And the Animal Connections

About the Critters...

Along with being born a writer, I was also born with a particular connection to animals. And I didn’t know it until my twenties, but one of my strongest connections is with birds, strange as that is to me. At just about nineteen, I realized one of my important totems is the Owl. In my mid-twenties, I found myself offered the opportunity to apprentice with a falconer, and it was an amazing experience. At the same time, I also found myself suddenly expected to tend animals at a nature center where I then volunteered, overseen by a vet who helped guide me along the way. Quickly, my responsibilities became very in-depth and diversified. From cleaning and building enclosures to exercising, rehabbing and caring for all types of species, including: raccoons, iguanas, caiman, opossum, spiders, turtles, squirrels, snakes, servals, rabbits, bobcat, foxes, birds of prey as well as other birds like sparrows, pigeons and doves.

It was never a gift I asked for; it was simply a part of me. Again, like my writing. Today, I realize how much gratitude I have for this connection to the animals. It sounds cliché, but their gifts to me outweigh by far whatever care or love I may offer to them. Something of sacred, wordless communication takes place... Others who have experienced it can certainly understand, but the interaction itself is hard, at least for me, to explain in full. It is beautiful, it is authentic. It can be playful, it can be unbearably heartbreaking, it can be amazing. It is that full-spectrum kind of communication that immerses and nourishes and awes.