-down

February 1, 2015

We all know about the Budweiser ad, a little lost puppy being threatened by a wolf. I won’t show the ad because it’s BS and I don’t want to give it any publicity but Budweiser should be ashamed. Are they that desperate to sell beer?

Get a grip Budweiser, very poorly played. Beer drinkers around the country should boycott Bud if the ad is not pulled. It’s a low blow to wolves, one of the most persecuted animals on the planet.

Please click the link below and sign the petition to tell Budweiser what you think of their blatant demonizing of wolves.

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Tell Budweiser: Don’t Demonize Wolves to Sell Beer

872023-1422494607-wide

author: Center for Biological Diversity

target: Anheuser-Busch CEO, Thomas W. Sante

Purposefully demonizing an animal that is part of America’s natural heritage is no way to sell beer.

But that hasn’t stopped Budweiser from crafting a commercial for this year’s Superbowl that intentionally drums up anti-wolf sentiment to try and capitalize on our culture’s outsized fear of wolf attacks.

The ad pits a cute puppy against a snarling, evil-looking wolf. In the ad the puppy is saved from the vicious wolf by the arrival of a team of Clydesdale horses.

Here’s a reality check: 1.2 million dogs are euthanized in shelters in the United States each year while another 1.2 million dogs are hit and killed by cars on America’s roads.

By comparison, wolves are a virtually non-existent threat to our furry canine friends, only in very rare instances attacking dogs if they feel threatened or perceive them as competitors. The real threat to both dogs and wolves, as these numbers show and as Budweiser’s cynical attempt to boost sales indicates, is people.

Take action — tell Budweiser to pull its wolf-hating ad, demonizing an endangered species is no way to sell beer.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/872/023/837/

ooOOoo

Please feel free to share this post to spread the word that animal and nature lovers are not amused by this!

Picture parade eighty-one

Something a little different for this week.

Mother Nature Network put out an email earlier in January that opened, thus:

Dear friend of Mother Nature,

We all see the beauty in a sunset or in a gorgeous painting, but can you appreciate the art in bacteria, climate images or preserved animal remains? These beautiful examples show how for centuries, art and science have danced a well-choreographed routine. The result has been some breathtaking creativity.

The pictures were so wonderful that I have offered the first six for today and the balance in a week’s time.

Finding the link Who doesn't find beauty in nature? But can you find the art in bacteria or global warming or in the interesting forms of dead animal remains? For centuries, art and science have danced a careful routine. As each has informed the other, the result has been some spectacular creativity. (Text: Mary Jo DiLonardo)
Finding the link
Who doesn’t find beauty in nature? But can you find the art in bacteria or global warming or in the interesting forms of dead animal remains? For centuries, art and science have danced a careful routine. As each has informed the other, the result has been some spectacular creativity. (Text: Mary Jo DiLonardo)

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Sonic sculptures Already known for his blown-glass microbes and bacteria, U.K. artist Luke Jerram also makes creations motivated by the science of sound. In Jerram's sonic sculptures, "invisible sound waves are visualized as silent, three-dimensional experiences," says science writer Joe Hanson, host of PBS's "It's Okay To Be Smart." One striking example is Aeolus, a giant stringed musical instrument with harp-like cables that vibrate and make music, responding to changes in the wind. The sculpture (also shown at left) was designed "to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and to visually amplify the ever changing sky," says Jerram.
Sonic sculptures
Already known for his blown-glass microbes and bacteria, U.K. artist Luke Jerram also makes creations motivated by the science of sound. In Jerram’s sonic sculptures, “invisible sound waves are visualized as silent, three-dimensional experiences,” says science writer Joe Hanson, host of PBS’s “It’s Okay To Be Smart.” One striking example is Aeolus, a giant stringed musical instrument with harp-like cables that vibrate and make music, responding to changes in the wind. The sculpture (also shown at left) was designed “to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and to visually amplify the ever changing sky,” says Jerram.

oooo

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker and theorist who many say was the greatest German artist of the Northern Renaissance. Although he was most well-known for his woodcuts and watercolors, Dürer was also revered for his anatomical and cartographic work, says Harvard art historian Susan Dackerman. She says his groundbreaking terrestrial map was “the first perspectival rendering of a terrestrial hemisphere.” His other science-inspired works include a map showing how the brain works and a woodcut of a rhinoceros so detailed that until the 18th century, it was the go-to scientific reference for the animal.
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker and theorist who many say was the greatest German artist of the Northern Renaissance. Although he was most well-known for his woodcuts and watercolors, Dürer was also revered for his anatomical and cartographic work, says Harvard art historian Susan Dackerman. She says his groundbreaking terrestrial map was “the first perspectival rendering of a terrestrial hemisphere.” His other science-inspired works include a map showing how the brain works and a woodcut of a rhinoceros so detailed that until the 18th century, it was the go-to scientific reference for the animal.

