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Celebrate the Mystery, Compassion, Wonder and Beauty of Animals
Take a spiritual journey through this beautiful collection of blessings, prayers and meditations about the creatures, wild and tame, that inhabit our world. These moving contributions about all types of animals—playful dogs and beloved cats, giant whales and powerful elephants, tiny insects and delicate birds—are drawn from many faith traditions, including Native American, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist.
A special section also provides animal blessing ceremonies you can use to memorialize the loss of a companion animal, offer prayers for an animal suffering illness or injury or simply recognize the spiritual connection we create when we fully appreciate another member of God's creation.
Contributors include:
Akhenaton • Cecil Frances Alexander • Matsuo Basho • Henry Ward Beecher • Henry Bergh • Annie Besant • Ambrose Bierce • Black Elk • Elizabeth Barrett Browning • Martin Buber • Yosa Buson • Isaac Caruso • Chang Chiu-Ch'eng • John C. Chendo • Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Feng Chih • John Ciardi • Jean Cocteau • Rev. Dr. Scott Cowdell • James Dickey • Emily Dickinson • George Washington Doane • Fyodor Dostoevsky • Mark Doty • Johann Eckhart • Mary Cronk Farrell • John Bookser Feister • Rev. Roberta Finkelstein • Eliza Lee Cabot Follen • T. Griffith Foulk • Anatole France • Saint Francis of Assisi • Diana L. Guerrero • Joy Harjo • Stanley Hauerwas • Kathy Heffernan • Jane Hirshfield • Alicia Hokanson • Gerard Manley Hopkins • Victor Hugo • Kobayashi Issa • Francis Jammes • Saint John of the Cross • Naito Joso • Kabir • Galway Kinnell • Rudy Kipling • Laurie Klein • Mukai Kyorai • Laurie Lamon • Lao-Tzu • D. H. Lawrence • Richard Lehnert • Letakos-Lesa • Paul Lindholdt • Kevin E. Mackin • Seumas MacManus • Lauren McLaughlin • Fiona McLeod, (pseudonym of William Sharp) • Sugawara no Michizane • Mirabai • Rev. Gloria S. Moncrief • John Muir • Claire Rudolf Murphy • Gloria Pinsker • Po Chü-i • Sri Ramakrishna • Pam Reinke • Rivage (pseudonym of Mary Newman) • Christina Rossetti • Jalaluddin Rumi • Carl Sandburg • Meghan Nuttall Sayres • Albert Schweitzer • Sir Walter Scott • Masaoka Shiki • Izumi Shikibu • Mark S.Sisk • Christopher Smart • Rabindranath Tagore • Henry David Thoreau • Mark Twain • Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo • Evelyn Underhill • Carl Van Vechten • Walt Whitman • James Arlington Wright • William Butler Yeats
"A jewel box of comfort and ecstasy, reverence and wisdom. Powerful testimony to the different ways that animals inspire us to worship our Creator."
—Sy Montgomery, author of The Wild Out Your Window
“A threshold to a deeper understanding of God…. Allows us to experience the relationships God has created between creatures in this Sacred Circle of life.”
—Rt. Rev. Mark MacDonald, Episcopal bishop of Alaska
“Delightful … lovely … timeless…. A book that pet lovers will treasure.”
—Diana L. Guerrero, author of What Animals Can Teach Us about Spirituality; founder of Ark Animals
“Gives voice to the unspoken yet eloquent expressions of prayer and praise offered daily in the Animal Kingdom. The sights and sounds of the poetic imagery linger long after we close this book.”
—Nancy Sohn Swartz, author of In Our Image: God's First Creatures and How Did the Animals Help God?
Introduction ix
Part 1: Blessings for Companion Animals
1 Blessings for Dogs 5
2 Blessings for Cats 19
3 Blessings for Other Companion Animals 35
Part 2: Blessings for Wild Animals
4 Animals of the Land 55
5 Animals of the Sky 69
6 Animals of the Stream and Sea 81
Part 3: Blessings from Animals
7 Blessings for Birth 97
8 Blessings for Life 109
9 Blessings in Death 135
Part 4: Rituals and Ceremonies
10 Animal Blessing Ceremonies 159
11 Partings 179
12 Benediction 211
About the Contributors 223
Credits 231
Acknowledgments 237
Editor's Note 237