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.
Blog | August 27, 2010
It’s Rainmaking Time!™ is about calling in solutions, bringing people together and getting great things done. The show is meant to highlight the exciting realms of exploration, discovery, inquiry, new & ancient knowledge, and adventure.
Susan Eirich, one of the founders of the Earthfire Institute, introduces us to the rich and sacred trust between humans and animals. She and her partner are profoundly committed to and passionate about maintaining the 40-acre wildlife sanctuary and retreat center, which facilitates interactions between animals and humans.
The importance of this relationship is often overlooked in city life and modern culture. Insights and personal experiences with animals are invaluable. They have a transformative effect on our way of being, seeing, living, and understanding. Susan Eirich shares her mission with us and communicates the joy of living amongst the wonderful beings at the sanctuary.
Click here to listen to the interview
Blog, Wellness & Spirtuality | August 20, 2010
We had the tremendous honor and experience of having venerated Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche offer a special teaching at Earthfire last month, on one of his two days in the area during a worldwide teaching tour. The teaching was on the Six Realms and human-animal relationships from the Buddhist perspective. He came to us through Dr. David Shlim of Jackson, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher in his own right. Dr. Shlim brought his most revered teacher and friend to Earthfire because of Earthfire’s teaching that each animal is a precious life and an individual being with inherent personality and worth.
In Buddhist teaching, once one is enlightened one lives in the moment without preconceptions – thus each time you meet a being, of any life form, you meet it with new eyes rather than through a lens of hearsay. What we each see is based on a great deal of our own conditioning. The Rinpoche noted that “we tend to think that what we don’t see does not exist – but this doesn’t follow – lack of perception is not a proof of non–existence”. And that applies to animals as individual beings with a soul.
Chokyi Nyima emphasized how with trust, love, and respect, we can turn this earth into heaven. He talked about how we need to think more broadly – that a shortage of trees for example does not just hurt humans – it hurts birds and animals and insects — it hurts every living thing. That we are interdependent also makes it important that we respect and care for all conscious beings — and Buddhists consider all animals conscious. He noted that we make laws to protect big and rare animals because we esteem them for being big or rare – but that it legal to kill others for fun. “That is not right. Not fair. We need to be fair. We need to help as much as we can and live as naturally as we can.”
He commented that we should not be breeding animals for pets, for human pleasure. If we do, however, we should put ourselves in their place and feel what they feel – their needs for protection, comfort, medicine. He was very moved and touched by the love and care shown between the humans and animals here at Earthfire; that they were “treated as family even though they were not actually our brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers”.
He noted that animals and humans are intelligent beings and that we can teach each other. According to Buddha, we all, humans and animals, have a basic good and loving nature and we are all capable of becoming enlightened beings in the Buddhist sense. And that with trust, love and respect, we would not hurt one another.
As the Rinpoche was talking about how we should be more attuned to nature, he looked out the door of the yurt and pointed towards the Tetons. At that same instant, Bluebell walked into his view. He cried out joyfully – “Look – a bison!” It was as if she had manifested herself for him. As if she wanted to be included and give her input into this honoring of the natural world.
Animal Story, Blog, Buffalo | August 18, 2010
When we look for Bluebell the buffalo in the pasture, we know exactly where to find her. Out of 20 acres of freedom and grass, she is lying right up against the fencing that separates her from Ramble the grizzly bear, perhaps 12 feet away. It makes you think . . .
Buffalo are intensely social creatures with all that that implies. They are oriented and responsive to one another; they crave one another’s company and are continually together in a herd. When we say an animal is social, I wonder if we feel what that fully means. Chickens are social – ours are often found lying close to one another, or taking dust baths practically on top of one another. Apes are social, wolves and dogs are social, humans are social. We need one another. We are all made to be with one another and lapse into depression when we are alone. It is a biologically-based thing, hard-wired into our nature and theirs. It is something we have in common. The sensations a lone social animal has are very probably the same sensations we have, being animals too. An ache, a hunger, and feelings of not knowing exactly what to do with ourselves.