oooo

Bioluminescent art Who knew bacteria could be so beautiful? In a mash-up of nature and design, bioluminescent art uses naturally glowing bacteria to create intricate designs that you can see only in the dark. Showing off these creations, BIOGLYPHS is an art and science collaboration by members of the Center for Biofilm Engineering and the Montana State University School of Art. The group "painted" bioluminescent bacterium naturally present in marine environments onto petri dishes to come up with the spectacular glow-in-the-dark creations. Read more: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/11-beautiful-examples-of-art-inspired-by-science/bioluminescent-art#ixzz3QRM4dVEt
Bioluminescent art
Who knew bacteria could be so beautiful? In a mash-up of nature and design, bioluminescent art uses naturally glowing bacteria to create intricate designs that you can see only in the dark. Showing off these creations, BIOGLYPHS is an art and science collaboration by members of the Center for Biofilm Engineering and the Montana State University School of Art. The group “painted” bioluminescent bacterium naturally present in marine environments onto petri dishes to come up with the spectacular glow-in-the-dark creations.

oooo

Microscopic art It's amazing how incredible something can look when you magnify it. Florida State researcher Michael Davidson has a catalog of lovely microscopic images of beer, wine and cocktails. Davidson started his company, BevShots, as a way to raise funds for his lab. Scientific photographer Martin Oeggerli (known as Micronaut) uses scanning electron microscopy to produce images of pollen, microbes, insects and fungi with 500,000 magnification or more. An interesting combination, Oeggerli is a scientific photographer who holds a doctorate in molecular biology. His images often appear in National Geographic where he says, "I also want to broaden people’s awareness that even the smallest living organisms are perfectly 'designed' and well worth … our attention." Read more: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/11-beautiful-examples-of-art-inspired-by-science/microscopic-art#ixzz3QRMHN1hO
Microscopic art
It’s amazing how incredible something can look when you magnify it. Florida State researcher Michael Davidson has a catalog of lovely microscopic images of beer, wine and cocktails. Davidson started his company, BevShots, as a way to raise funds for his lab. Scientific photographer Martin Oeggerli (known as Micronaut) uses scanning electron microscopy to produce images of pollen, microbes, insects and fungi with 500,000 magnification or more. An interesting combination, Oeggerli is a scientific photographer who holds a doctorate in molecular biology. His images often appear in National Geographic where he says, “I also want to broaden people’s awareness that even the smallest living organisms are perfectly ‘designed’ and well worth … our attention.”

oooo

Fibonacci art Math fans know the Fibonacci sequence as an important series of numbers used in all sorts of key mathematical scenarios. The first nine numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. The sequence — which ironically was explained by Fibonacci himself using the multiplication of rabbits — also appears in nature. MNN's Shea Gunther writes that the Fibonacci sequence can be found in the formation of sunflowers, galaxies, cellular structure, hurricanes and honeybees. Artists have also been intrigued by the number series. It has inspired everything from sculpture to furniture. Read more: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/11-beautiful-examples-of-art-inspired-by-science/fibonacci-art#ixzz3QRMQoz1a
Fibonacci art
Math fans know the Fibonacci sequence as an important series of numbers used in all sorts of key mathematical scenarios. The first nine numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. The sequence — which ironically was explained by Fibonacci himself using the multiplication of rabbits — also appears in nature. MNN’s Shea Gunther writes that the Fibonacci sequence can be found in the formation of sunflowers, galaxies, cellular structure, hurricanes and honeybees. Artists have also been intrigued by the number series. It has inspired everything from sculpture to furniture.

The final set to be published in a week’s time.

 

Dogs rule!

Humorous, but oh so true!

One of the blog sites that I subscribe to is Exposing the Big Game.  The blog does a fabulous job in exposing the terrible ‘game’ of people hunting animals for sport! Many of the topics that author Jim Robertson exposes are incredibly painful to read but, please, do drop across there and support his efforts.

