I think it is true that when you help an animal, you help yourself, you help humanity. Thomas Aquinas said we need to be good to animals so that we can be good to ourselves. This, I think is the Blue Star idea, the notion of harmony, compassion, humanity that are part of our long and precious relationship with animals. If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, wrote Francis of Assisi, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
Sarge, a blind 17-year-old trail horse, went home to Blue Star Wednesday. He will live the rest of his life there in dignity and comfort. He will soon be blind on both eyes, not just one and he needs special care. Even healthy horses are expensive to keep, Blue Star Equiculture has launched a gofundme campaign to help care for Sarge and get him the veterinary care he needs. In the first 20 hours, the project raised $2,505, a good beginning. We have about $10,000 to go.
Sarge is a sweet and generous animal, purchased from a kill buyer at auction last summer. Dorset, Vt. Equine Rescue has been looking for a home for Sarge since August. Sarge has a good one now, he is getting special feed, he is in a stall with a rescued feral horse named Gulliver, they have already bonded with one another. Maria and I are going to see him on Sunday, and he will soon see a veterinary opthalmologist. It is unlikely Sarge will ever see again, but miracles sometimes do happen, and Blue Star is very experienced with animals who are sick and have been sometimes horrifically abused.
I was touched by Sarge when I met him the other day in Vermont, he has learned to approach people slowly, smell them and sense them, he loves to be touched and talked to. He loves to play and run with other horses. He is lively and alert. He seems especially bright to me, and there is a sparkle in his stricken eyes still, it looks to me like he is about to laugh at the world.
I am grateful he is going to Blue Star. Glad to offer him help. Animals are helpless, they can not ask for help themselves, every time we help them it reaffirms our humanity.
I believe this draft horse retirement rescue and organic farming center in Palmer Mass. is a sacred and historic place in the deepening struggle to keep animals in our world, and to treat them and the people who love, live and work with them with compassion and respect. People swarm to Blue Star like pilgrims to Lourdes, it calls out the best in us, not the worst. It is an open and transparent place, there are no secrets there, everyone is welcome.
It is a tonic and a balm against the world portrayed every day on what we call the news.
That is in danger of being lost in the mounting and divisive struggles raging over the future of animals in our world, from the carriage horses to the elephants in the circus and the animals on the farms, and in our homes and backyards.
It is fitting that Sarge is going to Blue Star, I believe they are forging a model for the new way, the Third Way, the new and wiser and more mystical understanding of animals and people that we have seen waiting for and that we desperately need.
The Sioux talk of a spirit dance held by the horses at night, the horses gather to sing and chant a song of lament that they have been forgotten by their human companions, with whom they helped build the world together. At Blue Star, the goal is to keep animals in our every day lives, not to banish them to rescue farms and a life in nature that no longer is possible. They look for ways for animals and people to work together and to love both.
They treat humans with compassion and respect there- they do not create angry websites, they do not raise money for any other purpose than animal care, they do not sent secret informers out into the world to frighten and persecute people in the animal world, they do not seek to remove animals from people, they do not hate and accuse, they do not judge other people, invade their privacy, frighten them or disrupt their work or way of life.
They help the animals, they help the people. Blue Star is crawling with people who draw their own sustenance from the big horses. This is the place I have been seeking, just think of the contrast for yourselves, consider the troubled state of the animal world, awash in confusion and conflict. St. Francis would be at home there, that is the spirit Pamela and Paul have nurtured there. None of God’s creatures are excluded from the shelter of pity and compassion there, we are all one.
And that is the point, I think of helping Sarge, and helping Blue Star, that is their mission, we need it for the animals, for us, for the earth. it is the Third Way, beyond the notion of animals as dumb beasts or piteous creatures, beyond the idea of humans as evil and uncaring.
This is part of a new social awakening, begun by the carriage horses in New York calling to us for help. We reject the angry world of so many men, the way of life practiced in Washington, we are returning to our own humanity. There is nothing more natural on the earth than for animals and people to be together.
I hope you can help Sarge and I hope you can help Blue Star.
There are a lot of people in difficulty these days, a lot of people seeking help. It often seems overwhelming. A woman on my Facebook page started to complain yesterday that there are too many people online seeking help.”Oh, Lord,” she wrote. “Another gofundme.” I know how she feels, but I do not complain about it or regret it.
No one should ever feel pressured to give up money they need, but I am grateful that this new technology makes it easier for us to find people we want to help, easier to know where the money is going, easier to choose to help.
Every time I see this I learn again that people are good, given the chance. I am giving because I want to help this horse live his life in dignity and comfort. And because I believe Blue Star and it’s new model of dealing with animals is the best hope I have seen for their future, and our lives with them.
You can help Sarge and Blue Star both here.