Blog, Other Animals, Squirrels | September 21, 2010
Approaching the office to give Tutankhamun his breakfast, Barette, our gorgeous iridescent black rooster is basking on the doorstep in the early morning sun. His favorite place. I say excuse me as he moves aside to let me in the door. He has his dignity and needs his recognition. I really should have said good morning first – courtesy counts.
Tutankhamun was found on the ground stretched long and thin and cold. A kind person brought him home, gave him fluids in the night and brought him to us the next day. He was very weak and dehydrated but he did make an effort to eat. We put him on a hot water bottle and let him snuggle in the soft red cloth he had come in. The second evening we were gone a few hours and when we got back the water bottle had cooled. When I picked him up he was so cold and unmoving we thought he was dead. Our hearts just sank. He had been so weak we half expected the end. But to our relief and delight there was a heart beat and as we warmed him he began to move. And eat! Since he was unable to warm himself even in a cozy nest in a heated room, we kept an eagle eye on that hot water bottle from then on. For days he continued to be very weak, sleeping, and only waking when being picked up for feeding. We consulted nutritionists; worried; wished he would show more vitality. Then…what is that old saying – be careful what you wish for? We watched in always new amazement as the brain connections were made and consciousness increased. We now have an extremely lively, demanding little being on our hands.
It took a while before we found a name for him – it had to fit. Driving down the road Tutankhamun popped into my thoughts. Boyking. It felt right – a large name for a large spirit in a small body. And given how demanding he now is asserting his rights, perhaps I was sensing the future.
After feeding Tuttle ( there are formal names and nick-names) I went to check on Teton Totem the grizzly bear. As he lumbered over to greet me I reflected that what struck me more than the rather dramatic size difference was the commonality of the life force. Because one is much larger doesn’t mean it wants to live more or that the life force is stronger. Or that we should consider it to be more important. I am quite sure that is what Tuttle would say.
Blog | September 21, 2010
As of this writing we have 47,000 hits and counting on the Energy Healing Wolf video. Hits on the website have gone up 1000% in the last three months. The wonderful thing is that we are sharing our vision of a different relationship between humans and wild animals with more people – that a better and deeper relationship is truly possible. One of our supporters writes: “Earthfire is doing work on an energetic level that is very moving and they can quickly get the viewer to understand that we have so much to learn from wolves and there is so much more that we can know about them than we had ever taken the time to think about and absorb.” Cherylynn Costner. This is exactly what we hope to help people to realize about ALL wild animals. It is a win-win for both animals and humans. As we become vastly enriched, we work harder to keep a place for them on our planet. To see Energy Healing Wolf and more, click here.
People are responding in droves- there is such a hunger for a positive new way of being on the earth. They talk about their deep desire to change their perspective of not only animals but how they specifically can live differently; of the concept of a paradigm shift resonating with them; of how they have gotten out of touch and yearn for a deeper connection with nature. We heard from a wildlife rehabilitator who wants to improve their handling of stressed animals and from people who want to make films; from those who are in need of personal healing and those who want to come teach here; from people who want to reconnect with their creative side.
One result of this exciting news: We need an Assistant Director to help us direct this outpouring of energy and passion in a way that honors it; help us grow as an as effective organization, and spread the vision ever more powerfully. We are also looking for funding to help support this new position. Let us know if you know of a person who might be interested, or if there is someone eho might be able to help with funding. Thank you!
Blog, Coyotes, Foxes | September 17, 2010
We have received a matching grant of $5000.00 for the Small Animal Garden! Now all we need is the match. Please help us 
obtain this by donating to the Small Animal Garden so our coyotes and foxes can have more time outside their enclosures. As you use PayPal to make your donation make sure to specify that you want the money to go towards the Small Animal Garden. The sooner we get funds the sooner we can start on the project before the ground freezes. Thank You!
More about the Small Animal Garden
We were given a wonderful donation two years ago to give the small creatures spacious enclosures but that is not the same as a garden to spend their days in. They need to feel the grass under their feet; to dig to their heart’s content, to leap after grasshoppers and dig for ground squirrels, to splash through a stream and lie under the shade of a tree on a fall afternoon with the sweet scent of fall wafting past their sensitive noses. For them we so want to build a Small Animal Garden.
