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    The Souls of Animals
    The Souls of Animals
    The Souls of Animals
    Ebook139 pages2 hours

    The Souls of Animals

    By Gary Kowalski

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Why do elephants bury their dead? What makes birds sing and cranes dance? Do animals appreciate art? Do they know the difference between right and wrong? Do they experience awe and wonder? In this revised second edition of his celebrated book, Reverend Gary Kowalski combines heartwarming stories with solid science to show that other creatures are not insensitive objects devoid of feeling and intellect but thinking, sentient beings with an inward, spiritual life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNew World Library
    Release dateOct 16, 2012
    ISBN9781608682096
    The Souls of Animals
    Author

    Gary Kowalski

    The Reverend Gary Kowalski is the author of bestselling books on animals, spirituality, and nature. His first book, The Souls of Animals, which explores other species’ capacities for love, creativity, and self-awareness, has been translated into Chinese, Czech, German, French, and Spanish and has sold over 80,000 copies worldwide. His second book, Goodbye, Friend, was featured by both One Spirit and the Quality Paperback Book Clubs and remains a valued resource for those grieving their animal companions. A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Divinity School, Reverend Kowalski is an ordained minister who has served churches in Tennessee, Washington State, Vermont, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. He is active in the Green Mountain Animal Defenders, an advocacy group working for better treatment of animals in entertainment, research, and agriculture. A committed vegan, he is past president of the Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry. His website is www.kowalskibooks.com.

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    Reviews for The Souls of Animals

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    • 5/5
      In a concise and carefully considered argument, Kowalski gives his own perception of not only the souls of animals, but the place of animals in this world and the relation of animals to our own spiritual lives. This book is touching and intelligent. I would pass it on to anyone who loves animals, and also to those who consider them as little more than objects, for this far surpassed any expectations. In truth, I bought it for the beautiful cover picture of the wolf as much as for any belief that the content would be affecting or meaningful. Yet, this book was a deeply spiritual experience for me--I have no other way to describe it, and I know I'll come back to it at many points in the future, as well as pass it on to friends. It is an easy and beautiful read, but undeniably smart as well, and will leave you looking further into yourself and the animals around you. My only warning/caveat is that Kowalski's careful research and references may add to your TBR pile. Highly Highly recommended.

    Book preview

    The Souls of Animals - Gary Kowalski

    1

    Do Animals Have Souls?

    What is the Question?

    Imagine a warm spring day on a small farm in Mississippi. The flowers are in fragrant bloom, and a sow that has free run of the farmyard has just given birth to piglets. Later that day, a glance under the porch where the new babies are resting reveals a wonderful sight. The mother pig has carefully bitten off blossoms to make a bouquet of jonquils, which she has arranged in a bright yellow wreath surrounding the sleeping litter.

    No one who saw such a scene could doubt that animals know just as much about nurturing and celebrating life as people do, and maybe much more. The woman who wrote to tell me about this barnyard nativity accompanied her letter with a hand-rendered drawing showing a halo of flowers with their stems pointing outward, petals toward the center, piglets nestled snugly in the middle. She included other stories as well, like the one about her two horses Rifle, a gelding, and April, a pretty black mare. Rifle was quite enamored of April. When the mare was sent to Missouri to be bred to a race horse, Rifle was never the same again, and he died not long afterward. Such experiences, along with seventy-four years of caring for dogs and cats, convinced my correspondent that animals indeed have souls, with joys and sorrows very much like our own.

    Over the years I received a good many letters like that from readers who believed, like me, that animals can inspire us to wiser and more winsome living. When The Souls of Animals was first published, I wrote about my own dog, Chinook, calling him my spiritual guide. Although he is no longer living, what I said then still holds:

    "My dog has deep knowledge to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn’t hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master, he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he’s tired. He’s not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that human beings would do well to emulate.

    "Chinook does have his failings, of course. He’s afraid of firecrackers and hides in the clothes closet whenever we run the vacuum cleaner, but unlike me he’s not afraid of what other people think of him or anxious about his public image. He barks at the mail carrier and the newsboy, but in contrast with some people I know he never growls at the children or barks at his wife.

    So my dog is a sort of guru. When I become too serious and preoccupied, he reminds me of the importance of frolicking and play. When I get too wrapped up in abstractions and ideas, he reminds me of the importance of exercising and caring for my body. On his own canine level, he shows me that it might be possible to live without inner conflicts or neuroses: uncomplicated, genuine, and glad to be alive.

    As Mark Twain remarked long ago, human beings have a lot to learn from the Higher Animals. Just because they haven’t invented static cling, ICBMs, or television evangelists doesn’t mean they aren’t spiritually evolved.

    But what does it mean for an animal (including the human animal) to be spiritually evolved? In my mind, it means many things: the development of a moral sense, the appreciation of beauty, the capacity for creativity, and the awareness of one’s self within a larger universe as well as a sense of mystery and wonder about it all. These are the most precious gifts we possess, yet there is nothing esoteric or otherworldly about such spiritual capabilities. Indeed, my contention is that spirituality is quite natural, rooted firmly in the biological order and in the ecology shared by all life.

    This book is about the spiritual lives of animals: whooping cranes, elephants, jackdaws, gorillas, songbirds, horses, and household dogs and cats. Much has been written about the intelligence of other species and their ability to solve problems. But spirituality is related less to problem-solving than to the kinds of problems we are even able to consider. We may contemplate death, for instance, without ever really hoping to solve the problem of our own demise. In reflecting on the spiritual lives of other creatures, therefore, I am concerned less with raw brain power, memory, and learning ability than I am with more subtle facets of intellgience such as empathy, artistry, and imagination.

    Investigations of interspecies spirituality take us into unmapped territory. Are other animals conscious of themselves, as we are? Do they grieve or have thoughts and feelings about the end of life? Do animals dream? Do they have a conscience or a sense of right and wrong? Do other species make music or appreciate art?

    In the years that have passed since this book first appeared, more and more experts have begun to address questions like these. A well-known psychologist has published a work on the emotional lives of animals: When Elephants Weep. Frans de Waal, a noted primatologist, has written books on peacemaking among primates and on the ways the political manuevering of chimps often seems to mirror our own. I am glad that these issues are finally receiving more attention from reputable researchers and scientists. Indeed, this book could not have been written without the insights of pioneers like Jane Goodall and Konrad Lorenz. Since I am not a zoologist, I depend heavily on their data. But while I have striven to be accurate and objective in my findings, this is a book that has more to do with religion than with science.

    I am a parish minister by vocation, so my own field of expertise is in the realm of the intangible. I pray with the dying and counsel the bereaved. I christen infants, and share in the joy of parents when new life comes into the world. I occasionally help people think through moral quandaries and make ethical decisions, and I also share a responsibilty for educating the young, helping them realize their inborn potential for reverence and compassion. Week after week I stand before my congregation and try to talk about the unfathomed riddles of existence. While I do not claim to know all the answers, having the title Reverend in front of my name does permit me to raise a host of questions that might be considered off-limits by hard-headed scientists and academicians. Clergy have a professional license to ponder topics that others consider

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