Ask Li Chen: What is the Role of Animals In Our Lives?
Q: LI Chen, what is the role of animals in our lives?
Animals are having a variety of roles in your life. They are friends, teachers, healers, family. They remind you of your importance in the order of things. They remind you of your insignificance in the order of things. They mirror both your power and your ineffectualness. They continually teach you that you cannot destroy love, despite your lack of understanding, perhaps, of their needs and desires.
They teach you how to be in the world, in your life, by showing you their spontaneous truth always, always. They can only be honest, these animal. Sometimes, this is the most difficult way for human to be. Honesty is a magnificent purity of spirit and heart. Very clean and without pretense, being in the moment and speaking (or acting) truth. Observe this. Recreate this in your image. This does not mean to be mannerless or rude in your different society, or to adopt a brutal honesty, but rather to allow your truth of perception and emotion to rise up for your inspection and perhaps action. Not to overthink your truth. Not to shut down or deny your emotional responses, for these are powerful teachers and help you to walk on solid ground.
Each animal will have different teachings to bring you. Cultures that live or have lived in proximity to nature will mostly have perceptions of animal characteristics that provide teachings of wisdom. There is this interest in finding animal clans, based on your alignment in your personality with particular traits of animal. The shy rabbit runs and hides, always silent, and survives. The bear with its intelligence and strength, is nevertheless playful in its power and most inquisitive — until it is angered and then it rages with tenacity and annihilates the bother. And so on. If you are having interest in learning the qualities of the wild animals, in order to learn their wisdom, study both the American Indian people’s and the Chinese people’s observations about this. Ideally, you will have opportunity to study these animal in their environment and learn directly from them, but this is a rare opportunity in your populated world.
Once animals are domesticated, there is a shift in their role in your lives. They become both dependent on you for their very survival, and at same time they become your support, observing and fulfilling particular needs that they are understanding, often when you are not. In this way, they are almost in a surreptitious manner forming a deep partnership with you. ONCE A BOND IS FORMED IN THIS MANNER, IT IS NEVER BROKEN. This is most important to remember, for it then becomes an eternal truth. You and animal are members of the same spiritual family group. You and animal are never separated again. That little beloved will find his/her way back to you again and again and eternally again, in the form that you will be able to accept. One time a dog, another time a cat or bird or a horse. Always in the time you are needing their assistance in some way and in the form you are able to say yes to them.
Do not worry about how to find them again, for they know how to find you. You will, on some level of your being, feel their familiarity and will open yourself, once again, to their marvelous companionship. They follow you life after life, often returning to you more than once in one life. These devoted companions are with you forever, Dear Ones. As you grieve so when they leave you, you honor them. The longing in your heart for them to return is always answered, for you are never forgotten, never abandoned. Nor are they. Is this not beautiful?
Copyright © Jocelyn Graef — Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this message on the condition that the URL www.jocelyngraef.com is included as the resource and that it is distributed freely in its entirety and not altered in any way.
See our article “Recognizing the Rights of Animals”
See our article “Meet Susan Deren, Animal Communicator”