LJWorld.com / Animals have spiritual link

Archive for Sunday, October 26, 2003

By Peggy Fletcher Stack - Salt Lake Tribune

October 26, 2003

If you are looking for an unlikely spiritual mentor, skip the seminaries, mosques and temples and go straight for the animal kingdom.

There you will find otters who model work and playfulness, white pelicans who share each other's burdens, eagles with inner sight, monkeys with extraordinary tenderness towards their young, and wolves with serious family ties.

At least that's the view of Diana L. Guerrero, animal behaviorist and therapist in Big Bear Lake, Calif.

"Animals serve as a link to the intuitive and to the divine," says Guerrero, author of a new book, "What Animals Can Teach Us About Spirituality." "They can compel us to pursue a connection to the spirit without the need for a religious or denominational approach."

Animals know how to live in the now, where the past is gone and future yet to come. They depend on their senses to survive, Guerrero says. "Vision is not always the primary sense _ intuition may be. They pay attention. In case of wild animals, if they didn't, it could mean death."

Eagles have eight times the sight of humans. They demonstrate how to "detach and observe, when to participate and when to withdraw," she writes. "They illustrate how to delve into new waters, grasp what is needed and merge with new substance."