Sharing

Sharing is a multidirectional journey. ONE famous teacher said that " it is by giving that you receive". As we unfold our story many of you have shared stories , jokes, essays, prayers, and sentiments which reflect the glory of humanities' thoughts, aspirations, arguments, and hopes over the ages flavored by the rainbow of our daily senses.

As you know we lost our pet laborador on Christmas Eve and Margie and I note daily how our walks down the lane to get the mail or the paper, winter-time yard duties, feeding and grooming schedule absent the dog have left a big absence in our family structure. We aren't anxious to replace her( couldn't possibly be done anyway) because of our other tenuous situations and the desire to travel while time permits.We received this short essay by Henry Beston from a sister traveler and dog lover. We share with you. Thanks Elise.

Animals

We need another and wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image
in distortion. We patronize animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fated of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err.

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world order and more complete that ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.



Worry looks about, sorrow looks back, faith looks up, and hope looks forward. We test each position and make a nest where we find comfort. I hop from nest to nest-but I think hope is warmest and provides greatest comfort.

Thanks to all for sharing. Eric