Tag Books

A symphony of empowerment

Nancy Crowe

Our-Symphony-With-Animals-Cover-Two-Thirds-Original-SizeAysha Akhtar was only five when a close family friend began molesting her. The abuse continued for five years and across two continents, after her family moved from London to Virginia. She told no one.

Then came Sylvester, a German shepherd mix technically belonging to a relative, but basically her dog. They shared friendship, kinship, walks in the woods … and abuse, as Sylvester’s owner’s idea of training was throwing him against a wall.

Akhtar, now a neurologist and public health specialist, recounts their journey and much more in Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies (Pegasus Books, 2019).

Writing this book took Akhtar into not only her own history, but into a slaughterhouse, an animal sanctuary, a prison, and a forensic necropsy by an ASPCA veterinarian. She even corresponded with and visited an imprisoned serial killer who’d also abused animals. Akhtar does this both as an accomplished physician and scholar and as a human being who is deeply affected by what she sees and hears.

Through it all, she challenges us to examine the ways we break with and join with animals in our actions and attitudes. The effect one life can have on another, even and especially across species lines, is profound. It was Sylvester who helped the young Akhtar find the strength to stand up first for him, then for herself.

The stories here range from inspiring to devastating, but you can visit the author’s website for suggestions on how to make a difference. That one starfish is counting on it.

 

 

 

 

Animal Wise: ‘Guides’ sheds light on difficult subjects

Nancy Crowe
Photo by MabelAmber:Pixabay(Photo by MabelAmber/Pixabay)

As much as Susan Chernak McElroy gets it right with Animals as Teachers and Healers (Ballantine Books, 1997), she gets right to the heart with Animals as Guides for the Soul (Ballantine Books, 1998).

This follow-up is not only a worthy exploration of the relationship between humans and animals, but also a potentially transforming walk through some of the thorniest aspects of these relationships.

8482McElroy, who has worked as a technical writer and editor as well as in several animal-related occupations, writes largely from her experience on a small Wyoming farm. Insights from people who wrote to her after reading her previous book are included.

I appreciate so much in Guides for the Soul, but here are three primary take-aways.

The first is that the healing benefits of our relationships with animals are often subtle, but no less powerful. It isn’t always the spectacular, tossing-away-the-cane miracle with the therapy dog. More often, it’s the steady warmth of the cat curled up on the patient’s lap or the jingling of tags along a quiet country road day after day. Sometimes the miracle is only seen in hindsight.

“We are so conditioned to expect drama and heroics in healing that we forget the staggering importance of all the healing that goes unseen,” says McElroy, a cancer survivor. (Check out this wonderful six-minute video about two guys — one a morbidly overweight human, the other a middle-aged rescue dog — who healed each other.)

What if, she asks, we were to believe that the being at the end of the leash, in the cat carrier, or on a perch could heal by his or her very presence, offering exactly what is needed in every moment? That the dog nuzzling a crying adult was administering critical emotional first aid, or the horse heard the bullied teen as no one else could? Is that so far off the mark?

Second, McElroy delves into the rocky territory of death in a way that can benefit anyone who has lost a much-loved animal, particularly when the loss is accompanied by shame and guilt. These experiences and memories, however long ago, stick to us until we acknowledge their multilayered impact, she says.

Quoting respected authors on pet loss as well as people confronting long-buried grief and remorse, she offers perspective and tools for healing. However, she is respectful enough not to put forth easy answers. The stories of McElroy’s precious llama, Phaedra; and Jody Seay’s elderly black Lab friend McKenzie, are likely to bring both a tear and a spark of hope.

Finally, even when the animals involved are not our own, what can we do when we witness the inexplicable and cruel? When McElroy was about 11, a young coyote with his mangled leg still dangling in a steel-jaw trap was part of a wildlife exhibit at a nearby park. Day after day, he lay in a rusting wire cage with no food or water. She pleaded with the park rangers to care for the coyote. They ignored her. She begged her parents to do something, wrote to the local paper, and contacted the town mayor and her family’s veterinarian.

No adult would intervene until she called Mrs. Roberts, the mother of a friend, who picketed the park. The exhibit shut down within a week. The coyote made the front page of the local paper and was released to Mrs. Roberts, whose veterinarian husband helped care for the coyote in a backyard pen. Months later, Mrs. Roberts drove the coyote to the desert and released him back into the wild.

“She reminded me that although it was she who freed the coyote, it was I who had brought the coyote to her attention. At the age of eleven, I learned that one person can stand up against suffering and make a difference,” McElroy recalls.

We should all have, or be, a Mrs. Roberts.

Unpacking a code of ethics

Nancy Crowe

51GcazjWWaLAlthough a shared code of ethics is important for any profession, that code carries much more weight when we explore what it means for us each day. Kathleen Prasad‘s latest book, Healing Virtues: Transforming Your Practice Through the Animal Reiki Practitioner Code of Ethics, does this succinctly and wisely. A review copy of this book was provided to me by the author, with whom I have been blessed to study.

Readers of her previous books will find more of a new context — the Animal Reiki Practitioner Code of Ethics, which she developed — than new content. However, this is a valuable review and unpacking of the code of ethics, to which I as a practitioner subscribe.

The book covers the basic principles of letting the animal lead the treatment, “being” instead of “doing” Reiki, and never diagnosing — but also the nuts and bolts of setting treatment times and communicating with the humans involved. Plenty of real-life examples are included. I loved that our Animal Reiki III and Teacher Training weekend at The Devoted Barn animal sanctuary, and the “before and after” effect Kathleen talks about in the book, was among them.

Also discussed are confidentiality, what to do with intuitive information received, and working in conjunction with veterinarians and other animal care professionals in the community. Kathleen does not shy away from the very real and difficult issues of animal suffering, compassion fatigue, and misunderstanding about what it is we actually do. This book helps us access the code of ethics to effectively and compassionately address these concerns.

Healing Virtues is great for working practitioners, but if you are new to the topic, I recommend Kathleen’s Animal Reiki: Using Energy to Heal the Animals in Your Life, co-authored with Elizabeth Fulton; and the more recent Heart to Heart with Horses: The Equine Lover’s Guide to Reiki.