All of which is a preamble to a short item that was posted last Sunday and is republished here today.

 

dog rules

 

Nothing more to add to those rules than offer this photograph taken at home early one day last December, 2013.

P1140157

 

You all have a peaceful weekend.

Please save this beautiful dog!

GSD rescue

Dearest Suzann, who invited me out to San Carlos, Mexico, for the Christmas of 2007, leading to Jean and me meeting, is heavily involved in rescuing the many feral dogs found in that part of the world.

She recently sent me the following:

Shepherd Boy will be euthanized in a few days at the CA state kennel he is at and Jeannie Wade is trying to help save his life….do you guys know of anyone? Let me know asap.

He is located in the Central Coast area of California and goes by the name ‘Shepherd Boy’ and is one year old.

He is in a high kill shelter and has days to live.

Shepherd Boy is shy and sweet tempered and the volunteers at the shelter feel he will make a very good companion/pet for a nice family or couple.

Paul, If I were up there, I would take him in a heartbeat!

Suzann

Please, please share this as far and wide as possible – urgently.

Shepherd Boy may be found at the Central Coast SPCA, Orcutt, California 93457

Suzann has given me the name of Jeannine Wade and she may be emailed at: centralcoastspca@yahoo.com

 

Oil, money, banks, guns and blood.

The history of power, control, those who wield it, and where it has taken us all.

There is a real pain in me as I start into today’s post. A pain that comes from agonising over whether or not to write in this vein. A pain that has its roots in me being forced to accept that global politics, money and power-plays are much worse than I ever wanted to believe.

What, you must be asking, has got me plunging so far into this dark place? When just twenty-four hours ago I was writing of peace, calm and deep meditation?

Simply a film!

A film that was uploaded by the BBC a few days ago exclusively on to their BBC iPlayer platform.

The film is called Bitter Lake and here’s the trailer.

The full film is 2 hours, 20 minutes long. (But note that the film is age-restricted for obvious reasons.)

I can’t encourage you to watch it. For if you do, the world may never seem the same to you.

But Jeannie and I did watch it and think it should be shared widely. And, yes, it has changed the world for us.

Here’s how it is described by Adam Curtis and the BBC.

Published on Jan 26, 2015
Shown exclusively on the BBC iPlayer service in the UK
This upload is for those outside of the UK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis

Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events.

But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis – leaving us bewildered and disorientated.

And journalism – that used to tell a grand, unfurling narrative – now also just relays disjointed and often wildly contradictory fragments of information.

Events come and go like waves of a fever. We – and the journalists – live in a state of continual delirium, constantly waiting for the next news event to loom out of the fog – and then disappear again, unexplained.

And the formats – in news and documentaries – have become so rigid and repetitive that the audiences never really look at them.

In the face of this people retreat from journalism and politics. They turn away into their own worlds, and the stories they and their friends tell each other.

I think this is wrong, sad, and bad for democracy – because it means the politicians become more and more unaccountable.

I have made a film that tries to respond to this in two ways.

It tells a big story about why the stories we are told today have stopped making sense.

But it is also an experiment in a new way of reporting the world. To do this I’ve used techniques that you wouldn’t normally associate with TV journalism. My aim is to make something more emotional and involving – so it reconnects and feels more real.

BBC iPlayer has given me the opportunity to do this – because it isn’t restrained by the rigid formats and schedules of network television. It’s a place you can go to experiment and try out new ideas.

It is also liberating – both because things can be any length, and also because it allows the audience to watch the films in different ways.

The film is called Bitter Lake. It is a bit of an epic – it’s two hours twenty minutes long.

It tells a big historical narrative that interweaves America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia. It shows how politicians in the west lost confidence – and began to simplify the stories they told. It explains why this happened – because they increasingly gave their power away to other forces, above all global finance.

But there is one other country at the center of the film.

Afghanistan.

This is because Afghanistan is the place that has repeatedly confronted politicians, as their power declines, with the terrible truth – that they cannot understand what is going on any longer. Let alone control it.

The film shows in detail how all the foreigners who went to Afghanistan created an almost totally fictional version of the country in their minds.

They couldn’t see the complex reality that was in front of them – because the stories they had been told about the world had become so simplified that they lacked the perceptual apparatus to see reality any longer.

And this blindness led to a terrible disaster – support for a blatantly undemocratic government, wholesale financial corruption and thousands of needless deaths.

