Animal Messenger Sanctuary Blog

During Charlotte’s recent bout with mastitis, I saw more evidence of how the flock has changed since the death of Queenmere, the ubermom who used to watch over them all. She was one of the three sheep who were the first ovines on the sanctuary. Wonder was born to Charlotte not long after their arrival and it was these four who taught me the Way of the Sheep. I hadn’t lived closely with sheep before and I assumed that the way this flock behaved was how it was among sheep, but now I know it isn’t so.

Queenmere (Franglais for Queen Mother) was an exceptional leader. I gave her that name soon after she arrived because it was clear she was a wonderful mother to her daughter Chloe and her granddaughter Charlotte. I didn’t realize at the time that the name suited her way beyond that (though the part of me that receives names knew).

Charlotte developed terrible hoof problems one winter, to the point that it was painful for her to walk. One day I noticed that the flock was not going down to the far pasture as was their ritual every morning. When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t seen them down there at all for days. Wondering if there was something dangerous in the area, I walked the land but found nothing. In the next week, the sheep continued to stay away from their usual haunts.

Watching them, it suddenly came to me that Queenmere was keeping the flock in the upper pasture near the shelter. It was too difficult for Charlotte to make their daily rounds and for her healing she needed to give her feet a rest. Queenmere knew that she would try to follow the others and it wouldn’t be good for her. A good leader does not abandon a member of the group, even when the grass is greener somewhere else.

All this was confirmed in the weeks to come as the flock gradually widened their roaming range as Charlotte’s feet healed (with major hoof care). In fact, I could gauge the state of her health each day by how far the flock roamed. They did not return to their favorite field until Charlotte was able to go. The day I saw them down there, I knew that the hoof care had turned her serious condition around and she would be all right.

Queenmere’s control of the flock was not apparent, to my eye anyway. She did not behave aggressively toward Chloe and Wonder to get them to stay in the upper pasture. I never saw her herding them or doing anything else physically to keep the unit together. The consummate leader, she had only to stay with Charlotte herself and they did the same. She was the one who led them wherever they went and they trusted her completely, gave her their allegiance without pressure or coercion. They simply recognized her as the leader among them, even though she was the smallest. And unlike in many human groups, leadership is not an ego thing among sheep. The leader is the one who is best able to care for the flock—not necessarily the largest, but the wisest.

If any of them were out of sight, Queenmere baaed until they found her. None of them liked being out of sight. They would just sometimes get distracted in their grazing. Then raising their heads to see where the others were and not seeing them, they would start to panic, running to find them and baaing to them for their location. Sheep know they are easy prey if separated from the flock. Queenmere would answer them immediately and keep calling until they were reunited. She was also always checking on the flock, raising her head from grazing to see that everybody was together, and calling if they weren’t. Again, I thought this was typical behavior. Not so.

Queenmere died a natural death at the grand old age of 14. As with so many deaths of loved ones, she chose to leave when I was away from home. The dear friend who was animal-sitting for me found her lying peacefully dead in the lower pasture. (Queenmere couldn’t have been in better hands because this friend is a hospice nurse.) The flock seemed lost without Queenmere. I think it was both grief and losing their leader. Even in the weeks that followed her death, no one stepped into the leadership role and I wondered if they would be an egalitarian flock. They were all related and so attuned to each other that I thought perhaps they didn’t need a leader.

A shepherd I met in New Zealand who had only 60 sheep, compared to the sheep stations with tens of thousands, told me that sheep people who came to his small farm asked him why his sheep were so different from other sheep. The people were referring to their bonded, affectionate behavior with each other. The shepherd answered, “Because they’re all family and they’ve been together their whole lives.”

A new member joined our flock not long after Queenmere died. Isabel was not family, but she was soon welcomed into the fold. Still the flock did not seem to have one leader, and this remains true even a year and a half after Queenmere’s departure. They roam together, but when one gets separated, the others don’t even bother to answer the frantic baaing. On numerous occasions, hearing the worried calling, I’ve gone out and showed the straying one where the others are.

And Charlotte was left to fend for herself in her recent illness. When the three able-bodied ones were back at the shelter, they would be near her, but they roamed far from her whenever they felt like it. The three of them traveled as a unit but were willing to leave Charlotte behind. As I watched them head off for their autumn morning ritual of checking under all the apple trees for fallen fruit, with Charlotte looking longingly after them after having attempted a few steps, I thought, “Queenmere would never have allowed this.”

I bring Charlotte apples to at least release her from that part of her longing. The flock soon comes back. It does seem that they cut their wanderings short because she is not with them. And maybe they don’t have a leader because they know none of them have Queenmere’s leadership skills. I kind of like it that theirs is an egalitarian flock, trading off the lead position in deciding where they will go to graze next.

But theirs is now the individual versus community dilemma that faces humans. Individuality is great for creative expression, but when a community member is lost or sick, it’s best to have a Queenmere around. Now I know that superb leadership ability is not a given in every flock, just as it isn’t in every human group. And now that I recognize what a truly great leader Queenmere was, I find myself, when faced with a community issue, asking, “What would Queenmere do?” The answer is always in the best interests of the flock.

P.S. Charlotte is back to visiting the apple trees.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

Today (or some say November 1) is Samhain, the ancient Celtic celebration observed in later times as Halloween. The transformation of the early holiday to what it is now reveals the undercurrents of fear and denial in our culture. Samhain was dedicated to honoring the ancestors and asking for their guidance. Those most adept at communicating with spirits in the beyond became known as witches. Today’s Halloween demonizes all three—spirits, the beyond, and witches.

