Wild Thing

As I rushed off to Pilates class the other day, a glance toward our basement window stopped me in my tracks.

There, on the INSIDE of the glass, sat a sparrow looking out.

My first thought was a Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson article, “Do Animals Get Depressed?” He contends that only captive and domesticated animals experience depression—not wild animals. Well, if he saw this tiny bird, I’m sure he’d change his mind. I see a LOT of sparrows around here yet have never seen any look like this one—forlorn, hopeless, still.

My second thought was to help the poor little guy.

I ran back into the apartment to tell my husband, who promptly (and without my feeble assistance) ushered the bird’s return to the outdoors.

Crisis averted and wild life restored. It doesn’t get better than that.

[Artist unknown.]

Conversing with Books

Typically, reading is a fairly solitary activity—a one-way communication from writer to reader. Our eyes take in an author’s message and direct it to our brains, where it mingles with our memories, convictions, and emotions and finds a comfy place to take up residence—having either supported what we already believed/felt or given us a new perspective.

Lately this one-way communication has fallen short for me. Post-it Notes mark page after page of my books where an author has written something that: 1) I disagree with and want to debate; 2) I wish to share my own thoughts and experiences about; or 3) I believe demands an extended conversation between the writer and me.

In The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart, author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson generalizes countless pronouncements based on his experiences with his own cats as being true for all cats. Yet time after time, the cats of my experience don’t fit neatly into his theories. I feel as if I’m in a boxing match and not allowed to box back.

The Philosopher’s Dog: Friendships with Animals is a small book bursting with big ideas. I want to delve further into the mind of author Raimond Gaita, discuss the evolution of compassion in humans he describes and how we might nurture that now.

I want to ask Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and the Madness at the Fair that Changed America, what fascinated people about Chicago’s Union Stockyards. How did a slaughterhouse become a main attraction, and when and why did it lose its appeal?

You might be thinking, “Get thee to a book club. You just need to talk about these things with someone.” And you’d be right—up to that last word.

You see, not just anyone will do. I need to speak with the very authors who stoked my ire, my defenses, my support, and my admiration. I need to alter the passive nature of these books, redirect their monologues to dialogues. Sometimes I just want to tell the writers they’re not alone in their perspective. Or maybe I really want to say thank you for letting me know I’m not alone in my perspective.

In The Light in High Places: A Naturalist Looks at Wyoming Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Cowboys, and Other Rare Species, author Joe Hutto challenges readers with this question:

“Who has stopped to admire the spectacular male starling in the last one hundred years?”

I cried aloud to the page, “I have! I have!”

[Typewriter art by Jeremy Mayer.]

Old MacDonald Had A Farm …

E I E I O …

I passed a good deal of my childhood on my grandfather’s Midwestern hobby farms. He had the usual assortment of critters: horses, cows, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, and sheep. Snakes, turtles, deer, quail, and pheasants populated the woodlands and fields surrounding the farm. There was always something to see and do, and I had a million questions. My grandfather eagerly schooled me in the ways of nature and I hung on every word.

After a typical idyllic afternoon on the farm, my grandfather and I drove his Scout back home where he would prepare our main course for dinner: steak. While he grilled outside, the very young me sat down to write nearby.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“I’m writing to Congress and the President.”

He chuckled. “What for?”

I explained that I’d read something in my Ranger Rick magazine about people killing cows for food. I was furious at grown-ups for their callousness and I intended to stop them through legislation. My grandfather stepped away from his grill.

Poor man. Some adults dread having the sex talk with children; others the drugs talk. In my family, it would be any kind of discussion with me that involved the demise of animals.

That’s when I learned that the juicy steaks I’d looked forward to eating had once roamed the farm with the bovine herd I loved. I had no idea.

I put down my pen. I could no longer complain about slaughterhouses since I was as much a murderer. I stepped down from my soapbox.

This moment in my history surfaced because it’s National Farm Animals Awareness Week. Unlike National Chicken Month, this celebration originated with the Humane Society of the United States and promotes the animals themselves rather than the consumption of them.

I’m honoring the occasion by reading The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle. He’s the HSUS President and explains some of the legislation his organization has been working on to change agribusiness. I’ll no doubt reference this book in future posts. For now, I’d prefer to share a short anecdote about the emotions of cows:

“[Rosamund Young] has absolutely no doubt that cows feel all the major emotions that humans do. … “How about surprise?” I asked, remembering that some philosophers claim that animals cannot feel surprise because they cannot anticipate the future. “Well,” she said, “how about this? My Welsh black cow had six black calves, and then one day she produced a pure white calf (she had been mated with a Charolais bull). She came round to our door and stared at us with a look that was easy to read: ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’”
—From The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals, by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

[Pics of calves from the Farm Sanctuary.]

Be All That You Can Be: READ

“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

—Mortimer J. Adler

wo books have recently changed my mood, my convictions, and quite possibly the direction of my career.

I’m bursting to discuss them with someone, but have yet to find anyone who’s read them. Both are ripe with anecdotes illustrating animals’ altruism. And both cite plenty of research confirming what many of us already knew: Animals are individuals who may be different from humans, but are not less than humans.

There’s heartache in both books, too. Of course, most of it stems from human stupidity and egocentricity. But there’s enough uplift to make you happy just to share this world with animals. And enough horror to prompt you to make a difference for them.

Please run to your nearest library and check out The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life by Steven Kotler. (Try the paperback edition of A Small Furry Prayer. The hardcover has more typos in it than I thought possible for a publisher or typesetter to ignore.) The first is a quiet, lovely read; the second is a raucous, realistic look at dog rescuing—complete with foul sights, smells, and language. Both engage and enlighten.

While I can’t promise you the same profound experience I had with these books, I can promise you a stronger or altered sense of your place in the universe.

[Drop cap by Jessica Hische; photo from NASA.]