Fran seems about the same today, moving her head a little bit more, but still disoriented, moving slowly, if at all. She is eating, though and drinking. I’m learning that many people love a chicken. I’m learning that I love a chicken, and it’s okay to do that. This is a new idea for me, to help a chicken heal. And judging from my e-mails, tough farmers out there are not so tough.   I have always believed that animals mirror us, and if you want to understand a human, watch him or her with a dog, cat, cow, chicken or donkey. They will be revealed. What we feel for them, we really feel for us as well. Through the animals we need, acquire, care for, we are reflecting our own lives. That is their power, the source of the human animal bond. It’s spiritual core.

Every morning, me and many of the people reading this get up and ask ourselves: Am I all right? Will I be okay? Will I have what I need? Can I take care of myself?

In our world, what we often see and hear is not reassuring. Beautiful young mothers worry about bringing children into the world and fear to leave them, even for a few hours. The news tells us one thing, over and over: that the world is grim and cruel and hopeless and getting grimmer. Our political leaders divide and exploit. Beliefs become arguments, ideas debates, choices conflicts. The weather has turned against us, we are told, and our resources are running out. The economy is struggling, and our old ideas of security crumbling. Struggle stories, poor-me tales, health woes have become our currency, the staple of our conversations and people who wish to be nourishing and positive struggle to bond together like political refugees, out of the mainstream, on the fringes.

In the struggle of a chicken, one of the world’s simplest creatures, are all these questions in so many ways. Every morning I tell myself that I am all right. I am fine. I will have what I need. Fear is not a solution, and there is not much relevance or truth in the struggle stories sold to us for corporate profit.

So this is what I see coming back to me in this little hen spared her fox. Am I all right? Yes, I think so. I believe so. And this is what I tell the grumpy and fearful and argumentative people of the world: it is good to love a chicken and to help one come back to life. Open up. This is the news that matters.