Originally published May 4, 2013 on quan yin gardens on blogspot

This blog is not about predators threatening the free range flock or some disease or another that takes them from us – it is about the spiritual dimension and teachings involved in loosing a chicken – as in: it is no longer part of your flock, you will never see it again – whether it is dead or went to live somewhere else – it is OUT OF YOUR life.

In the last couple of years I have lost 2 dogs and in the last few months – it was chickens. The first losses were young roos lost to predators, then there was culling, and shipping to new homes, someone coming to pick one of them up and sending more of them off for culling, then there was sweet Runti last week.

This morning,  May 3, 2013, a predator got one of the 2 remaining buff boys in the orchard. I could see from the feathers in several spots that he tried to get away. Of the buff boys, he was the sweetest and most trusting. …and again – I wonder, as I did with the others: did he suffer? – hoping he didn’t, recalling the state I was in when I had a car accident – and if it is anything like that – then there is no suffering. Certainly – it would be less scary than having to travel in a crate and be put into a cone? — but, and here is the thing – when i found what was left of him – he was already dead – he was gone. WHATEVER suffering may or may not have gone on was no more. It was done. Where did he go? Whether he went back to God or dissolved into the premordial Being – he’d be fine in either case. In fact – he would have vanished without a trace of individuality. And if he has an eternal soul – he would carry the love and his earth time with him. Either way, he’d be ok. And if he was just some mechanical scripted sentient machine – he was now kaput to the degree that he was no more in the sense that the life, the spirit that moves through all things no longer moved through him and the body was in the process for desintegrating.

So I observed my reaction, what I did with his body and was put back into the space-time when ancient homo sapiens walked the earth and their magical thinking about death, ancestors and even why cannibals eat humans, why eating the heart of an animal was magical etc.

There is a mystery.

…but back to this one: he is gone, they will all go sooner or later and all I ever can think of is: may they have a good life. This is their only life. ….and that is true for humans too: as this particular human – no matter how much we are all the same – and how similar it all is: it is none the less its only life ever….ever …. and while they are alive – they are sentient.

And after the chickens are gone, they are so totally gone …there is this realization that all they had was the moment of their life ..and all I could ever do to them was right then in their life – and only then did it make a difference to the totality of BEING itself – only in that 1 moment of the NOW can you ever go any good or harm. Now he is no more. Grief is literally pointless, even though sentient beings seem to go through it in stages.

Ok, it seems I didn’t do a real good job explaining.

There is always only the now.
If this sweet roo ceased to exist as an individual roo, having melted back into the light, it may not matter now that I love him simply because he is no more … it only mattered in the moment – that I gave him an extra treat that day …in that moment it mattered, not before or afterwards. He no longer suffers now, like Runti.
So I catch myself thinking about him, going back over things and realizing: there is no point. Holding on is pointless because he is gone, forever – and all I  ever had, all anyone ever has –  is NOW – this very moment.

Having connected with him eye to eye – what is it the connected?

Would it make a difference if they had eternal individual souls?

More and more this here is realized as truth (for the moment): I had nothing but myself with which to make the world.

It is somehow comforting to imagine that they – animals as well as humans – have a soul and that the love stays with them, or,  that karma will catch up with them one way or the other, but really, if they do not then – get this ….it is only in the moment that anything matters, that the love added to the totality of Being ………

ok fine – I can’t explain it….but these repeated losses  have been driving something home …about impermanence, uniqueness as well as non-separation of everything and the only difference we can ever make is NOW – and this feeling realization is slowly changing me.

Oh well, enough – there are many more aspects to this. Some say it does get easier with the chickens – but I wonder ….. because each one is unique ….and it’ll likely be the same. ….. and all I can hope to do is love them, give them the opportunity to let them be who they are and do my best so they don’t suffer.

Then there is that whole issue about consciousness and life forms …. including plants – but that is a whole other story as well as: it is all energy and vibration ….hm ….

So the lesson – can’t be described.

The words sound maybe something like this: Your responsibility is NOW. Your life and their life is only NOW.

Re-sharing this one, made in 2002 – it is only part 1 – I chose it because of what the teacher says: they only have this one life …. but it really is quite a remarkable teacher and class and I recommend you watch all 5 parts.