Animal Speak

#1126 -

If you talk to the animals
they will talk with you
and you will know each other.
If you don't talk to them,
you will not know them.
And what you do not know
you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.

Chief Dan George

#1127 - Sometimes encountering an animal makes me curious. My favorite source in this situation is a book called Animal-Speak: The Spiritual and Magical Power of Creatures Great and Small (where I got the previous quote) by Ted Andrews. Today I looked up bald eagles.

There are 59 species of eagle in the world, only 2 of which are found in North America! (Bald and Golden) The Harpy Eagles are the largest and most powerful. (I didn't know there were larger eagles than bald eagles.)

"The mating ritual of the bald eagle is one of its most mystical and intriguing aspects...The birds soar, loop, and plunge into deep dives. At a certain point, they grab each others feet and lock talons, rolling and falling, until the mating is completed. Then they separate and soar upwards to repeat the process over and over again."

"Many eagles mate for life. The male will collect the material for the nests, but the female will be the architect...Although the roles in the construction of the nests are separate, the task of feeding the young is shared by both."

#1128 - I distinctly remember as a teenager a slamming door pulling me back into reality. I was reading a Christopher Pike book (teenage thriller) and had become so caught up in the story, it took me a few moments after the noise to realize where I was and even who I was, safe in my room, no one coming after me :)

I was reminded of this today when I became lost in a story. Getting lost in television isn't hard for me to fathom - eyes and ears both flooded with information. But a book gives your ears nothing and your eyes only some Black Marks on a White Page, and from these Black Marks our Imagination can Create a Whole World.




#1129 -

"When you're chained by the neck to a tree, and deprived of all freedom - the freedom to move around, to talk, to eat, to drink, to carry out your most basic bodily needs - well, it took me several years to realize it, but you still have the most important freedom of all, which no one can take away from you: that is the freedom to choose what kind of person you want to be."

Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

Ingrid Betancourt

#1130 -

"Jesus was All Virtue, and Acted from Impulse, Not From Rules"

William Blake