Gone is the knowledge that honoring our ancestors is vital to our individual and community health. African shaman Malidoma Somé says that his people believe that a society cannot hope to be healthy if it is disconnected from its ancestors, and he regards this disconnection in the U.S. as a primary source of the escalating violence and loss of meaning among its citizens. Master physician and healer Dietrich Klinghardt speaks of the energetic legacy of disconnection from ancestors as a component in physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual illness.

Turning from the past has become a way of life in the U.S. Don’t look and maybe it won’t be true. Likewise, turning from death is the American way. If you don’t want to look at death, you don’t want to ackowledge ancestors or spirits on the other side of the veil that is so thin at this time of year. That ghosts and skeletons have become objects of fear, the titillating scary creatures of Halloween, shows American aversion to death and reluctance to turn and face the veil, much less pull it back.

Witches, with their ability to move between the worlds, make people who don’t want to look uncomfortable. Demonizing them and turning them into ugly hags takes care of that problem. Along with the witches, go their familiars. These are the animals, reptiles, and amphibians that witches commune with and that assist the witch in doing the spiritual and healing work for her community and for Earth.

Black cats are the most famous of the familiars and another icon of Halloween. The fear of witches resulted in labeling both witch and cat as capable of cursing you and bringing bad luck into your life. Many people don’t know that, in many cases, an accused witch’s familiars were killed along with her during the centuries-long holocaust of witch burnings. The number of cats that were killed in Europe during this time was so great that in the aftermath the rat population swelled to unprecedented proportions. A rat-borne plague then ravaged Europe. The fear of black cats has not died; humane societies report that they are the hardest to place in new homes.

Instead of celebrating fear, let’s return the wonder to Halloween. The wonder of deep connection. The wonder of being able to talk to our ancestors and receive their valuable counsel (they’ve been here and can help us avoid the mistakes of the past). The wonder of the spirit world. The wonder of black cats.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

The winter rains hit hard last night and when I went up to feed the animals this morning and ran my hand over them in greeting, Chloe’s and Charlotte’s wool was soaking wet, Wonder’s and Isabel’s only dampish, and Pegasus’s horsehair coat hardly even damp—indication of where they spent their time in the rain. So Pegasus and two of the sheep mostly stayed in the cozy shelter carpeted with a thick layer of straw while Chloe and Charlotte preferred the outdoors, as they often do, lying on the slope in front of the shelter, chewing and looking contemplative, even in the rain.

The rain doesn’t penetrate their wool anyway. When you reach into their fleece, you find that all is warm and cozy near their skin, even when the outer fleece is soaked. Isabel, a “meat” breed sheep, doesn’t have as much protection as her wool-breed friends. She loves the shelter and doesn’t hesitate to get out of weather. Wonder, though he has the thickest fleece of all, likes to hang out with Pegasus, so if she’s in the shelter at night, that’s where he will be. Like many horses, Pegasus doesn’t mind the rain, but since her dearly beloved donkey died, she has lost her motivation to be out in it. Gabriel used to graze in the wildest weather and there she would be, right next to him.

After I fed everyone, I paused in barn cleanup to look out at the rain-washed vista. The leaves in distant vineyards had turned to gold and the Sonoma range beyond was wrapped in low clouds. All was clear and crisp with fall. I listened to the animals chew and felt satisfaction all over again for my just-in-time hay storage.

The first heavy rain a week ago pushed me into solving the hay storage problem. The used aluminum shed some friends had helped me put up had blown down in a gale last spring—the wind blows fiercely up here on the mountain at times. Since it was near the end of the rainy season, I didn’t try to put the shed back together, but just tarped the hay. The sun breaks down tarps remarkably quickly and the one I had bought was already shredding. I cast around for a more protected place to reconstruct the shed, but none were well situated for unloading the hay.

It came to me in one of those early morning bursts of inspiration that I should use the loft in the animal shelter, which was made for hay. It had no setup to get the hay up there, which was why I hadn’t used it before, but I’ve solved many shelter, storage, fence, and pasture issues over the years, so I set out to find a solution. Rig up a pulley like farmers have done for centuries, I finally told myself, and headed for the local hardware store.

Two guys in the store got totally into helping me figure out what I could rig up (I love local small-town businesses!). We laughed and made jokes and had a grand time. We couldn’t get the one pulley set they had in stock to work and it was too expensive anyway, so we went from aisle to aisle putting different screw hooks and pulleys and rope together until we had something we thought would do it.

When I got home, my brother called. I told him what I had been up to and, to my amazement, he said he had one of those old-fashioned block pulleys I was lusting after. I had tried to persuade one of the guys in the store to sell me the one at his grandfather’s farm since they weren’t using it, but he wouldn’t part with it. And here was my brother who, when he sold his old Wisconsin farmhouse, had dismantled the block pulley on the big beautiful barn and taken it with him, even though he wasn’t moving to another farm and had no use for it. “I’ll mail it to you,” he said. I was thrilled—just the kind of thing I get ecstatic over since becoming the caretaker of hooved animals.

On Saturday, I fed the animals the last of the hay under the tarp. I couldn’t delay any longer and as this was also predicted to be the only sunny day in what might be a string of rainy ones, I went to the feedstore and had my pickup loaded with eight bales of hay. Back home, I opened a section of the fence, drove my truck in, parked below the high loft door in the shelter, and tried hauling up a bale with the new rope slung over a beam. The bale wouldn’t budge. I didn’t want to bother rigging up the improvised setup; the real thing would be arriving and I just needed to find a way to get this load of hay into the loft. I ended up rigging up a system that involved a ladder, the metal feeding trough, a blanket, and the rope.

