Who Are Our Pets and Animals?

             

                                                 Who Are Our Pets and Animals?

The wind whispered secrets through the ancient oak, rustling the leaves like dry parchment. Elara, a young scholar with eyes the color of twilight, traced the gnarled bark with a thoughtful finger. "It all comes back to breath, doesn't it?" she mused aloud, her voice soft against the rustling.

Her mentor, Lyra, sat beside her, her gaze fixed on the setting sun painting the sky in fiery hues. "Indeed, little one. The very word 'animal' breathes with that understanding."

Elara nodded, recalling her latest studies. "From the Latin anima, meaning breath, soul, spirit. And then animalis, animate, living. And finally, animal, a living being that breathes." She savored the words, rolling them on her tongue. "It's so beautifully simple, yet profound."

"The ancients," Lyra began, her voice a low hum, "they didn't separate life as we often do now. To them, the deer bounding through the forest, the fish in the stream, and even the human telling stories by the fire, all shared that fundamental spark – the anima. That shared breath was the thread connecting them all."

Elara imagined a vast, invisible web, spun from the breaths of every creature, rising and falling in unison. "So, when we say 'animal,' we're not just categorizing a type of creature, are we? We're acknowledging its essence, its very right to exist, its shared spark of life."

Lyra smiled, a network of gentle wrinkles fanning out from her eyes. "Precisely. It's a reminder of our interconnectedness. A silent whisper from the past, urging us to remember that we are all, in essence, breathing things, sharing this great, vibrant breath of existence."

The last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, and the first stars began to prickle the deepening sky. A lone owl hooted in the distance, its call a soft, rhythmic breath in the encroaching night. Elara closed her eyes, feeling the cool night air on her skin, and took a deep, deliberate breath. The word "animal" now held a new weight, a deeper resonance, a silent echo of the ancient understanding of life itself.

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          In Italian, the word for soul is “Anima.”  It reminds me of the book Animals are Soul Too by author Harold Klemp.