There is quite a variety of ways we adapt to loneliness and deal with it and so it is with buffalo.
We had the pleasure and honor of taking care of two baby buffalo that grew into fine young girls, Bluebell and Rosebud. Rosebud bonded intensely to Josie the Buffalo Goat who helped feed her excellent goat’s milk as she grew. They were always together as a unit. When Josie suddenly died, Rosebud went into a depression. She developed pneumonia and nothing we did could save her. Bluebell was herself, brokenhearted, trying to groom the still form of Rosebud; to lift her, to bring her back to life. For a long time she mourned and we worried that we might lose her too. But something interesting happened. Somehow the tragedy softened her; opened her to other possibilities. She began to look to people. She who was dominant and even mildly threatening became softer and softer. Last time I wrote about Bluebell I recounted how she would always be at the base of the yurt when we have meetings. That trend has unmistakably deepened. During a program last June she stood for half an hour while 6 women systematically groomed and plucked her winter’s fur until she was smooth and shining. She remembers that and now comes to greet all humans who visit, and allows herself (actually kind of asks) to be touched, admired, groomed. Bluebell is nine – yet she learned, and adapted and changed. She has matured with a wider acceptance of other beings. It is not just buffalo that are worthy of her attention and interaction; not just buffalo who can give.
Going back to Bluebell and Ramble the grizzly . . . twelve thousand years ago megafauna such as the giant short-faced bear, giant sloth, mammoths and other huge animals roamed the continent. More than 50 species were driven to extinction during what is called the “Pleistocene Overkill,” a combination of human hunting and climate change. There are only a few species left from that great extinction – and two of them are the grizzly bear and the bison. If one thinks about more subtle connections between living beings, as one does if one has the time or inclination or exposure, you can’t help thinking – do they recognize one another in some way? Do they share a deep loneliness? A sense of being the last of their kind from another time, remnants of a once vast community, hunted still to a miniscule number?
There is help on the horizon for Bluebell. A visitor deeply moved by her has made a commitment to help us find a baby buffalo for her when they are born in the spring (thank you Joan!) Or maybe two. Bluebell will have her herd again.
Earthfire Stories, Retreats and Workshops | August 18, 2010
Penelope Smith hosts an inter-species telepathic communication retreat with the rescued wild animals of Earthfire Institute. Watch this video short to learn more about telepathic communications with the wild ones.
Blog | August 5, 2010
We had a wonderful burst and gift of young energy recently, just before a unique event. Revered Tibetan Buddhist 
teacher Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche made a visit to Earthfire to give a special teaching on the Tibetan Buddhist idea of the right relations between humans and animals. Two groups of 15 year old volunteers from the Jewish Community Center Ranch Camps out of Denver Colorado lent their energy, intention, will and creative ideas to landscaping the area around the yurt. They worked hard in the hot sun with no complaint, adding their own personal touches. One of them lined the pathway to the yurt with cairns, instinctively feeling that they would “lead the way” to the sacred ceremony. He didn’t know that the cairns looked like chortens – Buddhist sacred piles of rocks found on the trails throughout Tibet and Nepal. One of the volunteers commented while hanging a large thangka ( beautiful intricate paintings Tibetans use to aid meditation), “this is sacred like the Torah, so be careful.” The whole experience was wonderful and uplifting for all of us. It added its own special flavor to the profoundity and joy of the program the 
following day. More to follow from the actual visit.
At the end of the day they were treated to visits to the animals. Some comments: “…for the first time you helped me realize that each wild animals has their own personalities.” “We had an amazing experience at Earthfire. Your philosophy on animals and that you believe that animals are more than just wild and aggressive made me open my eyes to the fact that all animals want compassion and to be given a chance. To know that the two of you started this amazing ranch from scratch is inspiring and gives me and hopefully others, encouragement to follow our dreams.”
The Bun Learns to Hop. . . Again by Pam Sourelis
