The Kindred Spirits Project goal to assist in creating a world based on loving kindness and compassion for all beings has reached a milestone with the creation of the “Law of Mother Earth”, by thePresident of Bolivia, Evo Morales, the first indigenous leader of Bolivia on International Earth Day 2011. This is the world’s first legislation that grants to nature rights equal to humans, The Law of Mother Earth. Wikipedia offers the best summary I have seen of the Law of Mother Earth.
According to the Guardian, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, states that “In Bolivia we seek a return to balance, a harmonious life not only between individuals but between man and nature, so today must be a day of reflection of awareness of all to care for our Mother Earth and take timely means to bring our mother back to its natural balance”.
The first article of the Law of Mother Earth says that every human activity has to “achieve dynamic balance with the cycles and processes inherent in Mother Earth.” This Law defines Mother Earth as “a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.” Mother Earth is considered a conscious being and sacred according to most indigenous cultures.
President Morales shares some prescient thoughts such as “the planet can live without humans, but humans can not live without the planet”. (more…)
World renowned musician, animal lover, and kindred spirit, Bettine Clemen, shares her musical message of Trans-species love and connections throughout the world with so many different species. This video of Icelandic horses connecting with Bettine through angelic flute songs illustrates how we all connect through music. Her video documentation of the most heart warming moments in interspecies connections are available on her youtube channel.
Healing music and healing sound frequencies, are just one way that we all deepen our connections and re-awaken our transcendent consciousness. Other gateways to awakening to these deeper connections include, nature, meditation, qi gong, yoga, just sharing quiet moments with animals, and other ways to quiet the daily busy mind traffic that tends to distract us from all that is. Watch these icelandic horses and how they respond to Bettine’s melodious messages.
Have you had any experiences in playing music with animals and seeing how they respond? Please send any video’s or comments on these experiences. This is one other aspect of the kindred spirits project that we are collecting.
Bettine is a veritable trans-species troubadour connecting to animals in some of the most unexpected places from the slums of Kathmandu and India to the Antarctic. She is also finding that the music is deepening her communication with all animals and is integrating her animal communication skills with her music. Bettine is a beautiful example of what this blog is all about. She exemplifies the continued creation of a new world based on loving kindness and compassion for all beings. She travels throughout the world sharing her melodious, healing message. Enjoy her music video’s and may they nourish your inner joy, peace and love and your connections with your kindred spirits!
One of my dear clients brought this to my awareness and I realized that we need to share this information with all dog and cat caretakers. Please inform every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don’t have a
pet, please pass this to those who do. My client shared this with me today. Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from one of the common box stores to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn’t acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took their dog out for her morning walk. Halfway through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company’s web site,
they found the statement “This product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats”. (more…)
Kudos to my dear friend and Professor Emeritus in Animal Behavior at the University of Colorado, Dr. Marc Bekoff for his blog post on the emotional lives of honeybees and the brains of jellyfish. Apparently, it has been shown that honeybees display increased expectation of bad outcomes in response to stress. In other words, as Dr. Bekoff states “they become pessimists”. Dr. Bekoff states that Melissa Bateson and colleagues have demonstrated that “they also show altered levels of neurochemicals (dopamine, serotonin and octopamine) that are associated with stress. Can I think of how many times I do that? Let me count the ways! Read his entire post for more information on this fascinating discovery.
In addition to Dr. Bekoff’s wise insights into the implications of these discoveries, I also agree with his perspective that it is time to let go of our “speciesism”.
Dr. Bekoff states “How exciting it is to learn more about animals who we typically write off as being “lower” and not especially intelligent or emotional. Fish also are far more complex than previously thought and are now considered to be very intelligent and sentient beings (see also). Indeed, drawing lines between “higher” and “lower” species, a practice called speciesism, is fraught with errors and shouldn’t be done. Animals do what they need to do to be card-carrying members of their species and we need to remember that numerous nonhuman animals outperform us in many different ways”.
In other words, we continue to have this “holier than though” attitude that other species and genus do not have thoughts or emotions or consciousness. The more we discover that other species have similar neurochemicals, the more realize how much of our emotional lives we all share. Perhaps we should shift from a philosophy of speciesism to a philosophy of Conscious Commons or Emotional Commons as I term these concepts. In other words, a recognition that we share a common foundation of consciousness and emotions with most animals, until proven otherwise.
A fascinating film just came out on bee’s titled ” Queen of the Sun’ that brilliantly illustrates our interconnectivity.
How remarkable the world might look to us if we acknowledged the emotional lives of animals.
What are your thoughts on this fascinating subject?
We all want to be happy. Sharing our lives with other animals brings great joy to animal lovers. It seems that the more people are in nature, sharing their lives with animals, the happier they become. Even city dwellers yearn to get out of the city on weekends to experience some connection with nature and animals. There is a new field and website called “Ecological Buddhism” where the principles of respect for all beings meets ecology. There are many excellent articles and video’s on this subject and what we can do.