I would also like to add a note of urgency. Feather, our sweet, sweet loving elder-fox was rescued from a fur farm 12 years ago – she has been waiting a long time and may not make it through the winter. Streak the coyote is 11. Thus we have made the Small Animal Garden our highest priority. Then, after that, individual gardens for the bears…
To make a donation click here
Blog, Coyotes | September 17, 2010
An Attempt at Translation and Interpretation Between Species with Some Kernels of Truth To It
Small animals are as important as big ones. Definitely in their own minds, and in actuality too. (In fact the most important life forms that support the earth are the tiniest – it is only we who are more impressed by the big).
The small animals of Earthfire have asked me to set the record straight. They are very, very, very important and wonderful. We humans are just too preoccupied and out of it to know it. Definitely our loss.
They are not too thrilled with my own orientation that ALL life forms are important – they do think, as we do, that they are special, unique and of the greatest worth, more important and wonderful than anything else and I should be paying attention to them only. However they tolerate my giving attention to others, as long as I pay sufficient homage to their particular importance, which I gladly do. While I believe in the abstract position that all life is sacred, philosophy is rather a fleshless and bland place in which to live – it is concrete, physical flesh and blood beings that give vibrancy and meaning and mischief and just enough inconvenience to be really real – they “flesh out” the concept.
Now if you want real vibrant flesh and blood, vitality, inconvenience and a sense of their own importance, there is nothing like a coyote. Well – it is a mistake, even an insult to talk about coyotes as a species, as they are all so individual (do we like it when people talk about “humans”? No. We each are different from the mass of humans no doubt, better in fact. Same with them). I should say rather for sheer vitality it is hard to beat Pimpernel or Willow. Some of you have read about “Willow the Drama Queen” and her shameless manipulations of poor sweet Streak, way outclassed without even knowing it (see Meet the Animals ). Willow, assessing us with her highly intelligent and skeptical eyes, seeing what she can get away with, what she can cadge out of us, accepting all as her due, supremely self-possessed.
And then there is Pimpernel, her huge personality and aura vibrating out from her like that of a major movie star. At first Willow deferred to her but the stage could only accommodate one diva so we had to separate the two. Pimpernel, rescued from a fur farm, was softened by a terrible early experience where because of a medical condition she was slowly starving. She was a few hours from actual death, we frantically giving her IV’s, before we finally got a correct diagnosis and through massive effort and attention were able to save her (see Pimpernel and the Coyote Refugees )Only something that dire could break through her fierce independence to create a lasting and absolutely beautiful bond of interdependence and joy in one another’s company (yes I am dependent on her – how much poorer my life would be without her in it)! Some of her self preservation energy, while still strong, has been diverted to appreciation of humans, whom she greets with a joy that astounds all lucky enough to meet her.
We could be tempted to say then that perhaps it is female coyotes who dominate through various wiles, but that again would be a
generalization not worthy of coyotes. Because there is Faerytale. Faerytale moves everyone who meets her. There is something about her dainty fragile beauty; her timid personality that makes people want to protect her. When they come to visit and see her begin darting about in alarm at the human energy around her, feeling trapped, running behind her box and peeking out at them in a mixture of fear and curiosity, body tensed for instant flight at any move they make, they want to protect her. If a visitor so much as shifts their weight as they stand watching her, she panics and they cry out “Oh, I’m sorry!” She is a tiny delicate helpless beauty; an exquisite creature with courage despite her terror. There is Skitter, her brother we believe (they both arrived at the same time and in a similar traumatized state), was worse at first — he was so scared we thought he would die…all systems were paralyzed by fear. Faerytale would comfort him with little paws placed gently on his back and sides to try to get him to respond. And we could not get him to eat or relax. But with Pimpernel’s help he snapped out of it. Still skittish, he has grown into a self assured macho-energy male with a sense of self assurance about him while his sister has never recovered even after years of meeting people and being treated gently and with love. It is a mystery.
So there you are – five coyotes, five dramatically different personalities. And I haven’t even started on doing honor to the foxes Feather, Lightfoot and Whisper, and their individuality.
Blog | September 8, 2010
Every wild animal is a unique individual being. The rescued wildlife at Earthfire Institute helps to teach this.
Earthfire’s Mission in Action by Pat Hager
