atreesvoice

If you know me at all, you also know that I love animals. All of them. Wild, domesticated, four legged, feathered, slimy. You name it, I love them. One of the many reasons for my adoration is that they have not intellectualized themselves away from their natural existence. Even my dog who would have no idea where to sleep if not on her own love seat, still maintains the very things that make her canine—sniffing the ground to see what happened during the night, chasing potential prey and guarding her territory. Meanwhile, our first human ancestors lived in tribes and ‘uncivilized’ communities. Yet, today in mainstream America we have little understanding or sense of such a natural lifestyle.

There have only been short periods of time in my life that I haven’t had a dog companion. For the last 10 years, I have also shared my life with a horse named Tom. The contentment and comfort of Tom and my current dog, Z, is one of the forethoughts of my day. So, it is hard for me to understand the following numbers I found online about unwanted pets (read whole article here); The number of stray cats and dogs living in the U.S.: 70 million. The number of animal shelters in the U.S.: 4,000 – 6,000. The number of cats and dogs entering U.S. shelters each year: 6 – 8 million. The number of cats and dogs euthanized by U.S. shelters each year: 3 – 4 million (nearly 10,000 animals killed every day). According to the American Veterinary Association and the Unwanted Horse Coalition, there are at least 170,000 “unwanted” horses in the United States.

In contrast, the earth has lost half of its wildlife over the last 40 years as stated in this The Guardian article. That’s a stunning statistic. One that I barely can comprehend and to do so makes me angry, sad and confused.

While I am confused by the disregard of animals, the discrepancy between the overpopulation of domesticated animals and the decline of wild populations is interesting to me. From an archetypal perspective, I see the same pattern taking place within the human species; our domestication is in surplus while our wild—the ancient part that knows its self to be simply one facet of the natural world—is on the decline. It is my assertion that this fact is the cause of many modern problems, addictions, depression and a variety of illnesses included. It is time to reclaim our nature and integrate it with civilization. This will be the new modern.