As I wrestled the hay, I thought how much easier this would be if I had some help, but it is incredibly character building, especially for a woman, to meet these challenges on the farm, and it feels so damn good afterward that it’s worth it. Just as I was wedging the last bale into the loft, my neighbor arrived. She looked at me and said, “You’re an Amazon,” and then studying the system I had rigged up, said, “Ingenious.”

I was feeling an enormous sense of satisfaction (from having solved the hay problem and also from what I call the squirrel factor—having successfully stored nuts for the winter) as I backed my truck toward the gap in the fence—and promptly got stuck in the one-rain-moistened ground. This was what I got for not getting the hay in before the winter rains started. It took me at least a half-hour to get the truck out. I loaded the bed with cement blocks and wood pallets to give the light Toyota some traction, pulled slippery wet straw out of the way, strewed gravel in front of and behind the wheels, and maneuvered this way and that until I finally slid sideways into the right position and the wheels bit to get me out of there. More farm satisfaction—covered with mud and drenched in sweat, I felt great.

Women who grow up on a farm don’t need this kind of character building, but I didn’t and then I lived in cities until my mid-thirties. You can live in the country and still never get the kind of crash course I’ve had, but when you take care of hooved animals and don’t hire work out, you end up on your butt in the mud, laughing at yourself. Which is what happened because, of course, I slipped on the wet straw while I was clearing a path for the truck. Nothing like a roll in the mud to put some perspective on life. And nothing like putting your body on the frontlines of the farm to feel fully alive.

As I drove back through the gap in the fence, bumped across a hazardous dip, and reached the certainty of the gravel driveway, I thought of the bumper sticker “A woman and her truck—it’s a beautiful thing.” Yeah, it sure is.

I thought too of a woman I met up in the Sierra foothills. She had bought raw land there, where she lived with her horses—I think it was six of them—while she gradually built what she needed. Her dwelling for the first few winters was a tepee. A modern frontierswoman. Like another I met when I was 17 and at college in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This woman was a student at the college too, but chose to live off-campus and alone in a remote cabin in the mountain woods. She brought me to her home once and we had to trudge a long way through the snow to reach it. Her only source of heat was a woodstove and she chopped all her wood herself. I was deeply impressed and the image of her snowbound cabin has stayed in my head to this day.

A woman at the frontier—it’s a beautiful thing.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

Native Americans call it medicine, as in Bear medicine, Wolf medicine, Eagle medicine—the healing each animal, bird, or other element of nature has to offer if the human chooses to take it in. I call it messages—what the elements of nature can show us in ourselves, highlight for us, alert us to, if we only tune in and listen: an aspect that needs attending to, what we have been neglecting or suppressing, what part of us needs activating, what part needs healing, what is blocking us from opening our heart and letting love and compassion flow.

At times it can be a general message like: You need more stillness and rest in your life; or you’re too much in your head, and your body and soul need your attention; or, as in the old way of saying it, stop and smell the roses more often.

At other times, it can be a specific message, like one I got from a horse some years ago. I was doing a trade with one of my editing clients—riding lessons for editing the book these two horse communion women had written. These were not typical riding lessons (I wouldn’t want to participate in that because too often the horse is treated like a vehicle for human use, overridden, unconsidered in the riding equation, and/or disrespected). The focus was on developing communion between horse and person, the person learning to “listen” with all the senses and become one with the horse. This mare and I usually communicated well—I had spent time with her before ever getting on her back—but on this day she didn’t respond to my leads and resisted all my attempts at teamwork. I became increasingly frustrated and descended into feeling incapable and rejected. I ended the session early because I didn’t want to inflict myself on her.

My client said matter-of-factly, “She doesn’t want to be around your anger.”

Though I considered myself a conscious person, I hadn’t even been aware that I was angry. But I had, in fact, arrived still angry over an unpleasant interaction I had had with a demanding client earlier that day. I thought I had worked through my anger before I got there, but the horse knew better. Even unaware, I wouldn’t take my anger out on an animal, so I didn’t jerk the reins around or indulge in another typical display of temper. But because of my suppressed anger, I was unable to enter the calm place of communion. And my slipping into a sense of unworthiness in response to the horse’s very appropriate response of distancing herself from someone who was out of touch with self and the moment, and therefore not to be trusted, didn’t help matters. What I needed to do was stop, tune in to myself, figure out that I was still carrying anger, let it go or get out of the arena if I couldn’t, apologize to the horse for exposing her to bad vibes, thank her for pointing it out to me, and recognize my fallibility and move on, instead of indulging in self-doubt and self-denigration.

Anything that brings us into the moment can deliver the messages that animals and all of nature have for us. Breathwork, meditation, and quiet contemplation all give us a chance to quiet the mind and attend to what lies beneath in the silence of ourselves, just as a walk in the woods or listening to birdsong in the trees or running a hand over the soft fur or wool of a willing animal can. If we don’t take the time to tune in somehow, it is harder to be fully present. Part of us may be held in thrall to experiences of the past (even from earlier in a day) and another part may be projecting into the future with plans and schemes. We might be walking around like I was the day of the horse—blocked by an undealt-with emotion and not even aware it.

So the horse gave me horse medicine that day, brought me a message I needed in order to heal. Not just from my anger, but from my tendency to attack my self-worth. The medicine of acknowledging what is, but not creating a web of emotional responses to it is strong medicine. Observe and be practical, instead of overanalyzing and getting lost in emotions.

