Izzy on the couch

  October 26, 2008 – For some years, I’ve pursued a spiritual life, although I have yet to know what that really means. Almost every step of the way, animals have been along the path. When I become a writer, two sweet Yellow Labs sat by my feet, marked my transition.
  A dog led me to a farm in Pennsylvania, and then to my farm. Another helps me work my farm, and another led me to hospice work, and another taught me something about love.
  A steer showed me that dumb beasts have lives. An aging rooster taught me about duty and sacrifice. Barn cats helped me understand the curious nature of some animals, loving and murderous in the same breath. Goats teach me that animals are curious, and rebellious sometimes. And donkeys are still the most viscerally spiritual creatures I know, quietly observing humans in service for almost all of our history. 
  These creatures are unwitting, if willing, partners on this search. They are above spirituality, really, and have little need of it. They have different notions of time, trouble, life and death. They accept weather with equanimity, and ask little more than food, shelter and some attention. They have a different notion of pain and suffering than we do, and seem to readily accept their fates. If you want them to love you, you have to treat them well, and that makes me better.
  They love their own species, tolerate others. They appreciate the hand that feeds them. They give back.