Blessings for the Human Animal

I've been reading David Abram's delightful new book, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, an exploration of our creaturely selves in relationship to the rest of the animate world and this morning I came upon this blessing poem by the late Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue. These two voices speak directly to my soul in relationship to my experience of the non-human world. I often feel more kindred with the trees, the elements, the four-leggeds, and the winged-ones than the two-legged variety. And likely why I'm drawn to the shamanic and indigenous tradition(s) from around the world. I recently heard Abram's speak at Trinity Episcopal and he used the term "omnierotic" as a way to define a way of being in love with ALL the world that is beyond any duality associated with the feminine vs masculine dialectic. I find that fascinating and the concept is still gestating within me. Today, on Global Oneness Day, may we remember that we are also one with our non-human friends on this beautiful blue planet. That our fellow brothers and sisters of all species, including our own, need our compassion and protection. May we remember that we are indeed all interconnected in the web of life. May it be so.

To Learn from Animal Being
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:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking out from
The here and now.

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.

May we enter
Into lightness of spirit,
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.

Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.

May we learn to walk
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And light and the rain.

From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings