Years ago, in response to someone’s thoughtless comment about how I always talk to animals, I wrote this: I would rather err on the side of trying to establish a relationship where none could exist, then miss an opportunity to have a relationship because I thought none could exist.  Person-to-person, person-to-sheep, person-to- hawk ~ when we pay attention, we see that all animals need the same things to survive. When we pay closer attention, we see that all animals feel contentment, joy, loss, and fear. When we listen and watch and offer our time to learning each other’s language, we begin to understand the many ways each species expresses those needs and emotions. In today’s catch phrases, this point is called being in relationship with another. 

For centuries, philosophers and mystics have written that being in relationship is what opens doors to Sanctuary. Since we’ve moved to our farm, though, I’ve begun to think that the term Sanctuary may be easy for us to use, but not so easy to use in the same way as others.  For me, living in sanctuary demands a wholeness of place and self where days merge into each other because linear time vanishes. It means that the loudest daylight sounds are the wind through grasses, ice crystals tapping on the windows, hoofs and paws pounding on packed soil, or crows protecting their young from the neighborhood hawk. Sanctuary doesn’t move at a clock’s pace or possess the chaotic energy needed to engage in the cultural noise we’ve created with our social media and our earbuds that funnel music directly into our brains. 

And yet, it’s exactly that social media presence that has allowed so many of us to talk about and work to provide sanctuary to animals. Our cultural language now includes phrases like, “forever home,” and “rescue,” and even “the Rainbow Bridge.” As I see the faces of all of those people who are helping or who want to help, I wonder, what, really, is embedded in these words and phrases? What is Sanctuary? What protects it, and what works against it?  

So I’ve challenged myself to work through and deepen my own thoughts around Sanctuary.  I’m going to try each week to share what I’ve come up with in these Blog pages, and I’m going to begin trying to describe Sanctuary through relationships I’ve had with animals, focusing on four specific characteristics that I think define Sanctuary: authentic existence, honest relationship, an acceptance of life-span, and equality of all species. After these four, I’m going to try to understand those forces that work against Sanctuary: the Great Chain of Being, capitalistic limitations, and valuing the many over the one.   

I hope you’ll join me on this journey!  I would love to read your thoughts, your ideas, your puzzles or challenges. Until next time ~