Learning to understand animals, respect their boundaries with an open mind and through keen observation, we can explore the limitless potential of the animal-human bond and more importantly open our souls to a deeper understanding of this world, says Radhika. A Different Truths exclusive.

My very favorite memories of childhood involve exploring the forbidden ridge forest in the Delhi cantonment with my friends, begging my grandfather to take me to the market every weekend to buy an elephant, observing tiny ants, slugs with my sisters and running wild with my pack of stray dogs late into the evening. I found myself to be the happiest during those times. Animals gave me a sense of unwavering companionship and sense of freedom that I found fleetingly in human relationships. The world was full of sunshine and I was a wild flower.

It was my grandfather, who filled my mind with stories of his astonishing adventures with animals, several of whom he had as pets, including monkeys, horses and even a huge mysterious owl which flew down and sat on his shoulder one day and decided to stay over at him home for a few days until one day taking off just as unexpectedly after a period of rest and recovery.  Together, we rescued injured birds, grasshoppers with broken legs, reunited lost puppies with their mothers and filled water in drying puddles full of wriggling tadpoles after the rains. It was during these formative years that I realised I loved animals. I believe all children have an inherent love and fascination for animals which, over time is forgotten as they are repeatedly told by elders that animals are dangerous, and best be avoided.

I had my fair share of scratches and bites from animals along the way but nothing that I even as a child didn’t learn from. Learning to understand animals, respect their boundaries with an open mind and through keen observation, we can explore the limitless potential of the animal-human bond and more importantly open our souls to a deeper understanding of this world.

There is one illustration from a story that had captivated my heart with its vivid capture of a precious few moments shared between a little girl and a fox. This experience that comes vibrantly alive in Jane, the Fox, and Me — a stunning graphic novel Written by Fanny Britt and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault about a young girl named Hélène, who is cruelly teased by the “mean girls” at school. Hélène has been unaccountably cold-shouldered by the girls who were once her friends. Her school life is full of awkwardness and she has a fictional friend to help with the loneliness she felt. However, when Hélène is shamed on a class camping trip in front of her entire grade, she needs more than a fictional friend to allow her to see herself as a person deserving of compassion and friendship.

Leaving her tent one night at the camp, Hélène encounters a fox, a beautiful creature with whom she shares a moment of connection. “A fox. A real live red fox. Its eyes are so kind, I just about burst. That same look in another human’s eyes, and my soul would be theirs for sure.”

But when a girl from her class frightens the fox away, insisting that it must be rabid, Hélène’s despair becomes even more pronounced: now she believes that only a diseased and dangerous creature would ever voluntarily approach her.

Our own sense of self expands with the connection to animals, especially those from the wild, paving the way to a new understanding. I see wild animals as great ambassadors and mediators for resolution of our disconnect with nature. They sense fear and danger from us. They can also sense indifference and love.

There are several instances of wild animals approaching humans for help like the time when a whale shark in Sydney, Australia approached some people to release a rope tightly wound around its body and waited patiently while they cut the rope. A young fox with its head hopelessly stuck in a glass jar, unable to free itself, walked up to some men who happily obliged in removing the container. A group of marine photographers in Hawaii, got an unexpected visit from a distressed dolphin in January 2013. The dolphin circled around them several times, eventually swimming up to one of them and drew attention to its left fin which was painfully entangled in fishing wire and pierced by a metal hook. The dolphin waited patiently while diver Keller Laros cut away the wire digging painfully into the animal’s flesh.

These experiences leave the rescuers feeling exhilarated through the encounters with the animals, perhaps changing their perception about our action towards the planet and our co-inhabitants forever. We can learn so much from the animals about how to live in harmony and balance on the Earth.

More and more humans need to recognise the real possibilities of altering our consciousness and energy to resound with those of wild animals. How can we use deep connections with wild animals to foster better relationships between people and nature and thus people and the planet? Perhaps you need to gaze deeply into the eyes of an animal to find the answer.

Author Michael Roads details his personal struggle between his intuition and personal experience against his logic, skepticism, and fear, in his excellent book, Talking with Nature, he finally concluded:

…If this is an illusion I am experiencing with Nature, if it is all imagination — then it’s okay. I like it. Who can make me a better offer? Polluted food and air? Is that better? To maintain a belief in death, fear, greed? Are they better? A dogmatic religion with a judgmental God? Is that better? My experience is uplifting, expanding, loving, creative, intelligent. Who can offer me a better reality or illusion? If I feel a great love toward Nature, and I feel love radiating to me from Nature, who has a better illusion to offer?

©Radhika Bhagat

Photos sourced by the author

#RespectAnimals #UnderstandingAnimals #AnimalBoundary #Openmindedness #AnimalSpirit #SpiritOfNature #Ecospirituality

Radhika Bhagat

Radhika Bhagat is a Wildlife Conservationist based in India. She has been working since several years to protect wildlife and habitats across India and other South Asian countries. She is also formally trained in Yogic sciences and is exploring the subject of spiritual reverence towards nature as the basis for balance for our individual selves and also for our planet.She loves the sea and believes all answers lie in our inherent wildness.

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