we cannot own an animal

[nerithedeerfairy]

we cannot own an animal
but just as much as we treat our friends and family
we can treat them, if they are near as friends and family, and not hurting anyone,
and if theyre just around out there, we should respect them because they are our friends and family we share the planet with them, just as all spirits do
just the same we can't own a plant really, but some plants would like to be planted by us, so we have a relationship with them, they get our attention in some way, or we theirs
none of us are restrained by any other, we are all free
and if we are not, this must be so, this is how to uphold the druid way
the way of spirit, not to oppress another, or impinge on another's freedom
allow them to live for themselves, by their own way for the Eternal Spirit
gives them all a way for themselves, or they would not be alive
they must live in this way...
now that there are so many who try to live for others,
our way must be to get them to stop and live for themselves
and let others live for themselves
we can't hold onto people
but let them come and go as they will on their own
but if you both must be together, then you must be together
i believe in this case we must be together, me being this thought and the druid way
we must be open to wisdom coming from itself...
wisdom coming from everywhere, we must be open to the reality that we know nothing
that infinite wisdom is always being expounded to us, yet we have missed so much
it is almost beyond us to see and interpret all of it, but it may be possible

nurturing a mothers care instills the children with the strength to be independent
the mother shows them the way to the Great Mother, is a manifestation of that energy
and that energy grows within them, and in their aura, and they can care for themselves,
and even care for others,

[Huathe]

Owning land is wrong too. Land is a gift that should be freely enjoyed by everyone. The reason people " own " land is for control. To control it and it's use and access by other people and to dominate it. If people lived the way they should by respecting each other, land ownership would be unnecessary. Plus the banks profit HUGELY from it!

It reminds me of the song " Cheyenne Anthem " by Kansas.

(Kerry Livgren) Kansas

From the mountains to the sun, life has only just begun
We wed this land and pledge our souls to meet its end,
Life has only just begun
Here my people roam the earth, in the kingdom of our birth
Where the dust of all our horses hides the sun
We are mighty on the earth, on the earth
You have come to move me, take me from my ancient home,
Land of my fathers I can't leave you now
We will share it with you, no man owns this earth we're on
Now the wheels are rolling, hear the howling winds of war
It's my destiny to fight and die
Is there no solution, can we find no other way, Lord let me stay
Under the endless sky and the earth below
Here I was born to live and I will never go, oh no
But we cannot endure like the earth and the mountains
Life is not ours to keep, for a new sun is rising
Soon these days shall pass away, for our freedom we must pay
All our words and deeds are carried on the wind,
In the ground our bodies lay, here we lay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVEgxYnQIxw

[Bran Mak Morn]

I own animals and land but they own me also.

[ShadowCat]

Owning can have different meanings... from property-law to being bound to something or someone.

Us claiming to own land is like fleas claiming to own the dog.

With our animals I have a nice relationship. I own them in the economical sense of the word, but they own me, since they dictate how our days go by (feed the cats, feed the rabbits, feed the chickens, clean the litterbox etcetc). In reality, we have a friendship with their pawprints all over my soul, and my soul bound to their welbeing.


But really giving up ownership should come with something else, natural respect for other beings and their work. I doubt that in native societies it would be accepted if one individual took al the crops from communal lands. Still, I have to fence my yard because otherwise I'm just working for the other people in town who watch me work and then come in at night to pick my tomatoes, leaving me none, destroing some herbbeds in the meantime by walking over them. Last spring I confronted an elderly lady who was out picking rhubarb in my yard: I told her that if she had come to my door and asked, she could have had some, and I would have even given her a young plant to take home with her, but what she did was stealing, so I send her off. No respect for my work and our need for food.

[Aphritha]

[quote="ShadowCat"]Us claiming to own land is like fleas claiming to own the dog.

[quote]
Yuck. Trust me, let them get bad enough, and fleas will own you! Sorry, bad past experiences...

Ownership is such a hazy thing to really understand...it seems more like we borrow land from mother nature. As to owning animals, sure, they're yours just as much as a spouse/child/family member. You have an expected role to play when you took the part on, in this case animal owner, but in reality you're both conscious beings who make your own choices, in this case to coexist with one another. I suppose some of the smaller animals(caged) don't get as much say in this, though....

[IrisWoods]

No one can own anything that is alive, except for Life and Death itself. We can certainly disrespect Life and make It's individual forms miserable, though. By so doing, we also kill a part of ourselves.

[Bran Mak Morn]

I think we are all on the same page

[mabby]

This quote sort of sums it up for me.

We need another and wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained. Living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

From The Outermost House by Henry Beston
Chapter entitled Autumn, Ocean, and Birds

[katie bridgewater]

I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.

Walt Whitman

[Bran Mak Morn]

All the love IrisWoods but that troll freaked me out!!!