Awakening To Kindness

Awakening to Kindness

Have you seen all

those videos on the web

of animals of different species

being kind to each other?

---A grizzly bear and wolf

who help each other hunt,

Dolphins making friends

with dogs and cats.

House cats taking baby rabbits

and baby chicks into their litters,

dogs nursing baby pigs,

and gorillas and chimps

keeping pets like humans do?

It seems to many that something

new is up in all the world,

that perhaps there has been

a recent increase in compassion

in all of nature.

I think that things like these

have been happening all along,

and people in cultures close to nature

have long known about it

but it is only now that people

in big industrial societies

are re-awakening to the fact.

We have too long been fooled

by the view that nature

is something dangerous

and that humans

must somehow conquer

the very biosphere that

birthed us.

In making war on Mother Nature

we seek to attack

she who nurtures us still.

The truth of the matter

is that there is more

kindness and compassion

distributed throughout

all nature

than any man

has ever happened to notice.

Dewey Dirks