36. Living Your Animal

Nature :: Spirit — Kinship in a living world

A mother doe once tried to attack my dog to save her fawns. She was single-minded about protecting her young. Not a hair of separation between mind and body. Are human beings this committed? Today we look at our response to COVID, and how kids are getting so sick right now. We’ve left the children unprotected, and we've done it through minimizing and denying some of the serious risks of the virus. What is denial? It’s a gap between mind and body—believing reality is different than it is. And we may be the only animals capable of it. So becoming more truthful is akin to becoming more like animals. Carl Jung called it “living your animal.” To him it meant becoming humble so that we can treat others fairly. We compare Jung’s view of animal morality with those of some animal behavior scientists. We compare it also with spiritual traditions, such as yoga and Zen, that try to help people bring body and mind into unity. And we touch on the practice of spirit journeys (or shamanic journeys) and how similar the practice is to what Jung called active imagination. When it comes to COVID, we need a lot more of "living our animal"—more single-minded purpose, more dedication to protecting our young, and more acting from a mind and body joined as one.

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