Animals and nature are practical. A number of inspired people have noted that humans are the only species that question their very I-ness. As far as we know, a leopard doesn’t question her leopardness, a booby bird doesn’t lament his blue feet, a whale doesn’t wish she wasn’t so large. They fully occupy themselves and the moment, and in each moment get on with the business of being a leopard, a booby bird, or a whale.

Since we humans have filled ourselves with a lot of impediments to being who we really are, we have to act by turning inward to clear them. Turning inward means observing what is happening in the moment, so you can remove the obstacles to being fully present and living your fullest, most glorious self.

All of nature is living its fullest, most glorious self in every moment, and every element of nature—tree, river, mountain, bird, leopard, whale, sheep, cow, horse, chicken—carries the message for you to do the same. Once you are aware of this, it can become a kind of shorthand. Then when a bird flies over or you pass a tree in full fall color or wintry bareness, you will remember to breathe and feel your own gloriousness.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

I experienced a remarkable healing this week.

Charlotte’s condition worsened this past weekend, her udder swollen from the untreatable staph mastitis (teat blocked by scar tissue, so no way to clear the udder except surgically and she is too old for that) to the point that walking was painful for her. She stopped trying to follow the other sheep and stopped moving around much at all, mostly lying on the slope by the shelter where there is no grass left to eat.

On Saturday, a wonderful friend of mine came to help me soak Charlotte’s udder. I had had the idea of submerging it in a plastic bucket filled with warm water, Epsom salts, and echinacea tincture. Charlotte let us do it, with me holding my hand under her chin to keep her in one place and my friend gently slipping the bucket beneath her and up onto the udder. I don’t know if it helped or not, but I felt better doing something to try to relieve her discomfort. If nothing else, I think the warm water must have eased her.

The next morning Charlotte would not eat and hardly moved from one spot. I tried coaxing her with apples and grain, which she would normally go crazy for, but she refused to take anything. I went to the grocery store and got everything I could think of to tempt her: dandelion greens, Swiss chard, organic grains (rye and oats), watermelon, pears. She would eat none of it, and I thought it might be the beginning of the end.

My ministering angel friend came over again in the event we should try another soaking, but both of us felt we should leave Charlotte be. My friend said, “It’s up to her now. She has to choose,” meaning to live or die.

I talked to Charlotte into the evening after my friend left. It was a continuation of the conversation that has been running between us for years. I realized there was nothing I had to tell her before she went because I stay in such close communication with her that it’s all been said. I tell her every day what a gift she is, that she is the flower of my heart, that I’m so glad she is here, and aren’t we so blessed to be together. I thought she might die in the next few days, so I said it all again, adding how much she has taught me, thanking her for being with us, and telling her we’d love her to stay, but if she has to go, we understand.

I was out there with her long after dark. The three cats (even 18-year-old Honus who had never set foot in a barn and was alarmed at first by the thick layer of straw covering its floor) came to hold vigil with us, Sparrow and Lorca dashing around in the dark in play, and then the three of them sitting in a triangle near Charlotte.

I think it was about 10 pm when the picture came into my mind of Charlotte down in the blackberry brambles when I had come out in the morning the day before to feed everybody. Even though she was having trouble walking, she had made her painful way down the slope to eat blackberry leaves.

Anything is worth trying, I thought. So in the dark, I went to the blackberry vines growing on the chicken wire enclosure next to the barn and cut some leaves by the dim light filtering from the barn door. Charlotte was lying on the slope on the other side of the barn and I took the leaves to her. To my astonishment, she gobbled them voraciously. The first thing she had eaten all day. I tried some grain then, but she still refused it, so I cut blackberry leaves for half an hour, an hour, I don’t know how long it was. I just cut and fed—she ate them as fast as I cut them. By the time I decided it was enough for the time being, she had consumed mounds of blackberry leaves.

The next morning, I did not find her dead in the pasture, as part of me had feared. She was standing, and looked at me expectantly when I appeared. “Charlotte!” I called in excitement and went to give her a joyous welcome-back-to-life hug. I fed her more mounds of blackberry leaves throughout the day and she continued to eat them with relish, still refusing anything else, except apple and grape leaves, though her real focus was reserved for the blackberry leaves.

I looked up the medicinal properties of blackberry leaf and lo and behold: two of its main actions are to “dry and shrink” (depurative) and “cleanse the blood” (vulnerary). Charlotte was eating to heal her udder and keep the infection from becoming septic. Blackberry is also a diuretic. I had noticed with all the blackberry that Charlotte was urinating much more than usual. She was eating what would help flush her body of the toxins of the infection. How good that I gotten the message about the blackberry leaves so I could give them to her when she was too weak to go get them herself!

After that, I had to tell her over and over how smart she is, what a wise and remarkable sheep. The next morning (yesterday), she began to eat grain again and I thanked her for deciding to stay, telling her how glad I am that she did.

This morning she was again standing when I arrived, ate the sliced apple I gave her, and was plowing through the grain when I left her to cut blackberry leaves. I check her udder every day and this morning it looked smaller. I think she actually is shrinking it. It is still keeping her from venturing out to better eating grounds, or maybe she doesn’t feel safe doing that. It’s probably quite wise to stay in the enclosure by the shelter, given her compromised state. Though there is nothing up here on the hill to threaten her, as a sheep, who has no defense but to run, it’s best to follow the way of caution.

