Published in the Herald-Zeitung, September 12, 2025
How often do we think about the animals in our lives, in our surroundings and in the broader world in which we move daily? On some level, they are ubiquitous. Animals infiltrate our dreams, our language, our own behavior in metaphors, symbols, and in our formed images of the natural order. We also as a culture slaughter them, garage them in cages, zoos, kennels as well as disrespect many species by raising them in often abominable conditions for food.
Something in animals 'natures mirror our own vital animal being, our instinctive lives as well as our sense of the world through five bodily senses in the way we sniff around, adopt an eagle eye in negotiations, become catty toward those we are not fond of, horse around when boundaries weaken, or stay as consistently busy as a beaver.
When a beloved pet of long-standing dies, owners often mourn for months or years over their loss. In my own case, my wife and I adopted a Ginger cat when he showed up at our front door one morning over three years ago. Ginger has become a fully-fledged family member; losing him would deeply wound my wife and me.
In an impressive "Book of Symbols," a substantial portion of the 800 page book is devoted to "The Animal World." One of their gifts is that animals reconnect us back to the symbolic order of being. Nations as well often adopt a particular animal as a symbol to promote their identity and core values, what some have called that nation's collective myth. We in our country have adopted the eagle, which appears on our currency. The Russian bear is known around the world, while the salmon marks the Alaskan frontier. Of the four evangelists, three are represented by animals: Mark by a lion, Luke by an ox, and John by an eagle.
In primal times it was believed that animals embodied a wisdom, a way of understanding and “sensing” the world that allowed them to be our mentors, guides, and sources of original knowledge.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell offers this insight about the animal and our own embodiment: “Biologically, in what theologians call our animal nature, we are as deeply grounded as the animals themselves moved and motivated from within by energies” (“The Way of the Animal Powers, ”vol. 1).
Some years ago, during a four-month retreat at various monasteries in California, Washington and Oregon, I noticed how much animals were part of the landscape. At the Carmelite House of Prayer in Napa Valley, Rusty, their German Shepherd mascot, would wait outside my dormitory door and guide me to morning service; he waited for me each day to walk me back to my room. He was old and wise. I saw it in his eyes and in his majestically-wrinkled forehead.
When in the evening I sat on a bench next to the fishpond for a few minutes, he would suddenly and silently materialize next to me and put his large head on my lap. I found that his presence enhanced my solitude rather than interrupted it. He was well-schooled in the Rule of St. Benedict; Rusty’s calm, compassionate eyes would calm my loneliness at being away from home for so long.
I end with a meditation: Describe where and when in your life an animal has played a major role in who you are. You may be surprised at what you discover.