We can understand What a Fish Knows using our Reiki eyes.
The Six Pillars of the Let Animals Lead® method is revolutionary in today’s modern world where beyond-human individuals are largely viewed as imperfect. This is contradictory to what we’re taught in the Let Animals Lead® method, knowing their perfection is inherent in every being, no matter their species. In my efforts as an animal activist, Animal Reiki practitioner, and Ordained Interspecies and Interfaith Animal Chaplain, I honor all beings as healers and teachers. I also seek out places where Animal Reiki is needed most.
For years, I’ve known of a grocery store in the Denver area that sells individuals who are crammed into tanks. Turbots, stone crabs, Dungeness crabs, lobsters, cherry stone clams, razor clams, periwinkle snails, tilapia, mussels, and eels are some of the individuals that I had the honor of seeing their perfection and wisdom.
As I was about to enter that same grocery store I usually avoid, I found myself singing a song I learned years ago when participating in vigils at a local slaughterhouse near downtown Denver. I sang the chorus out loud, not caring who heard me, as I walked through the parking lot and headed toward the entrance.
“We all want the same things
To be happy, to be safe, to be free
We all want the same things
To be happy, to be safe, to be free
Deep beneath the treacherous seas
Hooks’ and nets’ devastating reign will cease
Madam Safety finally sees their needs
A shining hope of sustainability”
I stopped singing, and as I walked through the doors of the store, I started to say a loving-kindness prayer out loud.
May all beings be happy
May all beings be safe
May all beings be free
I repeated these lines over and over as I sauntered past the cashier’s and check-out lines. The smell of the store was overwhelming, and in a short moment, I wanted to leave. Navigating past the tofu, bringing brief relief to my momentary discomfort, I kept repeating the loving-kindness prayer to myself in a soft yet audible voice to anyone who happened to get close enough.
Dungeness crabs are our teachers and rightful ocean dwellers.
Before I reached the back of the store, my discomfort dissipated. When I got closer to the tanks, I held my hand over my heart, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply. I fixated on their perfection as I opened my eyes and scanned across the glass and into the water.
After standing in front of their magnificence, I made my way back to the front of the store, chanting to myself as I walked, and I found a seat in a beaten-up, large red booth near the main entrance. Navigating through the crowd, I realized it was the busiest area I had ever offered Animal Reiki.
My intention to create a healing space surrounded me in the red booth. The overwhelming smell and desire to leave was long gone. You can do this, I told myself. You are Ahimsa (nonviolence), I told myself. As I sat in the red booth, a deep calmness, light, and love sank in and outwards. I envisioned the light reaching the far corners of the store and beyond. There were no boundaries as to who could join me in the light.
Lobsters, as our healers and teachers, belong beneath the ocean’s waves.
After some time, I ended with gratitude, closing the healing space, and followed with a loving-kindness prayer. I then began to slowly walk out of the entrance toward my car. As I got into the front seat, the floodgates opened. I cried long and hard. I needed that really good cry. When I hold onto my emotions and prevent them from coming out into the open, I’m not as effective of an activist, Animal Chaplain, or Animal Reiki practitioner. These wonderful gifts of emotions come from our animal ancestors, the beings who we once were and to whom we are now connected (and always will be.)
I’m reminded in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet “The desire to practice to transform our suffering and the suffering of the world is called bodhicitta. Sometimes the word is translated as… ‘the mind of love’”. Love propels me to offer a sacred sendoff to these beautiful beings and it keeps me rooted in my ever-present and lifelong desire to empty their tanks once and for all. The gift of freedom for ourselves and others is always within our grasp.
As an Animal Chaplain, I find myself in contemplation often. Below, I offer open sentences as contemplation exercises. If you wish, please use these as a meditation and perhaps as a journaling exercise:
May I offer kindness to all beings as all beings are my teachers. I can nurture this wisdom by…
May I offer peace to all beings. I can nurture this by…
May I always see the perfection in all beings. I can nurture this by…
May I walk a path of freedom for all beings. I can nurture this by…
I am grateful for all you do. May your day be full of peace, joy, and love.
By SARA Practitioner Alaina Sigler
This was absolutely beautiful! Thank you for this my dear friend Alaina! xo