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By The Board: "Return to Holy Presence:" Biospiritual Possibilities for Animal Advocates
by Mary Lou Randour
I had never read anything quite like it before. Joy Williams' article, "The Inhumanity of the Animal People: Do Creatures Have the Same Rights That We Do?" in the August issue of Harper's Magazine uses almost savage, but incredibly effective, prose that paints the gruesome picture of the treatment of nonhuman animals in this society(in every one of its dimensions. She wants to capture our attention to make a moral point, and that she does beyond doubt. Williams ends the article by saying:
The animal people are calling for a moral attitude toward a great and mysterious and mute nation, which can't, by our stern reckoning, act morally back.... The implementation of their vision would seem madness....Our treatment of animals and our attitude toward them is crucial not only to any pretensions we have to ethical behavior but to humankind's intellectual and moral evolution. Which is how the human animal is meant to evolve, isn't it?
PSYETA is one of many groups striving to help humankind in making that necessary, and oh so difficult, intellectual and moral evolution. My guess is that those who join PSYETA do so because they either intuitively or explicitly have committed themselves to such a moral or ethical path. I also believe that a necessary complement to such a path is some form of a spiritual practice. Ethics without a spiritual basis can seem academic or moralistic; and spirituality without ethics can be just another word for narcissism.
When I think of spirituality in this context, I think of "biospirituality," a concept that is the basis for a book I am currently working on, Journey Toward Grace: Awakening to Biospirituality. Basically, biospirituality is a process of coming into relationship with all of life, not just human life. "Bio" refers to physical life, while "spirit" pertains to the vital, animating principle of conscious life, sometimes thought of as soul. The structure of the word "biospirituality," then, conveys the unity that the practice of biospirituality seeks. By wedding physical life with soul life, biospirituality(as a concept and as an action(aims to overcome the barriers we have erected between ourselves and other species. Stated affirmatively, biospirituality can renew our relationship with the entirety of creation; it is a process to free our hearts and guide our spiritual exploration.
It also is a practice rooted in the every day(we can act biospiritually as we engage in the daily, mundane activities of our lives. In these quite ordinary events we can find quite extraordinary spiritual possibilities. For example, we can choose to buy products not tested on animals, and we can decide to eat food not derived from animals. We also can practice a biospiritual understanding by heeding Buber's dictum, as told by philosopher Robert E. Wood, that in our "...response to the creaturely Other the unification ... of the world is achieved." Living with our companion animals at home, or watching free-roaming animals in our backyards or on trails that we take, we can see the "other," in a new way(not as different and separate, but as part of a whole of which we are one small part. We can realize that humans are one group among a vast network of living beings, and that we are all kin. Charles Darwin knew this when he said, "We are only different by degree not kind."
Biospirituality builds on two basic commitments: to expand awareness and to take compassionate action. Just as ethics and spirituality are necessary to one another, so are awareness and compassion. Awareness without any response is like spirituality without ethics(it can become self-enclosing and indulgent; taking action, even with a compassionate intent, if done without awareness can send us off without the internal resources we need to be effective.
` I believe that biospirituality can be a positive force in our lives. When we deliberately refrain from choosing a coat with fur trim, or, if we are menopausal, choose a plant-based estrogen rather than premarin, we are doing much more than taking a "negative" action. It isn't that we are not doing something. Rather we are saying Yes! to life, and Yes! to the wonder and sacredness of all of creation. If we take these actions with awareness, it is an opportunity for us to renew our commitment to life.
Those of us who labor to try to bring some peace and justice to this "great and mysterious and mute nation" that is our constituency are often heavy-laden. We sometimes work under the "specter of hopeless helplessness" and we are faced with a dizzying array of wretched images of all the different methods by which animals are made to suffer. Ken Shapiro documented some of the costs of caring and also the ways in which animal rights activists handled the emotional difficulties of seeking out suffering in his article, "The Caring Sleuth." We need an antidote for our grief and our anger. Without ignoring or minimizing the pain, we also need to claim the constructive, life-giving aspects of what we do, and which is embedded in our intentions.
