Everyday, as a society, we move further and further away from our rural roots. We move further from the food chain, from the animals, from the land, from each other and consequently, I believe, from ourselves. Despite the age of cell phones and the ability of "being connected", to really connect with one another seems to be more and more challenging.
Our most basic necessities of food and shelter have become an abstract exchange of currency and services many times removed from the core need. The techniques of turning the land and the life lessons of cultivating a relationship with animals and the environment has transformed into turning profits on greener urban pastures. To generate the profits the work place promotes aggression, and forces multi-tasking to the point that they need in-house employee stress counseling. Meanwhile the entertainment industry is out there awarding violence and the corporate athlete's message is to win at all costs. That is our social reality. Right or wrong, good or bad that's what it is. This way of life, without surprise, has its casualties. The casualties are the young, whom in bitter irony represent our future yet are deprived of the lessons of our past. Children of all ages deposited at the day care provider before breakfast not to be reclaimed until after dark. Children left in the guiding hands of 24-hour television. Children with nothing more than peer supervision left to tackle the day's challenge. The other casualties are animals. Animals rely on us and we on them. There are animal rescue agencies in this area alone that are taxed beyond their abilities to cope. Twenty-five minutes from here there are firemen, nurses, carpenters and housewives who donate time to save horses, llamas, pigs and dogs that are drowning in waves of crying animals.
We believe that the two can be rescued, and in doing so the two will rescue each other. As a place of rescue it is not just the "rescue" and safe haven that will be provided for all the lost, abused, and homeless animals and all the lost, neglected, untaught children. It will be the "rescue" of a heritage and lifestyle that is fast becoming a memory, a thing. |