In any case, she is enjoying our sessions over blackberry leaves and grain, as am I. She likes it best when I feed her by hand. I can get her to eat more grain that way too. I put my face down to hers, with our noses nearly touching, and she chews while I gaze at her in appreciation and offer her a steady supply of leaves and handfuls of grain. I feel so lucky to get to look at a sheep every day!

Charlotte is not healed completely yet, but she sure is working on it. It is true she has a tremendous will to live, having survived multiple very serious afflictions. I’m waiting for the day when I see her go off with the others down the hill to the apple trees. Then I’ll know she is back to full health.

I am so moved by her knowing to eat the one food in the area that would help her. I remember Gabriel also eating the blackberry leaves when he was so ill, and I couldn’t believe he was because he had mouth sores and I thought the prickers must have hurt. But one of the other properties of blackberry leaves is, I discovered when I looked it up, helping to heal sores in the mouth. What a remarkable donkey! What a remarkable sheep! And yet not so remarkable, because all animals know what they need to do to heal. The tragedy is that most of them probably don’t have access to it, as they used to when all was wild.

I thought as I looked into Charlotte’s white woolly face, chewing the blackberry leaves with a focus that signals her will to live, despite the limp she has had for the past year that makes walking harder, we humans have that healing knowledge in us too, but it is so buried from disuse and denial that it is harder to find. More’s the pity, because if we knew what we needed, we could, unlike the confined animals, probably get it.

I laid my cheek against Charlotte’s, she fluttered her ear against it in her version of the eyelash kiss, and I gave thanks for this remarkable sheep. And then I thought, “We could all be this remarkable.” So I’m wishing for you all today: May you find your remarkable healing self!

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

Note: Thank you to Shelly Horten, holistic vet in training, for her inspired suggestions to give Charlotte grapefruit seed extract and go to a health food store and get organic grains to feed her (most feedstores with supplies for “livestock” don’t carry organic grains). I think both have helped her. I’m soaking spelt and rye overnight to soften it, and giving her oat, barley, and kamut flakes. Today (October 15), Charlotte returned to roaming with the flock, even up and down hills!

I was sitting on the deck one morning this past week and heard the thrumming of hummingbirds. I tilted my head back to see a ruby and emerald pair hovering in the air above me, come for one of the feeders hanging from the eaves of the house. (I had heard years ago that if you put up one hummingbird feeder, you need to put up a second at least 12 feet away for territorial reasons, so I do.) As I watched the two tiny bodies, two huge bird bodies—turkey vultures (see August 30)–glided into view no more than 10 feet above them. There, for a moment, suspended in the air, but so close I could see the color of feathers, were two of the smallest winged ones and two of the largest. One of those dramatic visions that imprint in your brain. Like the time friends and I were on a road trip to scatter a friend’s ashes in Sedona, Arizona, and a hawk suddenly appeared before the windshield as we drove on a desert highway, in its talons a huge wriggling snake. We all gasped as the hawk and snake were framed there for a moment before the hawk with snake rose out of sight. A vision indeed, and some powerful medicine.

The hummingbirds and vultures paired for that moment felt like a gift. I am so grateful to be in a place where I receive such gifts all the time. As I’m writing this, I can hear the hummingbirds chirruping in the eucalyptus trees. This is the special sound they make when they are perching, distinct from the whizzing and whirring sounds they make when they fly. If you don’t know better, you might think the sound is from some kind of beetle or cicada, but it’s uniquely hummingbird. There they sit, holding onto a twig with their tiny feet and chirruping. I count myself lucky that I’ve gotten to see a hummingbird’s feet—so moving somehow in their incredible tininess. The hummingbirds’ chirruping quiets when the sun goes down.

Then begins another gift from the winged ones—the calling of the owls. Last night they began before dark. Too excited to wait, maybe, they began to call to each other at twilight, when there were still sunset pinks and oranges in the sky. It sounded like they were in two of the eucalyptus trees, not far from each other, and they hooted back and forth for a long time. If my skills were better developed, I thought, I could understand them. One of the things we’ve given up in modern life.

Though I often hear the owls calling here, usually in the dark of night, I’ve only seen them twice. Once one was perched on a branch of the young eucalyptus by my house, regarding me steadily as I stood on the deck, holding my breath at the sight. One of the cats distracted me and when I looked up again, the owl was gone. Another time when I drove up the driveway at dusk, an owl was perched on one of the fence posts and as I passed flew up to roost in the oak tree at the curve in the drive.

Years ago, someone told me about a bedtime ritual that I have come to love. Lying in bed, you tell each other (kids’ answers are wonderful!) or yourself one good thing that happened that day. I try to remember to do this before I go to sleep at night. When I first started this, the good things were more “doing” items like I got two new editing clients or had fun at a birthday party or finished a project I had been working on. Over time, as the animals and nature pulled me into their world more and more, which means living in the moment, the good things were often about “being,” as in I got to see an owl, Charlotte and I had a long communing session this morning, Pegasus gave me her special love nibble today, the nearly full moon was rising during the sunset (which it is at this moment). Now I find that the list of good things is almost endless, even when I’m going through a rough time, because in every moment there are gifts. Maybe it’s a function of age, but I’m finding that I am more and more grateful for just being alive.

I think of Keith Richards saying at the Stones concert at the Oakland arena last year: “I’m glad to be here.” Then adding after a pause, “Actually, I’m glad to be anywhere.” Ha ha, Keith joining in the jokes about him as walking cadaver, but probably actually meaning it after his brush with death due to falling on his head from that palm tree in Fiji.

