The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction, wrote Rachel Carson. In part, this is why Maria and I both moved to the country, we wanted to live in nature, to re-connect with it.

Oddly for two urban people, we found the natural world to be…well, natural. It was healing for both of us, inspiring, it didn’t seem as if we had left our world behind, it seemed as if we had come home. Maria has been getting to focus her attention on the wonders and realities of animals, especially her new pony, Chloe.

She has been talking to her, teaching her to push, touch. To wait.

Rachel Carson, who wrote so presciently about the environment, was correct. The more we focus on the natural world, the more we are uneasy about the human propensity to destroy it. We have lost our reverence for nature, failed in our stewardship of Mother Earth.

In our small piece of the world, we are re-connecting with the natural world, and the world of animals. We see nature and the environment in a completely way. We are not political people, we are not drawn to angry messages on Facebook or petitions. But we are learning every day, about the real lives of real animals, about the fragility of the landscape, about the struggle for animals to find safe places in our turbulent world.

The more we understand the realities of the universe, the less taste we have for its destruction. That, in one sense, is the spiritual message of the animals.