For those who have not yet decided that animals deserve the kind of care and attention that we believe they do, the idea of biospirituality may invite them into that consideration. It is the carrot rather than the stick.
Denise Levertov's poem, "Come into Animal Presence," conveys this invitation best. She describes the pure beauty found in the nature of animals(the "lonely white rabbit on the roof is a star twitching its ears at the rain" and the "joy when the insouciant armadillo glances at us and doesn't quicken his trot. " Levertov goes on:
What is this joy? That no animal falters, but knows what it must do? That the snake has no blemish, that the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings in white star-silence? The llama rests in dignity, the armadillo has some intention to pursue in the palm forest. Those who were sacred have remained so, holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence of bronze, only the sight that saw it faltered and turned from it. An old joy returns in holy presence.
As we try to make our contribution to this much-needed intellectual and moral evolution(usually against great odds and many times with little hope(we can rediscover our connection to the natural world. When we do, we can find some joy in returning to this "holy presence."
Short Takes
"Short Takes" is a column designed to let you know where we've been and what we've been doing. By giving you a sampling of our various activities we hope you will get a sense of the many and varied ways that PSYETA and its Board and members are working toward our goal of engendering respect for all living beings.
PSYETA Social Hour at APA a Success
PSYETA sponsored a social hour at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Chicago. Both PSYETA members and others who were not (yet) members but who were interested in learning about PSYETA joined us for an informative and enjoyable time. We showed the Emmy-award winning segment from the television show "20/20" that featured the heart-rendering reunion of Boee the chimpanzee with Roger Fouts, Ph.D. Advisory Board member and Co-Director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute.
A Visit with Rep. Ted Strickland of Ohio's Sixth District
On July 10, Ken Shapiro, Executive Director, and Mary Lou Randour, Director of Programs, met with Rep. Strickland, the only psychologist in Congress. At a leisurely and lengthy meeting(forty minutes, which is a long time for a meeting with a Representative by Capitol Hill standards(we introduced him to the goals and activities of PSYETA. Rep. Strickland seemed curious about PSYETA and asked a number of good questions.
Book Party for Roger Fouts' Next of Kin and Ken Shapiro's Animal Models of Human Psychology
Teaming up with the Animal Welfare Institute, on October 9, we welcomed over one-hundred well-wishers who came to celebrate the publications of Roger Fouts's Next of Kin, and Ken Shapiro's Animal Models of Human Psychology, as well as the Animal Welfare Institute's publication, Animal Dealers. Guests included members of the animal rights community, PSYETA members, local mental health professionals, reporters, Department of Agriculture and other government officials. And to remind us what we were about, guests also included a variety of canine friends who grew livelier as the evening grew cooler, scampering among the guests, chasing one another with sticks in their mouths. A good and festive time was had by all.
Letter to the Committee on Animal Care and Ethics
The Committee on Animal Care and Ethics is the American Psychological Association committee charged with the responsibility of "safeguarding responsible animal experimentation" and for "review(ing) the ethics of animal experimentation and recommend(ing) guidelines for the ethical conduct of research." Unfortunately, even though this Committee has these ethical responsibilities, its members do not articulate their own ethical reasoning. The Committee simply asserts that animal research for human benefit is ethical, without supplying the ethical basis for its position. We at PSYETA understand that there may be differences in ethical reasoning; we think it is a fundamental necessity, however, that an APA Committee with this responsibility articulate its position. We respectfully asked for that in a letter to the Committee, which we sent in the beginning of October.
Referring to a survey committee members are conducting of U.S. psychology departments, we also commended them for including a question about the degree of pain experienced by animals in laboratories. We noted, however, that the survey omitted reference to any of several existing instruments, which could standardize the criteria for pain assessment. As a consequence, survey respondents will be using their own criteria for making this pain assessment, with the result that the data obtained will not be very reliable. Our letter questioned the CARE about this, asking them why they did not include one of the available instruments in the survey. We attached a list of those instruments for their information. We will keep you informed of their response.
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