|
Saving Puppies And Kittens
There I was as a child in my bedraggled socks with the backpack of puppies and kittens. My mother shaking her head. 'Look what you are bringing home again. We can't keep them.' But I would keep the suffering of the world in my own backyard, if I thought I could heal it. In much the same way that I would keep whatever my parents offered my heart. I stored whatever they dished out within it, even though so often they had tried to destroy it. I was always looking out from my beauty with fear, as if someone was going to take it away. The puppies and kittens have allowed me to be beautiful with them. In their tender presence, I moved shyly into my own beauty, as if walking through a light that shines in front of me. At first I thought the star had sent this light, and that I must now walk into it. Then one of the rescuers that passed me on the street said, 'you are literally glowing today.' He gave me his smile and walked away whistling, thinking the city morning was warm on his skin. I realised that the puppies and kittens had allowed me to create this light. They had allowed me to enter myself and shine quietly there. They became my teachers and allowed me to follow their good example of love. For a puppy or a kitten will love until its last breath leaves its tiny lungs. I have rarely seen them angry at the world that neglected and threatened their lives, and that finally killed them without regret and in ignorance. I have only seen them as light brighter and more immediate than stars. Therefore when they physically die they pass away from this life on the breath of love. So it wasn't something that god had sent but something that god already was. I had found this great treasure on earth, and where else would I find it? You can't keep looking up to the sky dreaming about illusions. It was in New York City and it could have been in Melbourne. My heart is alive with light. The puppies and kittens are swelling with glow. It is here. It is here on this clean bush rock lodged in the ridge that I have found it. It is here by the fires inside the ten gallon drums that warm the city's fingers. I have travelled so far and long inside myself to find I have been standing on top of it. The world is ending. Yet there is a time when one must stop asking why? Why did my parents give birth to me and then try to kill me? Why if there is a good overseer does all this suffering continue to occur, as if right in front of the eyes of it, whilst the all powerful overseer never lifts a finger? Why do I feel so much pain and so much joy as if the star has chosen to work through me for the rescue? There is a time for compassion, for understanding life and death through a continual letting go. There is a time for the hard work, and for just getting on with it, for not asking why and for just getting on with the job. In the United States of the Apocalypse, I had learnt to take comfort from small things, such as the candle and the diamond ring. I felt the snow that had somehow escaped the dirt in the sky over the city, to be crystal clean as it touched me. There was big Canada shivering across the river, the deep dark forests climbing its back. It feels good to burn the hot strong oil and light a kerosene lantern, and to slip between my sleeping bag on the floor every night, after a full day's worth of animal rescuing. It feels good to know that I have done the best that I could for the animals and the earth, and could not have done a thing more or better, since I am always striving. There is a great feeling of satisfaction. The sense of physical tiredness after hard work. There is a sense of an acute purpose being fulfilled. I have a bath and get into the bag of peace and hibernation. I believe I am feeling joy during these moments. One day I will lie down for the final time inside this body to shed it. I want to feel this satisfaction then. I want to say, 'Whilst I was on this earth, I did my best for every creature,' and to myself, 'I love you,' and then enter the light. I do not want the last thing I see and hear to be those living in agony, and to know that I have to leave the earth and not take care of them, or look out for them any more. For then it is time to leave behind a trail of faith, as I race into the arms of the star. There are many others to do this work. When I die I want to be struck down with my boots still on and lifted into the arms of god, like a parent I never had. I want to come home after a hard day's work, and move into a state of relaxation, that I will never come back from. Knowing how to die has now given me a peace inside that I will work with, for all the years or days or hours ahead of me, that I will dedicate to saving puppies and kittens. |
