"To Learn From Animal Being"

“To Learn From Animal Being,”

by John O’Donohue.*

“Nearer to the earth’s heart,

Deeper within its silence.

Animals know this world

In a way we never will.

We who are ever

Distanced and distracted

By the parade of bright

Windows thought opens.

Stranged between time

Gone and time emerging,

we manage seldom

To be where we are;

Whereas they are always looking out

from the here and bow.

May we learn to return

And rest in the beauty

Of animal being,

Learn to lean low,

Leave our locked minds,

And with freed senses

Feel the earth

Breathing with us.”

February 1, 2021

* Quoted by Jon Katz, Bedlam Farm Blog Journal, February 1, 2021