Many people think of soul as the element of personality that survives bodily death, but for me it refers to something much more down-to-earth. Soul is the marrow of our existence as sentient, sensitive beings. It’s soul that’s revealed in great works of art, and soul that’s lifted up in awe when we stand in silence under a night sky burning with billions of stars. When we speak of a soulful piece of music, we mean one that comes out of infinite depths of feeling. When we speak of the soul of a nation, we mean its capacity for valor and visionary change. “The soul,” said the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, “is partly in eternity and partly in time.” Soul is present wherever our lives intersect the dimension of the holy: in moments of intimacy, in flights of fancy, and in rituals that hallow the evanescent events of our lives with enduring significance. Soul is what makes each of our lives a microcosm—not merely a meaningless fragment of the universe, but at some level a reflection of the whole.
No one can prove that animals have souls. Asking for proof would be like demanding proof that I love my wife and children, or wanting me to prove that Handel’s Messiah is a glorious masterpiece of music. Some truths simply cannot be demonstrated. But if we open our hearts to other creatures and allow ourselves to sympathize with their joys and struggles, we will find they have the power to touch and transform us. There is an inwardness in other creatures that awakens what is innermost in ourselves.
For ages people have known that animals have a balance and harmony we can learn from. Their instincts and adaptations to life are sometimes healthier than our own. “In the beginning of all things,” said the Pawnee Chief Letakots-Lesa, “wisdom and knowledge were with the animals.” The Pawnee believed that “Tirawa, the One Above,” did not speak directly to human beings but sent certain animals as messengers and healers, and that humans should learn from them as well as from the stars, the sun, and the moon. Other creatures have inhabited the earth much longer than we have, and as native peoples realized, they have much to teach us about our world.
This book is devoted to exploring the extent to which animals can be our guides, soul mates and fellow travelers, sharing in the things that make us most deeply human. Each chapter looks at a different facet of animal experience. Why do animals play? What are their fears and fantasies? What does the world look like through their eyes? How close are their experiences to our own?
A work like this may raise more questions than it answers. Yet if the questions serve to make us more appreciative of the other creatures who share this planet, the book will have served its purpose. For I believe that if we are to keep our family homestead—third stone from the sun—safe for coming generations, we must awaken to a new respect for the family of life.
Those of us alive today are witnesses and accomplices to an extintinction of the earth’s inhabitants unlike any known in previous human history. Millions of species are at risk. Yet as animal rights activist and author Alice Walker reminds us, “anything we love can be saved.” In asking if animals have souls, we are also asking whether we can learn to care about them passionately enough to insure their future … and our own.
Thankfully, more and more people are becoming concerned for other species—one additional reason for an updated version of this book. In a poll of more than a thousand Americans conducted in 1996 by the Associated Press, two thirds of those questioned agreed with the premise that “an animal’s right to live free of suffering should be just as important as a person’s.” The same number believed it was wrong to use animals in cosmetics testing, while a majority disapproved of killing them for their fur or in hunting for sport. In America, as elsewhere, attitudes are changing. The more we learn about other creatures, in their richness and complexity, the more people come to realize the preciousness of life in all its forms.
Frequently, it is one particular animal that opens our hearts. For me, it was my dog Chinook, who was twelve when he lay down last summer for the final time. Now that I have a galloping, bouncing puppy in the house, I realize that Chinook was an “old soul” even as a youngster: considerate, calm, even-tempered, and gentle. But while Chinook was a remarkable animal, I also realize that he was far from being unique. The world is full of astonishing creatures, each with a gift to share and a lesson to impart. Is it possible, I wonder, to embrace all of creation—the insects, the birds, the plants, wild creatures and tame ones—with a degree of the same doting fondness I felt for that wise, sweet-natured old dog? If I can learn to love that much, then there’s hope for me, and maybe hope for us all.
Life is filled with grief. Death and loss are unavoidable companions of the flesh. But are we the only animals who grieve? Do other creatures have thoughts and feelings about the end of life or wonder what lies beyond? The consciousness of our own mortality is part of what makes us human—it is one of the elements that makes us a spiritual animal—but it may be an aspect of life we share with many other species.
It’s always hard to say good-bye. As a parish minister, part of my job is caring for the dying and bereaved, but finding the right words doesn’t get any easier with practice. What do you say to the parents whose one-day-old daughter—their first child—died because she was born with part of her heart missing? What do you say at a memorial service for a middle-aged man, a cancer victim, that will give solace and support to his widow and two teenagers? Words aren’t adequate to address the shock and desolation we feel when a loved one dies.
The only thing that seems to help is a caring presence. So we gather with our families. Our friends come around. We assemble in our spiritual communities. We light a candle, share a hug, or join in a moment of silence. And although we don’t stop grieving, we know that we don’t grieve alone. Others, who have also borne tragedy in their lives, understand the pain we feel. And out of that shared suffering we somehow gather strength to endure the loss.
Do other animals feel grief? We know that people grieve for their pets, of course. People in my congregation have come to me many times for counseling when their animal companions die. The loss of a beloved dog or cat can be very upsetting and naturally makes us sad. But I was stunned the first time I heard about Koko, the gorilla who grieved for her pet kitten. Koko’s story convinced me that animals, like people, also have strong feelings about the end of life.
Koko is a female lowland gorilla who for more than two decades has been the focus of the world’s longest ongoing ape language study.1 Instead of using spoken words, Koko communicates in Ameslan, or American Sign Language. Her teacher, Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson of the California Gorilla Foundation, has helped the ape master a vocabulary of more than five hundred words. That’s how Koko told Penny she wanted a cat for her birthday. She signs the word cat by drawing two fingers across her cheeks to indicate whiskers.
One day a litter of three kittens was brought to the rural compound in Woodside, California, where Koko lives. The kittens had been abandoned at birth. Their “foster mother” was a terrier, who suckled them through the first month of life. Handling them with the gentle behavior typical of gorillas, Koko chose her pet, a tailless kitten with grey fur. She named her young friend “All Ball.”
Koko enjoyed her new kitten, sniffing it and stroking it tenderly. She carried All Ball tucked against her upper leg and attempted to nurse it as if it were a baby gorilla. Koko was