I’m writing a book about Simon, Rocky and Red. I call the three of them my Triad, all of them spirit animals coming together at the same time. In a way, bringing the three of them together in our new home seemed to me to be the high point of my life with animals. I imagined the most remarkable peaceable kingdom, the  donkey who came back from the abyss, the two donkey sisters, five sheep saved from New York City restaurants, the aging and blind old pony who led us to our new home. It didn’t work out as I planned, most things do not but the book focuses on the idea of mercy and compassion and how animals cause us to think and rethink notions of mercy.

When Simon was taken off the farm by the State Police, I wondered why no one had expressed any concern about the farmer and his family. When Simon attacked Rocky, I realized I needed to be compassionate to him, he was just doing his donkey work in driving off a weak member of the herd. When the vet told me Rocky would suffer in another winter and live in fear on this farm , I saw that for him, compassion was not about keeping him alive, but letting him go. When I came to Bedlam Farm, a vet told me to be compassionate and shoot a dying ewe during a blizzard which cut off the roads. When the old sheep left, I was certain that their deaths would be farm more compassionate than keeping them alive to face predators and certain debilitating illness. We all have different notions of compassion, I do not war on death or see it as always cruel.

Someone asked me recently on Facebook why I didn’t purchase Wellington boots so I could keep Strut alive, and I wondered what boot would cover the back of an adult or the face of a visiting child who got clawed in the face, as my neighbor’s child did. Would that be compassionate of me? In the animal world many people equate warring on death as a measure of compassion. We consider ourselves merciful if we simply keep all animals alive by any means at all costs, the way we keep so many people alive. Is that compassion? I think not, not for me. The standard for many often seems to be that it is always compassionate to to keep an animal alive, even if means their living in crates for the rest of their lives. Or living unnaturally or in pain. Compassion is more complex for me. It evolves grows, takes different shape and form.

Animals respect and accept death, they live with all of the time. Humans avoid it, it is their greatest fear and they are the only species to know they will die. What a profound difference in consciousness between us and the animals if you think about it. They have no notion that their lives with ever end, even if they often do, abruptly and sometimes violently. They simply don’t experience it the way we might.

I am grateful to Simon, he opened the door for me to view mercy and compassion in many different ways, it is a difficult and challenging thing to practice. I am beginning to see that true compassion is for what we don’t like, not for what we do.