I’ve had a lot of death in my life this year, and death always highlights the preciousness of life, but really, the animals, and all of nature, do that every day. Gazing into an animals’ eyes, taking the time to look up at the birds flying overhead, or listening to their sounds is a reminder of the celebration of life. To tune in is to celebrate.

Tonight I’m going to say the wonderful thing that happened to me today was being alive.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

At 7:20 this morning, Isabel began calling for me, baaing loudly to let me know it was time for breakfast. If I’m not out there by 7:30, the sheep come down the path through the pasture area where they spend the night to the fence right next to the house and raise a chorus that brings me hurrying out to spare sleeping neighbors. This morning, Pegasus neighed to emphasize the point. I don’t mind the insistence. It’s a wonderful sound to start the day with, and even after ten years of morning and evening feedings, I still love the ritual.

I wave to my beloved messengers as I walk up the rise to the fenced area where their feeder (a green metal manger), hay, and shelter is. Pegasus neighs again, this time a good morning. Wonder gives me his throaty baa; his voice changed when he moved from lambhood to ramhood, like an adolescent human boy’s voice deepening. He also has a special baa for me, his second mother who took over with bottle when nursing the natural way failed. I smile and call to him, warmed by his cheerful good morning.

Charlotte limps toward the feeder and I watch her to rate her progress–is the essential oil salve helping her knee yet? She seems a little better, but the half of her udder swollen by the mastitis is not going down, though it doesn’t seem any worse, which is good enough news for me this morning. I have learned to be calmer in the face of the illnesses that used to put me into a state of churning anxiety, worried sick on behalf of the beloved animal in pain or facing a potentially life-threatening illness. That worry energy is not good medicine, and I do my best to be positive, talk to the sick one about how we’re going to heal this together, and send love and healing energy instead.

Chloe and Isabel usually get to the feeder first, while Charlotte takes her time by necessity and Wonder by virtue of his dreamy temperament. Pegasus waits by the gate to see if I’ve brought a piece of apple or carrot to slip her as a special treat. I’ve brought celery this morning, but wait to give it to all of them.

I pull back the tarp over the bales of oat hay–not the best arrangement, but no one I know who has a farm has a perfect setup. I dream of a full barn with room for all the animals and separate storage for hay. I recently switched from orchard grass to oat hay because my veteran veterinarian told me he has never had to do dental work (teeth floating, an often annual procedure to grind down the spikes that form on an equine’s teeth and, if left, compromise digestion and cut the inside of the mouth) on a horse whose diet is oat hay.

Though the animals eat every bit of orchard grass, they pick out the oat grains from the flake (slabs of hay called flakes are bound together in a bale to make for easy separation for feeding) and leave the oat straw. But before I even get the hay into the feeder, they are jockeying for position to make sure they are in place to pull out as many of the tasty grains as they can before everyone else eats them.

I leave them to it and go to the shelter to prepare their mashes, which are a medium for supplements. This is really for Charlotte’s benefit, but to be fair I prepare something for all of them. I dose her soaked beet pulp with all the holistic treatments I’m giving her and add some dry cob (a corn and grain mix) to give her some extra nutrition since she’s elderly. I add maintenance-type supplements to everybody else’s smaller amounts of beet pulp.

Charlotte and Pegasus used to wait in the shelter while I prepared the extra food; Charlotte in the stall where I place her bowl to keep the other sheep from devouring her mix, Pegasus at my back, delighting me by snuffling at me and gazing lovingly at me with her black eyes. But they caught on that it takes some time, and meanwhile Chloe, Isabel, and Wonder were eating all the good stuff out of the hay. So now they stay with the others in the rush for oat kernels and wait until I call them. Then it is a juggling act. Everyone knows where they get their bowl, but they have to be ready in case something changes, so there is lots of pushing and shoving as I put the bowls outside the shelter for the three sheep, hurry to get Pegasus’s down inside before she decides she better eat the sheep’s, and then get Charlotte’s to her in her stall before she becomes agitated.

This morning while they ate I paused before the other tasks, as I usually do, to enjoy the stupendous view from our hilltop—rolling pasture in the foreground and the whole Sonoma range in the distance. Today brought a fall sky with the dramatic cloud formations that seem to arrive with crisp weather. Even as I gave thanks for the beauty, I felt a lurch of dread at thought of the rains of winter. Our area needs the rain, but if we are deluged, the animal area turns into a mucky swamp. Fortunately, they roam free during the day, so have dry ground, and they also have the shelter, which is solid and dry. But one year, I’m told, water came down in a wave over the area where the animals now are.

Well, we’ll deal with it, I tell myself and them, and turn to the next chop-wood, carry-water task: picking out Pegasus’s hooves. I do this daily now since she’s had foot problems, picking up each foot in turn and using a hoof pick to dislodge any pebbles and clear all straw and gunk from the hollows on either side of the sole. She is so helpful with her back feet, lifting each one up in a delicate curl for me. Less enthusiastic about having her front feet done, or maybe just concentrating on eating, she plants her feet at first, but I persuade her by strokes and moving her bowl over to shift her weight.

Charlotte has finished her mash by now and I go to her for our special time. I open the half-door of her stall so she can leave if she wants, sit down in the sun streaming through the shelter door, and clean her swollen knee with a warm cloth, then apply the salve in a gentle massage, all the while rubbing her under the chin with my other hand to soothe her. I kiss her sweet face and get some ear kisses on my cheek. This quiet time together is when I talk about how we’re going to heal her, how it’s all going to be all right, how much I love her, how I need her to be around for a long time because she is a very special sheep and we have a lot to do together still. I don’t just say all of this; I send it to her from my heart too. She loves this time as much as I do because she stays for it instead of going back to the feeder where the others have returned to rooting for oat grains. Charlotte loves food, but she also loves communing.

