Get A Sheep

The other day, my husband was telling me about a friend he was consoling through a mid-life crisis. I made a remark which my husband considered flippant, "He needs a sheep," I said.

But I was serious. This man was distraught because he was looking for love and tranquility and having reached his fifties, he had found neither. A sheep would bring him love and tranquility . . . objectives which are illusory to the great majority.

Then I started thinking, what if the purpose of animals on this earth was not to feed us, after all Adam and Eve were vegetarians before they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, but what if animals are our guides, our connections to the spirit world? This is what ancient cultures believed. And what if our disdain for the animals is the reason we can't connect to the Universe, to God, to the Great Spirit, to Allah, whatever you call the master of your soul. We can't connect because we ignore the spirit lessons the animals have to teach us.

We slaughter them, we eat them, we hunt them down until they are extinct. We are destroying the secrets they have to reveal. An animal can teach us that peace only comes when we discard the ego . . . when we learn patience and accept everything . . . the good the bad the awful the beautiful the estatic the sublime.

Animals heal us spiritually but they also heal us physically. A few years ago, a study done in Germany demonstrated that children raised on farms with animals didn't have asthma. And the conclusion the researchers made was that humans had evolved side by side with animals through the millennia, and that we humans required this symbiotic relationship for our health and well-being. Specifically, the humans raised around sheep and cow manure do not get asthma!

Look at all the studies that show that depression in the elderly can be aleviated if the patient acquires a dog.

Humans need nature. The asphalt and the box stores are killing us. To find yourself you need to lay in the decaying leaves of the woods and the soft moss, as you gaze up through the tree branches at the floating clouds while a sheep lays her head on your abdomen and breathes softly. That's peace. That's where you'll find your soul. Lying in the moist throbbing embrace of Nature.

Animals do get their revenge. The first thing the doctor tells you when you end up in the ICU unit is to lay off the meat . . . and get out and walk. In other words than I have put forth here, get out and enjoy Nature and learn to love mammals . . . that's what will save you.