“Abuse no one and no living thing, for abuse turns the wise ones and robs the spirit of its vision.”   – Tecumseh.

I believe the horses have a prayer, you can hear it if you go to Central Park at night when it is quiet. You can hear it on the farms, it is an old Native-American prayer, and from the doomed elephants in the circuses. We Shall Remain. This morning, I said this prayer for Joshua Rockwood, who goes on trial tonight in Glenville, N.Y., for choosing the hard and uncertain life of the farmer. He prays to get the horses back that were taken from him.

I believe he shall remain, truth and justice matter.

I pray for the New York carriage drivers, who fight for their way of life and freedom every day, swimming in an ocean of greed and rage.

We Shall Remain. This, I think, is also the prayer of the elephants, soon to lose their work and place in our world, condemned to vanish as so many animals are. I think of the ponies in the farmer’s markets, and the dogs who live to work with people and the animals withering in shelters because the poor and the elderly and the working people can no longer afford to adopt them from the people who claim to speak for their rights.

But I think it is the horses who complete the circle, who ties us to the Native-American world, and you can see the connection there. They, too, have been pushed to the edge of life, forgotten, their work trivialized and disrespected, threatened with the narrow and troubled life of the reservation, their lives marked by broken promises.

Worlds destroyed. Covenants broken, lives displaced by greed and obliviousness and arrogance. The horses, like the Indians,  seem to know what it is like to be abandoned and forgotten and pushed aside by the hollow men and women whose anger has robbed them of their vision, people who have  lost their spirit and magic.

The horses meant everything to the Native-Americans, and they believe that when the horses were taken from them, their world fell apart. They warn us that the same thing will happen to us if the animals are taken away and pushed out of the world by the hollow men and women.

I am touched by the prayer: We Shall Remain. I think it is the perfect prayer and statement for the new movement to save the animals that the carriage horses have sparked. So we are a tribe, it seems, those of us who wish to save the animals, to keep them, live with them, love them and work with them. The elephant trainers, the carriage drivers, the pony ride operators, the people who herd the sheep with dogs, and love stupid tricks, and who know the healing power of animals. In this new awakening, we seek to abuse no animals and no people. We have seen  how it turns and corrupts the wise ones and robs the spirit of its vision.

In this new awakening, Joshua Rockwood will be tending his farm in peace and raising and selling his healthy produce, the carriage drivers will live their life in security and freedom, the elephants will remain in our everyday lives,  history will be re-written and the horses will stay in their beautiful park, the farmers will be left to work their land in freedom, the dogs in the fields, the children on their ponies, and the animals will once again be our partners in building and saving the new world.

We Shall Remain.