A horrific scandal that we, in our disconnected bubble here in Britain, seem hardly aware of. And even if we are – it is dismissed as being just too complex to understand.

But it is important to try and understand what happened. And the way to do that is to try and tell a new kind of story. One that doesn’t deny the complexity and reduce it to a meaningless fable of good battling evil – but instead really tries to makes sense of it.

I have got hold of the unedited rushes of almost everything the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan. It is thousands of hours – some of it is very dull, but large parts of it are extraordinary. Shots that record amazing moments, but also others that are touching, funny and sometimes very odd.

These complicated, fragmentary and emotional images evoke the chaos of real experience. And out of them I have tried to build a different and more emotional way of depicting what really happened in Afghanistan.

A counterpoint to the thin, narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power today.

And I must include this comment from the relevant page on BBC Blogs:

Quite simply one of the best films I’ve ever watched. The theme and content made so many connections linking events of the last 40 years. It’s perhaps time to reflect on power ,control and those who wield it . The official narrative is not our narrative , we have a choice to decide what we believe . Time to reflect and make that choice.
Thanks for such an informing film.

Here is the film.

Our thoughts make us human

Serendipity strikes again!

Recently I read a post from Val Boyco over on her delightful blog Find Your Middle Ground.  Her topic was about breathing. Here’s a flavour of her post:

I’ve written before about how our breath is connected with our wellbeing and emotional state. Noticing how we are breathing is a tool that we can use to monitor how we are doing.

There is another pause that comes with our breath which is also revealing. The pause at the end of the exhale before we take in more air. When we are distracted, stressed or in an anxious state, there is no pause. We don’t trust we have enough air and we don’t allow ourself to relax and let go.

Just take a moment to tune into how you are breathing right now. Just notice without judgment.

Pausing at the end of an exhale can only happen when we are relaxed and in tune with our mind and body. When our body and mind are aligned in the present moment.

I then left a reply in the comments section:

Excellent advice. For the last few weeks I have been using a biofeedback unit that through guiding one to breathe in harmony with a musical phrase allows one to slow the whole body down. Down to about 4.8 breaths per minute. It really underlines how slow one’s breathing rate can be and, supporting your post, the glorious pauses after each inhale and exhale.

And offered to write a post about the unit and my experiences. (Coming out tomorrow.)

However, what I wanted to do as a ‘lead-in’ to that post was to discover if there was any research into the benefits, as in scientific benefits, of slowing one’s body down in this fashion. What is surely nothing more than a form of meditation. Where to start looking? Needn’t have worried; there were many items on YouTube that covered the benefits of meditation.

There was a video from the AsapSCIENCE guys Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, but I found it too jazzy and irritating, rather ironically! Then there was one from physicist John Hagelin that seemed much more appropriate to my tastes (and that is featured tomorrow as well).

By now it was coming up to 4:30pm and I had a dozen other things to do, plus try and fit in a biofeedback session – I could feel the stress rising within me.

Then I dipped into Terry Hershey’s latest Sabbath Moment and, guess what! Here’s what I read:

Learning to let go

January 26, 2015

Hershey2

Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. Herman Hesse

Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. John Allen Paulos

When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. Lynne Twist

——-

Today I am sitting in a café (and bar) in Vaison-la-Romaine, in the Provence region of France, nursing my espresso.

No, wait… that was last week.

It just sounds sexier than saying, “Today I’m looking out my window at a gloomy winter sky, here in the Pacific Northwest, with a Thesaurus in hand hoping for a gushing synonym for gray.”

Welcome home. Home for me is always awaited and valued, but still elicits a bout of scotoma (selective vision), where we end up comparing the life we have, for the “life we deserve” (the actual wording for a recent advertised e-course).

My favorite part of my recent France trip was visiting family run wineries, spending time with the owner / wine-maker, with the permission to linger, sensing a comfort grounded in story and connection. Said one (when we asked him about being a small winery–in a world where big is everything), “I am glad. I am not alone. I work with family.” (Referring to his son and three daughters.)
And it makes me wonder about this mental sleight of hand we use, thinking about the life we are destined for, as somehow different (or better) from the life we now we live.

There is a Tibetan story about an earnest young man seeking enlightenment. (Earnest people must think this quite unfair–since they play a central role in most parables and stories about enlightenment.)

A famous sage passes through the man’s village. The man asks the sage to teach him the art of meditation. The sage agrees. He tells the man, “Withdraw from the world. Mediate every day in the specific way I will teach you. Do not waver and you will attain enlightenment.”

