There are parts of me I miss, terribly.  At an early age, I understood my relationship with animals.  With unapologetic certainty, I knew we were kin, that our lives were entwined, our destinies connected.  I spent hours in a tree in my grandparents’ garden talking with birds, communing with spiders, feeling the joy of being alive with them.

As happens to all of us, I grew up in a world that looks at animals differently, and I changed.  I never completely lost my core, but I learned to hide it, sometimes even from myself.  It happened in increments, but I remember moments.  When I was in third grade, my father went hunting and brought home a pronghorn antelope on the roof of the car.  I looked into that animal’s still bright eyes and sobbed.  In a futile attempt to comfort me, my mother assured me that he – the pronghorn, not my father – had no soul, so he had nothing to lose.  I knew better than that, and silently apologized to him, and to all animals, for human ignorance.  I vowed through my tears to somehow make it up.

Entering adulthood, I chose to pursue another passion, and became a fiber artist.  But I never forgot my pledge, and when the longing to be with animals became too sharp to ignore, I left my studio a few hours a week to volunteer at a zoo.  Those hours stretched, turned into a job, and inspired me to incorporate abstract animal imagery into my art.  In turn, the images became more realistic, and by the time I accepted a job at a wildlife rehabilitation clinic, I had written and illustrated two books about wildlife.  Those books were for children as much as they were for the pronghorn.  Getting them published was a step back to myself.

And still, I was in hiding.  The wildlife center where I worked strictly limited human interaction with the animals in residence.  While I respected the need to keep wildlife wild, I grieved many missed opportunities.  I secretly took many of those orphaned or injured animals into my heart and did my real work with them in the quiet of night.  It was in that safe space that I could explore the deeper meaning of our intersecting lives.  I reached out, and they were there, just waiting for someone to initiate the connection.

During my third summer at the clinic, the director made the decision to cover the cages where young crows were kept indoors until they were old enough to join others in an outdoor aviary.  Of course, the idea was to keep them from bonding too much to their human caretakers, but the edict was unbearable to me.  I argued that these birds needed exposure to the busy clinic.  Most basically, they needed light, and in a state of deprivation, many weakened and some died.  I fought until I lost my voice, literally and figuratively. With resignation and a feeling of failure, I left my job.

I’ve carried that painful memory for almost two decades, and along with it, a deep desire to find a different way to work with wild animals.  A few months ago, a friend introduced me to Earthfire Institute through a link to the video of Apricot.  I blinked through tears as I witnessed a healing collaboration done with integrity and skill, and so much love that I felt my own heart begin to heal.  In that moment, my earliest understanding of life came rushing back.  It is so simple: we are one, and we help each other.

I also knew that I wanted to honor Apricot with a portrait.  Paper is my medium, and I work in a form of collage most like the traditional Japanese art of chigirie.  With my background as a fiber artist, I am suited to working with layers of paper, and over the years, my work has become increasingly painterly.  It is also a profound way to connect with animals.  Even when my only source is a photo, as it was with Apricot, I can step aside and let the animal come through.  It may take days to get the details right, but the hours are suspended, as they are when I am in the company of animals in so-called real time.

I have been honored to do portraits of animals, both companion and wild, for humans who want to remember.  I chose to portray Apricot so I could remember.  It is an honor to share this little collage with my kin at Earthfire Institute.  I will visit someday soon, but this place, these people, and these animals already burn brightly in my imagination.  I am grateful beyond words.

5 Comments

• Print
• Share

• Sanctuary Map Explore
• Support the Animals Help to provide food and medical care. Support
• Explore your work through new eyes.Plan a Retreat
• Support Earthfire Help spread the vision of a new way to relate with natureSupport