One article on the global climate emergency impacts on all of us and what we can do. (more…)
It seems that we are not alone in experiencing mood and anxiety disorders as is stated in this article http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0019855#abstract0“>paper on mood and anxiety disorders in chimpanzee’s. The paper states that ” In humans, traumatic experiences are sometimes followed by psychiatric disorders. In chimpanzees, studies have demonstrated an association between traumatic events and the emergence of behavioral disturbances resembling posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.” According to the results of this research, chimpanzees do indeed….. “develop posttraumatic symptoms, in the form of abnormal behaviors, which cluster into syndromes similar to those described in human mood and anxiety disorders”.
It seems quite evident that since we share over 97% of our genetic makeup with chimpanzee’s, share the same neurotransmitters and neurohormones, that it is no wonder that we might share the same response to trauma. As the paper states, hopefully this evidence will lead to more humane treatment of primates in captivity and research. I would like to consider extrapolating this research to more than just our fellow primates. (more…)
The New Scientist magazine has just come out with an entire issue about how our connection to animals may have been the key to our survival as a species as is depicted in this brief animated explanation. I think it is momentous that a respected magazine like New Scientist has recognized the importance of animals in our lives, even if, as they say as useful tools. I wonder though about the compassionate connection and how that may have been involved as well. Certainly, survival is primary, but I wonder about that is interconnected with a more loving bond. For instance, when the Russians were breeding fox for fur coats, they inadvertently were selecting for foxes that were easier to catch, more friendly with people etc. simply because they were the easiest to work with. Over generations, they ended up breeding foxes that were also adaptable as pets and created a entire new industry of foxes as pets. This selective breeding for domesticity occurred in a relatively short period of time. Perhaps our ancestors also, inadvertently, selectively bred all our domestic animals for increased ability to work with and increased friendliness.
I would be interested in your thoughts based on this brief animated description.
It seems that, what Harvard Entomologist, E. O. Wilson, has called “biophilia” is true. We are innately and intimately connected to all of life. It seems that it makes sense to preserve all life and re-create a world that makes that our priority. May all our thoughts and actions help support this revival of a nature and compassion based society.
I just returned from a fascinating workshop on medicinal mushrooms with world famous mycologist Paul Stamets and his wise, wonderful, supportive wife, Dusty. He presented an abundance of information on the scientific basis and cultivation of medicinal and edible mushrooms and how they can help save the world. The workshop was at a beautiful, mountainous retreat known as Foxglove Farm on Saltspring Island, where a good friend, author and bioneer, Michael Ableman is offering courses on self-sustainability. Paul Stamets (www.fungi.com) shared his decades of experience, filled with hilarious anecdotes about how he pioneered the discovery of numerous new uses of mushrooms for medicinal purposes, for bio-remediation of toxins as well as for beneficial food sources in times of need. Paul presented a superb lecture at TED Talks summarizing his vision of how mushrooms can save the world in 6 easy ways.
Personally, I have used medicinal mushrooms in my veterinary practice for decades. They are an instrumental component of my integrative approach for the treatment of immune mediated conditions, cancer as well as supporting health and wellness in the geriatric dog and cat. They are an integral part of Traditional Chinese Herbal medicine as well. Paul and I briefly discussed his beneficial anecdotal use of medicinal mushrooms in many species great and small over the decades. (more…)
Watching this intriguing video created by an orange tabby cat, Cooper, Seattle’s resident cat photographer, with a videocamera around his neck and his human caretakers, we receive a glimpse of a world view according to one of our feline friends. Apparently this cat has his very own youtube site offering further glimpses through the mind of one cat. In reality, there are not only seven billion human universes, but trillions of animal universes sharing and experiencing Mother Earth as well.
In some philosophies and perspectives, each mind is it’s own universe. Each mind perceives the outer world through our basic five senses as well as through our sixth sense and perhaps more. This perspective of trillions of animal universes is currently being documented through modern neuroscience, animal behavior and trans-species psychology. Through modern technology, we are now able have broader multisensory windows into the hearts and minds of our kindred spirits. Apparently even the navy is using similar technology training dolphins to assist them in seeing underwater area’s through their own eyes as well. Youtube has allowed people to not only have glimpses from millions of viewers on their perspective of the universe, but has also allowed us to document numerous unusual animal behaviors and inter-species interactions and contemplate what is going on in the animals minds. Many of the posts on this site focus on some of these fascinating video’s and explore their deeper meanings based on my theories of Trans-species Fields Theory. For more of Cooper’s view of life, check out Photographer Cat.com(more…)
As we create a more compassion based society for all beings, it is refreshing to see how much fun this can be. A light-hearted co-species surfing competition between 50 different dogs gathered everyone together for charity as described in this Huffington post article. When you see the joy in the faces of these dogs as they surf the waves, one can feel how they are totally in the moment, quite focused, and loving the fun. In a way, it is a form of active meditation, totally focused in the moment. It helps us quiet that busy mind traffic that continually permeates our mindstream. The inner joy that it brings to all who watch and participate is a great way to play together and raise needed funds for various charities. A win-win-win opportunity.