Animal Advocate Brooke with Faith at Farm Sanctuary in NY
At a dinner party recently, I was talking with a fellow animal advocate about a mutual friend’s recent visit to Farm Sanctuary in New York, and I found myself telling him that I was going to expand the equine guided side of my coaching practice one day to include bovine, porcine and caprine coaches (cows, pigs and goats) – what?! The thought hadn’t crossed my (conscious) mind and suddenly my mouth was writing this BIG CHECK! The person I was telling seemed excited and thought the idea was cool. I quickly dug into my food to stop my mouth from running off as I started to think about what I had just said.
The next thing I knew, the following morning my fingers took over from my mouth and typed the following status update on my business Facebook page: “I need to start learning about caring for cows, pigs and goats, because I’m getting hints from the horses that my healing team may need to include animals that people often think of as “food” to help them close the gap and connect with these beings from their hearts. Of course, I’m going to need the right property, the right support network, and – most importantly – to find animal partners who are interested in doing this work. It will take some time but I am seeing the glimmer of a vision start to form, like a shimmering mirage in my future…”
So I started to write this concept into a five year vision for my business and realized it had some very real energy. As someone who coaches animal advocates and vegan advocates (not necessarily the same thing, although there is overlap), I am realizing the power of having these people, who speak on behalf of animals all the time, connect – no, REALLY CONNECT – with representatives of some of the species our society deems as commodities to be used and consumed, and to REALLY LISTEN to them. To set aside assumptions, stories, ego needs, judgments and agendas, and experience pure wisdom “from the horse’s mouth” (or the cow’s or pig’s or goat’s mouth) as it were. If the equine work is anything to go by, there will be some powerful transformations.
Brooke connecting with Benny the goat at Farm Sanctuary in NY
I’ve found myself thinking about this business model a lot, more motivated to do some of the less exciting work I have on my plate that brings in the rent money, and carrying around a feeling that I can’t quite articulate in the pit of my stomach (hello, sacral and solar plexus chakras – seats of creation, will and determination!).
Honestly I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s a bit like how I’d imagine it would be to find out I’m pregnant (if I were someone who ever wanted children). I’m feeling ALL the ambivalence:
- Do I want this? ~Isn’t the question “Do I want this more than anything else?” And what will I regret if I decide I don’t want it?
- Can I do it? ~Well it won’t be easy, but yes – plenty of others have gone before you.
- Can I do it on my own? ~You’re a resourceful gal, you’ll figure it out. And how do you know you’ll have to do it alone?
- Will I be a good parent (steward) to the creation? ~Um, you’re really asking this??
- OMG all the sacrifices I’ll need to make! ~But they’ll be worth it. And really? Sacrifices? Come now.
- The cost! ~And the rewards. 🙂
- I don’t know what I’m doing! You can learn.
- I’ll have to settle down! ~Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
- The responsibility!! ~Oh for goodness sakes, Lorrin, put your Big Girl Panties on…
To imagine my own little micro sanctuary, providing a life of peace and protection to some animals who otherwise would have been killed and consumed – and then to imagine those animals choosing to help open people’s hearts and reconnect them with their souls so that we all can go out and do our bit towards bringing the Peaceable Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It overwhelms me with emotion – I can barely breathe with… fear? excitement? anticipation?
If I do this, the gestation will be long and arduous, the birth protracted. My life would be irrevocably changed. For the better, I believe. And – I hope – so would many others, human and non-human.
(huge thanks to animal advocate Brooke Baldwin for allowing me to share her photos – and for EVERYTHING she does for the animals!)
Thanks Ashara. Like you, I believe they have free will and that their souls make contracts before they take on a physical incarnation. When I sit in receptivity I consistently hear that they are presenting humanity with an opportunity to learn and grow, as much as they are experiencing their own selves. The question that I am regularly presented with is “how much suffering; how many of our lives will it take for humanity to learn what we are trying to teach?” And so I’m committed to joining them in that teaching, to help humanity learn about compassion and nonviolent cohabitation – maybe one day all beings will reach a level of awakening that no longer requires such brutal lessons, and the principle of ahimsa can inform our souls’ contracts more fully.
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Lorrin, you always write such beautiful and insightful posts. I wonder what these beings will say? I firmly believe the animals have free will (like we do when we are choosing the life we’re going to live, before we come into the physical), and that they choose experiences to aid their learning and growth, even if it means winding up on someone’s dinner table. There will be, without a doubt, some wonderful animal coaches out there who will be so happy to partner with you.
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