Human beings have expended so much energy filling the world with thoughts and ideas that have reverberated down through time in both equal parts profane and profound—talking, talking, and talking while all along we’ve been accompanied on this journey through the ages by the silence of the animals. They’ve been swept into the current of this swift and magnificent human storyline for better or for worse. It would be a terrible mistake to view their silence as acquiescence when in fact, their silence is designed to carry the deepest and most abiding lesson we most need to learn.
We frame our questions with words in our minds and sometimes even voice them out loud, but however we seek our answers, we unerringly repeat ourselves, pondering the same questions that have chased us down through the millennia. Could it be that our failing is we continue to voice these questions without ever knowing how to make the necessary space required to receive the answers that have in truth been there all along? Maybe it’s time for us to learn the art of listening from those who have mastered it.
The animals we take for granted, the animals we fear in their wild landscapes and often share our homes and lives with, the ones we project all our worst and best characteristics onto—these long suffering and most faithful friends are the mirrors of our souls, and we’ve turned away from them not wanting to see the reflection. They are most patient and unfaltering living examples of the simple truth that all our answers lie in knowing how to listen.
Do we dare ask if they are just animals, or do those loving eyes that gaze back at us without judgment reflect the divine that wants to be seen and in truth has never been hidden away from us? Have we turned our gaze away not realizing something of value may be in their keeping just because we’ve been so occupied with the weaving of our own complicated tapestries . . . and at how great a cost?
What if we take some time to just sit in silence and listen . . . be in the present moment NOW, quiet our dreams of the future and silence the ghosts of the past for just an instant perhaps and open up to what their eyes have to say . . . precious and most Beloved, do you not know that love is simple, love is all that is and all that will ever be—Love is the beginning and ending of who you are and everything contained within that Love is One . . . love asks nothing but that you let it be.
Just listen. . . .
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Michele Marguerite Parker is a freelance writer and lover of all things green, winged and dressed in fur. She lives on 5 acres in Manitoba, Canada with her husband, 2 dogs, and a sprawling “work in progress” garden surrounded by natural woodland. She lives and breathes by the motto – “‘Grow a garden and feed your Soul.”
