Nature Journal: Souls
As long as I can recall I have been fascinated with the animal kingdom. When I was young, my parents provided me with ZooBooks. There began my passion for learning and my unending interest in the beasts of the earth. It wasn’t long until my mouth became formatted to produce sentences beginning with “Did you know…” Books filled me with wonder, but interactions with the animals themselves filled me with love.
My pets ranged from hamsters, guinea pigs, turtles, lizards, and of course dogs and cats. Like most young children given the responsibility of caring for living beings, my parents ended up providing the primary care of these animals. But the lessons and love from each pet still stuck with me. As I became older, I took on more responsibilities and developed a deep passion for the care and husbandry of animals. Eventually this fascination matured into my dream of becoming a veterinarian. Learning and caring for these creatures brought a great deal of satisfaction into my life. My real bond with nature took off when I began to look beyond the beauty and mystery behind these animals and saw their personalities – their souls.
Anyone who has had more than one pet can tell you the personalities in each of them are all very different. Just for illustration purposes here’s a rundown of the ones I’ve grown to love.
My first dog was a Golden Retriever named Ginger. She was one of the sweetest calmest dogs I’ve ever worked with. In her old age we got another Golden named Beau. He’s much more mischievous, but has the same loving heart. Beau loves to tease and is smart enough to do it without getting into trouble. One day we were walking the dogs and since no one else was in the park we let them off their leads. Sometime later a lady walking another Golden entered the park so Beau went to say hello. But this dog wasn’t one of those social types and only snarled back. So Beau, just to teach him a lesson, walked in circles around this dog just outside the reach of the leash and his teeth. After Ginger’s death, Beau was incredibly lonely and we suddenly had a sad howling dog instead of our former rambunctious ball of happiness. We got another Golden and named her Bailey. Now I’m not sure if it was the fact that Beau got her pregnant on one of her first heat cycles, but this girl takes no crap. She loves to play and loves attention, but she’s also very good at letting Beau know when she’s had enough.
My freshman year I got a kitten. I was living in the dorms and that’s not allowed I know. It’s a good story, but not for right now. She loves attention, but it has to be on her terms. If she didn’t come to you, don’t touch her. I also volunteer at Hoofbeats for Healing, an equestrian therapy center, and each horse has its own personality. My favorite is Marky. Whenever I don’t come for a while, he lets me know I’ve been gone. The day I return, I am always greeted with a series of head butts letting me know that my absence is not cool.
Of course in my writing this I’ve personified these animals quite a bit. But what really is personification? It’s using human traits to describe objects. Nature is more than a collection of objects however. It is living, breathing, and responding every day. There are human traits found in every organism. All we do when we personify things is take what is common and personal to us and what we feel is unique to us, and place it on objects to bring their significance closer to home. People have pets because they are personal. We own them because they show affection, display emotion, respond to pain, comfort us when hurt, guard us when vulnerable, and serve as an always loyal, never jeopardized friend. People love pets and want them in their homes because in them they see a friend – yes a friend – who is going to portray all the innocence and love that humans lose all too quickly. They see a friend with an unpolluted soul.
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