At last, I walk to the gate with Charlotte behind me to let everybody out for the day. I don’t open the gate earlier because I don’t want Charlotte to get left behind. She has a hard enough time keeping up and can’t always find where the others rushed off to because the flock members don’t always answer each other when one calls. Queenmere, Chloe’s mother and the head of the flock who died a year and a half ago from old age, would never have allowed this dispersed situation. First, she always kept the flock together. When one was injured, they all stayed close. And she would never allow a calling one to go unanswered. Since her death, the flock seems to have become egalitarian, which has its drawbacks. They are most often together, though, and Pegasus is usually nearby.

I give Charlotte a final hug before she follows the others out the gate for their day’s adventures. Pegasus is already at the tarped hay cleaning up the stray oats around the base. Charlotte watches the three sheep head single file over the rise to tasty grazing among the trees. I see her pondering whether to go with them. If it weren’t for her leg, she wouldn’t hesitate, but today she opts for staying with Pegasus, knowing that the others will be back soon anyway to resume their search for gold amidst the straw. All is well on the sanctuary.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

For the past three months, I’ve been watching my two cats adjust to the arrival of a refugee, an 18-year-old cat whose guardian, a close friend of mine, asked me a month before she died to take him in. There are many messages in how all three cats have responded to the change in their circumstances. I have learned over the years to pay attention so I don’t miss the messages being delivered nearly all the time by the animals around me. I still forget sometimes to tune in and listen, and sometimes it takes me a while to figure out a message, but with the cats I was ready because recent life events had left the veil between the worlds thin.

The two cats who were already living with me when Honus arrived are a mother and daughter who used to be feral. The daughter, a black and white cat I named Lorca, grew up in a drainpipe. Her mother, Sparrow, a tabby (with the official tabby M marking on her forehead), chose the spot well for ultimate protection. She took such good care of her kitten (if there were others, they were carried off by a hawk, fox, or other predator before I ever saw them) that Lorca had no need for or interest in humans. Sparrow, on the other hand, clearly made the decision once Lorca was grown to seek an easier life, overcoming her wildness to move in with me. Where she went, Lorca followed, though at first only as a black and white streak glimpsed dashing for an exit. By the time Honus joined us, however, Lorca was spending time on my lap as long as her mother was there too.

Before Honus came, I talked to Sparrow and Lorca, telling them they were not being replaced, that I would love them just as much as ever, that we needed to help out this poor guy who was losing his person, and it would be really nice if they could welcome him to help him feel better. I knew it was Sparrow who would lead the way, so I especially addressed all this to her. A lot of people don’t think animals understand what is being said to them, but anyone who has allowed themselves to love an animal knows otherwise. I have found that when I tell the animals all about an impending change (whether the arrival of someone new, a vet visit, a move, medicine I have to give them), the event goes more smoothly than if I just spring it on them.

As happened in this case. When I brought Honus home, Sparrow walked up to him and touched her nose to his—as sweet a welcome as could be.

So the first message was: You can greet a change in your life with protest and resistance, but it will go much better for you if you greet it with grace and an open heart.

After their initial meeting, all three cats had to sort out their places in their newly arranged world. At first, they kept their distance from each other. Their messages were: There is no need to pretend that you are unphased by change; change is hard and it takes a while to adjust to a new situation; and let relationships unfold instead of trying to jump to an intimacy that hasn’t had time to develop.

Then we had three nights when all three cats slept on the bed, but that was when Honus still felt tentative. After that, he suddenly came into his own and spent the day on Sparrow’s pillow at the head of the bed, then moved on to Lorca’s sleeping spot next to it. Honus’ sleep-in was highly effective. Sparrow and Lorca abandoned the bedroom.

In fact, Sparrow abandoned the house entirely except for during meals. To my surprise, Lorca took the opportunity of her mother’s absence to get closer to me, despite Honus. Every morning, she would seek me out on the couch for a long cuddling session. She came looking for me at other times and relaxed in a new way around me, losing the edge of wariness that was a holdover from her wild days. Her messages were: Look for the opportunity in what appears to be an unwelcome occurrence; only when you are willing to climb over your fear, can you fully receive the love that is waiting for you.

As for Honus, from the first he displayed a remarkable equanimity in the face of this complete and dramatic change in his life. He showed almost no nervousness, but at the same time proceeded slowly, taking in the new opportunities around him (like outdoor living) only when he was ready. Though he had lost the person he had been with his whole life, he was able to open his heart to receiving love from another source. His messages were: It doesn’t serve you to spin out in fear and anxiety; it’s up to you to ask for what you need; and open your heart to love.

Meanwhile, Sparrow had given up our daily laptime. Sparrow is an amazing cat who hears my communications and acts immediately on them, as she did in welcoming Honus. And as she did the time I asked her if she could do something about the rat who had chewed holes in the plastic feed bins and a toolbox in the barn and was sleeping in the cat bed on the hay, as evidenced by the droppings. The next day I found her keeping vigil in the barn, not moving from a meditative posture on the hay all day and sleeping there that night. She let the rat know this was not a good place for him and he better find another home. There was no sign that she killed him. I think she gave her message nonviolently. The rat got the message and there was no more sign of him or any other.