The earnest man follows the sage’s instructions to the letter. Time passes — and no enlightenment. Two years, five, ten, twenty pass.

It happens that the sage once again passes through the man’s village. The man seeks him out, grumbling that despite his best intentions and devotion and diligent efforts, he does not achieve enlightenment. “Why?”
The sage asks, “What type of meditation did I teach you?”
The man tells him.
The sage says, “Oh, what a terrible mistake I made! That is not the right meditation for you. You should have done another kind altogether. Too bad, for now it is too late.”

Disconsolate, the man returns to his cave. Staking his life on the sage’s instructions, and now believing he is without hope, the man abandons all his wishes and efforts and need to control his road to enlightenment. He does not know what to do. So, he does what he knows best: he begins meditating. And in a short while, much to his astonishment, his confusion begins to dissolve, and his inner world comes to life. A weight falls away and he feels lighter, and regenerated. When he walks out of the cave, the sky is bluer, the snow capped mountains whiter, and the world around him more vivid.

There is no doubt that all too often, our efforts–to succeed or achieve or attain–get in the way of our living. It brings to mind my favorite Robert Capon quote, “We live life like ill-taught piano students. So inculcated with the flub that will get us in dutch, we don’t hear the music, we only play the right notes.”

I understand. I was weaned on a spirituality that predicated itself on artifice. In other words, the importance is placed upon appearance, rather that just being. (It was vital to “look spiritual.” Which begs the question, “What do spiritual people look like?” As a boy, I always thought the “spiritual people” looked as if some part of their clothing was a size too small.)

What is it we are holding on to–so rigid, so firm, white-knuckled in our determination?
At some point, we’ve got to breathe.
Just breathe.
Without realizing it (and after the sage’s disheartening news), the man in the story “let go.”

He let go of the need to see life as a problem to be solved.
He let go of the need to have the correct answers (or experiences) for his “enlightenment.”
He let go of the need to see his spiritual life in terms of a formula.
He let go of the restraints that come from public opinion.

Abandon your masterpiece, sink into the real masterpiece. Leonard Cohen

Without realizing it, he took Leonard Cohen’s advice. He abandoned his “masterpiece”–the perception of what he needed to accomplish, or how he needed to appear, or what he needed to feel–in order to allow himself to sink down into this life, this moment, even with all of its uncertainty and insecurity.

For the first many years, meditation or prayer was a requirement or compulsion. In his emptiness, meditation and prayer was an offering of thanks, freely given, and without constraint. True spiritual enlightenment, it seems, happens when you are not trying to impress anyone, or score any points with heavenly bookkeepers.
It sounds easy doesn’t it?
But here’s the deal: My best intentions to play the right notes can fabricate an armor that keeps me from the vividness of life–whether it be to pray or meditate or notice or give or mourn or dance or play or grieve or laugh or celebrate or love… or just to walk.

I never did find a good enough synonym for the gray (although I’ll keep looking). Gladly, the sun has broken through. And there is enough warmth to persuade us that spring may arrive tomorrow. Daffodil shoots everywhere–up through the leaves and debris–help the ruse. So it’s garden time this afternoon, turning manure into the vegetable garden beds, beginning to cut back and clean some of the perennial beds. Enough work for the back to call a time out and request reprieve. I’m headed to the swing under the maple, when I look up to see the sun illuminating the red-twig dogwood shrubs, 10 foot canes glowing, a bright cranberry red. It catches my breath. And I am glad to be alive.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive… of the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell

Such power in those words. Then how moments later what I had read from Terry made so much sense to me. So perfectly connected with yesterday’s post Animals make us human. So relevant that quotation yesterday about animal happiness. This one:

Neuroscience key to animal happiness

“…research in neuroscience has been showing that emotions drive behavior, and my thirty-five years of experience working with animals have shown me that this is true. Emotions come first. You have to go back to the brain to understand animal welfare.”

Animals Make Us Human : Creating the best life for Animals

by Temple Grandin & Catherine Johnson

Such a close parallel with that well-known saying about us humans: ‘we are what we think‘. How our own happiness, just as it is with our animals, has its roots in our emotions.

How letting go, how staying in the present, is so good for us. How dogs do that so perfectly.

How we humans have so much to learn from our dogs.

Pure, deep peace radiating out from Hazel's loving eyes.
Pure, deep peace radiating out from Hazel’s loving eyes.