Monday, June 17, 2013

Soul Experiment Series: Loving Animals equally - Foxes

Our Friend Mr Fox
We realised some time ago that we had a lack of love for some creatures in comparison to others on the property. We value sheep and cattle more highly as they are/were our income, and we feel small creatures need 'protecting'. We like native animals especially small and 'cute' ones and free and wild animals and love birds often above others creatures. We had very different feelings towards 'pests' including foxes, 'feral' cats, pigs, large mobs of kangaroos, various insects, eagles etc (we love eagles now but when the family first moved to the property they were deemed sheep killers and so were hunted themselves to prevent attack on the sheep.) Really anything that 'attacked' us, 'our' food, the livestock, or potentially may 'attack' us, the livestock or 'our' food.

AJ and Mary were talking to us a couple of years ago about how we don't love all animals equally and encouraged us to look at the reasons why. At the time Foxes were an issue for us, killing lambs and we feared the attack on the livestock. We had had a shooter who whistled up the foxes and then killed them regularly on the place for years. When we decided that we would eat vegan (for a number of reasons) one being that we no longer wanted to intentionally kill animals, we felt that that applied not only to domesticated animals but to all the animals on the place so we also stopped all contract shooting of any kind of animal on the property. 

We also decided to do a soul experiment with the foxes - the hypothesis being if we loved them equally would they feel the need to attack other animals on the property? So we began with our intention set to love the foxes as much as we love other animals and work through our fears, beliefs and reasons that we didn't value them as much as, say the sheep. God has created ALL creatures and loves all her creations so we needed to ask ourselves why we don't love all creatures equally just like God does?

For a time it seemed like there were more foxes and we were worried they might 'take over' but as we went through the process of working out why we favoured other animals and loved foxes less an amazing thing happened. We noticed that foxes didn't actually prolifically multiply or attack the livestock. And now there seem to be the least amount of foxes there ever has been on the property.

We talked to our guides about the issue also and felt that eventually the foxes would leave, discontinue breeding or they would regulate their breeding and eat less meat or merely meat that had died naturally rather than having to kill to get food. Foxes have a negative reputation in Australia. But we are finding foxes are a beautiful animal, we found out that up to 80% of their diet is actually fruits, berries, insects and small animals if that food source is available (see scat image below), we feel that the fox (and many other animals that are 'carnivorous' at this time) would easily make the transition to eat a diet of insects and fruit if an abundance was available. 

Due to humans taking away a lot of preferred food sources for various species they are forced to pray on other animals or what is available. We don't really consider this when we strip away plants and habitat to graze livestock for money or personal gain, we give little thought to any creature other than those that we can 'get' something from, until they become a 'problem' or a 'predator'. What we don't realise is that we are the cause of the problem in the first place (this is exciting if we can own we are the cause, and find out what the emotional cause within us is, as this is what is going to enable us to change. We need to change our soul not just our intellect on these matters. It is all very well to say 'we love foxes now' but honestly that doesn't work, we tried it and it didn't stop the attacks. What did stop them was our genuine heartfelt change, the soul change, that is what stopped the attacks*.)

Fox scat: This is what foxes eat
The foxes seem to have now regulated in number. Angelo spoke to us about the fact that when we had been shooting the foxes, generally we were killing 'an old' fox with an established den, what happened is we disrupted the hierarchy system and in it's place maybe 3-5 new foxes would move in increasing the population due to the balance being disrupted. Also the foxes felt hated and attacked by us and due to this bred prolifically increasing the population rapidly (see Jesus' talks on 'creating loving eco-systems' for more information on aggressive and passive creature responses this can also be viewed on YouTube, there are 2 parts to the talk). We have now not had contract shooting for maybe five or so years and we feel quite differently about the foxes and there are the least number there have ever been on the property. They are rarely attacking and have not attacked sheep for a few years that we are aware.

The foxes will sit on rocks and watch us drive past now, they don't always race away or avoid us at all costs, they are still wary at times but often we will pass a little nose sticking out of the grass just watching us go by. There is even one who lives at the top of the drive to our house.

We did see one who had attacked a galah and we feel the bird life gets attacked at times by foxes (and cats) and so we need to now look at our lack of equality of love in this area. We do love birds more and so they are likely to be attacked until we work through the emotions we have about that.

Now, if or when a creature does get attacked we ask ourselves what are the underlying causes within us that created the attack. We pray to be shown the reasons why these things are happening (we often go into self punishment and feel like we have done something wrong) BUT we are beginning to challenge this and be firm and honest with ourselves about what we feel when it happens. Pete and I voice our feelings as soon as it happens (if we can) and often realise that it is what we say in the first moment that is what has created the incident in the first place. Because the animals reflect us we are responsible for what happens to them on the property. Our soul's are what protect or do not protect all the creatures great and small. Due to the creatures reflecting us it is an instant feedback system exposing errors, injuries and where we need to heal our soul in order to become more loving and grow closer to God.

Every creature has a purpose and God created them all. Animals, insects, micro-organisms etc are not 'bad', 'wicked', or intentionally attacking, some are merely doing their job, they are merely reflecting the human soul's condition of love or lack of it and highlighting the areas where we need to heal and become more in harmony with love. Some of the injuries are intergenerational and have been going on for a long time, some are just starting to be exposed.

So in summation: we feel, and have some strong evidence now, that if you love one creature more than another it will either be attacked or attack (depending on it's nature) until we love all creatures equally. We feel that when we love all creatures equally then each creature will feel loved and will not feel the need to over breed or attack another creature and the whole environment will eventually be in balance and harmony as God intended it to be.

We are excited and look forward to sharing with you more Soul Experiments, the direct relationship between the soul and the world around us (including flora and fauna) and the eternal wonders of God's universe that we are finding out about and how our love or lack of it directly affects the environment we live in.


* We are now having a similar situation with the pigs and until we work through the errors within our soul and release all the feelings that come up with each pig attack on the things we love and come to a place of equal love for the pigs and all of God's creations, I highly suspect (actually firmly believe) that things are not going to change. In fact we know it wont. We have said 'we love the pigs', and we genuinely do think they are cute, amusing and have a growing fondness for them, but there are some underlying emotions in us, which are readily and rawly exposed when they dig out the dam walls and furrow through trees we have just planted, that clearly indicate to us that we do not love these little dudes equally - yet.

Note: We love watching documentaries on the natural world, especially David Attenborough, and we find it really interesting when 'new animal behaviour' is discovered especially attacking behaviours. With what we feel and know in our hearts now (and with some confirmation and enlightenment from Jesus) we can see the direct correlation with the human condition and lack of harmony with love and working against God's Laws. For example the Kea in NZ has in the last ten years gone from being a herbivore to a carnivore - now attacking small chicks of other birds as a food source. If you look at NZ's major exports and what they are economically reliant upon it is meat/animals (and tourism mostly). So the Kea is just reflecting by highlighting the emotional error in New Zealander's (and the rest of the world) of how we feel that killing and relying on the meat industry is okay. 

Or Termites, it is their job to recycle and clean up dead matter, they are not intentionally attacking us or our houses, they are just doing the job God created them perfectly to do. Another issue is often there are not other food sources available. If we built living structures, which I suggest would actually be healthier for us also to live in, then I suspect that they would not get eaten by the waste warriors as much. Unfortunately instead of looking at our soul condition and the lack of love within ourselves and taking responsibility for what we attract into our lives we just exterminate the Termites. Termites are amazing and without them the foodchain faces real dangers. Termites are vital for so many creatures and they are super genuises in architecture as well, we have much to learn from the humble termite and I suggest taking some time to investigate and find out about them before eradicating or exterminating them.



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