Now I was missing Sparrow in the house and thought she might be missing me too. It took me a while to remember to tell her, but I finally did one night, saying that I especially missed our morning lap sessions. After a month of none, she climbed into my lap the very next morning and stayed there for a long nap. Her messages were: Remember to tell those you love that you love them.

This morning, Sparrow spent time on my lap while I read. After she left, Honus took her place and then Lorca joined us, investigating Honus before lying next to us on the couch. When I left the room to go work on the novel I’m writing, Honus and Sparrow stayed on the couch. They were still fast asleep there when I passed through an hour later. The message: Everything is going to be all right.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007

As I write this first entry of the Animal Messenger Sanctuary blog, I’m looking out my office window at the vultures circling the ravine in front of me and landing on their resting perch there. The sanctuary is high on a hill, so the vultures seen circling overhead from down in the valley are at eye level up here. They swoop and glide and circle all day long because the ravine is home base for them. Their favorite perch is the trunk of a felled eucalyptus tree that juts over the ravine. They land in a rush of wings and then perch in their classic hunched posture or stand with wings outstretched in the dramatic pose that carries whispers of their ancient past.

Last year, when I was considering moving the sanctuary to the Sierra foothills, I was working with Isis medicine. This Great Goddess of ancient Egypt had come to me in a vision, and though I knew who she was, I didn’t know much about her. In researching her after her visitation, I learned that vultures are one of her totems, and in fact she is often depicted with a vulture head and wings. The vulture has protective powers as well as carrying the medicine of love and compassion in the natural cycle of life. When I went up to look at a piece of property in the Nevada City area, a vulture flew above our car all the way down the drive as if leading me to this new place. It was a very special property, but I ultimately decided to stay in Sonoma County. The animals and I moved to the hilltop where I now sit. I discovered shortly after we moved in that this is vulture land, and it warmed my heart to see them, knowing that they and Isis are watching over us.

Right now, the sanctuary animals number only five because we are still looking for our permanent home and cannot take in any more animals until we find it. In March, we lost one of the founding Animal Messengers—Gabriel the donkey. After his death, Pegasus, the pure-white miniature horse who looks like a unicorn (sans horn), grieved deeply for her beloved companion. They had been inseparable and she was bereft without him. She mostly stayed in the shelter, even on beautiful sunny days. After a month of that, she began to venture out, but it took more time for her to get some of her former spark back.

I promised Gabriel before he died that when we find our home, I will, in his name, offer a lifelong home to two donkeys who need a safe haven. Equines need other equines (donkeys and horses are both in the equine family), just as all species prefer to live with at least one of their own kind. I believe Pegasus will only fully return to her elated self when she has a donkey friend again, but she is also attached to the four sheep she lives with, especially Wonder who she has known since he was a lamb (he is now 7 years old). Wonder’s mother, Charlotte, had a special relationship with Gabriel. She used to like to stand crossways under his chin and rub against his chest while he laid his head on her woolly back. Gabriel was the protector of all the sheep (llamas and donkeys are a deterrent to dogs and coyotes) and since his death the sheep don’t range as far from their shelter as they used to. Chloe (Charlotte’s aunt) and Isabel (who joined the others last year from a bad animal collector situation) lead the others on quick jaunts to grazing areas on the hilltop, but no longer roam to the lower fields.

I nursed Gabriel through complications of old age and grieved for the healthy donkey who used to run in sheer joy. Sanctuary life inevitably involves facing health problems, especially as the animals get older. Assistance in treating the various conditions comes to me from this world and beyond. I am extremely grateful that the sheep and I were able to solve their terrible hoof problems (that’s another story). Now Charlotte and I are focusing on healing what the vet tells me is the most common ailment among older sheep and goats. Charlotte is 10 years old (80 in human years) and has mastitis caused by a strain of staph resistant to antibiotics due to overuse of the drugs in the sheep and goat industry. The vet tells me staph mastitis kills the animal in 50% of the cases.

Charlotte has a strong will to live and she and I are very close, so I had a talk with her after the vet left this last time. She and I agreed we would go with the first option of progression: that her body will deal with the mastitis on its own, drying it up. She might be left with a hard udder from scar tissue, but what’s that compared to death? So Charlotte and I are focused on healing that mastitis; any prayers you care to add are most welcome. Along with prayers, I’m giving her various natural medicines to strengthen her immune system and whole body: aloe vera juice, mushroom extract (thank you, Paul Stamets!), vitamin C, echinacea, trace minerals. And an apple a day, because it doesn’t hurt to call upon all belief systems.

And then of course there are the vultures. They’ve left the perch in the ravine now, flying off I know not where, but their medicine is all around us, so I believe Charlotte is going to be among the 50% of sheep who survive. And if love really is the strongest healer of all, she will be with us for many more years.

Signing off to go round up the animals for their evening meal and give Charlotte a big hug. One of the wonders of life I have discovered on the sanctuary is hugging sheep. There’s nothing quite like clasping your arms around all that wool or burying your face in it, while the sheep gives your cheek butterfly kisses with her ears. And when the sheep are big Columbians like Charlotte and Chloe, it’s a woolly bear hug.

When I am hugging one of the sheep or watching them all eat their dinner or walking with Pegasus back up to the shelter for the night, I feel so blessed to have these Animal Messengers in my life. Every day they give me the message that life is precious and love and connection is what life is all about. Being with them, I remember to look up at the sky, listen to the birds singing, and feel the breeze on my skin. Being with them, I can’t forget that everything is connected. So I walk a little lighter, smile at the evening instead of rushing through “chores,” and thank the vultures for honoring us with their presence.

© Stephanie Marohn, 2007