What is An Animal Chaplain?
Animal Chaplains help people through all stages and phases of their animal’s life. Many times, when people are preparing for the transition, there are so many complex emotions, and you really want to talk to someone who understands the depths of the experience of pet loss. Animal Chaplains are non-denominational and accept people from all faiths, no faiths, and belief systems. Animal Chaplains can help you identify what you need to process this experience, or to create a customized ceremony to celebrate the life of an animal. Animal Chaplains respect the human-animal relationship in all its many phases of love, joy and loss. It is always good to have a plan for transition and Animal Chaplains can walk with you through this experience, so that it may be as beautiful and sacred as possible. Rev. Sarah Bowen is the cofounder of Compassion Consortium, and trains potential Animal Chaplains. Her book Sacred Sendoffs is available online.
Listen to Episode #59 Now:
BIO:
Sarah A. Bowen is an award-winning author, animal chaplain, and educator who teaches interspecies mindfulness practices, helps humans survive the pain of animal loss, and advocates for exploited and endangered species in both religious and secular contexts. You can often find her huddled over wildlife struck by cars, giving them a sacred sendoff.
A columnist on animal/human relationships for Spirituality & Health magazine, Bowen’s work has also appeared in Parabola, Tricycle, and Religion Dispatches. Her latest book is Sacred Sendoffs: An Animal Chaplain’s Advice For Surviving Animal Loss, Making Life Meaningful, & Healing The Planet (Monkfish Publishing, 2022)
Transcript:
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Announcer: Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Announcer: Welcome to The Human-Animal Connection show, where we believe we can communicate with all animals.
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Announcer: Join us as we explore the 33 principles and healing methods of The Human-Animal Connection.
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Announcer: As animal lovers, we know that you share our commitment to making the world a kinder place for all creatures.
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Announcer: Together, let's embrace the transformative healing power of The Human-Animal Connection.
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Genie Joseph: Hi, everyone.
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Genie Joseph: Welcome to The Human-Animal Connection.
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Genie Joseph: I'm so glad you're with me, and I have a very special friend, Reverend Sarah Bowen, and she is an animal chaplain.
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Genie Joseph: Maybe you have no idea what an animal chaplain is, and today you're going to learn what is an animal chaplain, what is the work that they do, and how can they help you.
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Genie Joseph: Maybe you are going through something where you could use the services of an animal chaplain, so we're going to find out all about that.
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Genie Joseph: So, welcome, Sarah, welcome, Reverend Sarah.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Delighted to be with you here today, Genie.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah, well, let's start with just the first question, is what is an animal chaplain, what do they do, and how do they help people?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It's a good question.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So, as an animal chaplain, I support all sentient beings, all animals and humans, regardless of their species and regardless of their belief system.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So, an animal chaplain isn't necessarily a religious person.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: An animal chaplain is someone who's what I like to call a free agent.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So, we're there to support people in kind of whatever spiritual or religious beliefs they might have, or just the existential questions about things that are going on with an animal that you live with, or an animal who might be outside in your yard, or bigger questions about animals in general.
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Genie Joseph: Wow.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: So, I think you have a real interesting cross-section because you grew up with a minister father.
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Genie Joseph: So, you grew up in a religious environment, and you also had a passion for animals.
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Genie Joseph: Was there one that came first, the passion for animals or the commitment to spiritual life?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Well, that's such a good question, Jeannie.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: That's like what came first, the chicken or the egg?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I know, right?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I'm not sure the answer to either of those questions.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But I do think, so I was raised with a father who was a pastor.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so that colored the way that we grew up.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It was, my father was very passionate about social justice and very passionate about helping connect people and community to different services that they needed for their own thriving and their well-being.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And we were also often taken to weddings and funerals, and funeral homes, and hospitals, and that kind of stuff on the way to swim practice.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Or, you know, after school.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So we got to see this other side of caring for people that many kids may not have if your, you know, parent was not involved in some sort of human services field.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But I was so very curious about animals.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: We had cats we lived with, and my grandparents had a farm, so there were a whole bunch of other different animals that lived with grandma and grandpa.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I was also very curious about the little animals that I would see when I would walk home from school who, you know, met their end thanks to someone who wasn't driving cautiously.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so the story in my family goes like this.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: When Sarah was young, she used to pick up tiny little roadkill chipmunks, put them in her lunchbox, take them home and give them funerals, which I did.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I would steal my father's clergy shirts and give them a little service and say, may the force be with you, chipmunk.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And, you know, I was just very concerned about animal lives and also, you know, those kind of tougher, tender topics.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
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Genie Joseph: And so for you, animals were your spiritual life.
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Genie Joseph: They were a part of your spiritual life, I would say.
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Genie Joseph: Is that correct?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Very, very much so.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I mean, at church, there were many stories, right?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: The Noah and his big ark and other stories like that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But at home, there were, you know, my connections in my, I like to say in my habitat rather than my yard.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: There were the connections that I had to animals and they were very, very deep.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I think as many of us who I know yourself and people likely listening to this podcast, we feel these very deep connections to animals in a way that sometimes as kids, we don't have the language for.
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Genie Joseph: Right.
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Genie Joseph: Sometimes the adults don't understand this tremendous passion and commitment to little beings around us.
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Genie Joseph: It's not always easy to be an animal lover in this world.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Yeah.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Well said.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Tell me a little bit more about the kinds of things that you do as an Animal Chaplain.
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Genie Joseph: What are you called for?
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Genie Joseph: Who calls you and for what?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It's a wide range.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Very obviously, you might think that if someone has had the loss of an animal companion, they might call an Animal Chaplain for some grief support, or help doing a funeral or a ceremony, or what I like to call a furry wake, which is really the celebration of life.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: That's a very obvious area that we help.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I also get called for questions.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Those ethical dilemmas of, I've just received this diagnosis and I don't know what to do, or we've just had a baby come into the house and there's something going on with the dog.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: What do we do?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Or any of those kind of human animal, we might call them conflicts or tensions that arise in a house.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: We also, as Animal Chaplains, work with people who work with animals.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I support shelter workers, sanctuary workers, veterinarians, conservationists, all sorts of people who have stressful jobs, and they need someone to talk about what's going on at their job, about their emotional well-being, and they might not feel so comfortable talking about it at work.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So contacting an Animal Chaplain is somebody who gets it with what you do and the difficulty of that volunteering or that profession, and can help you kind of sort through the emotions and look at some practices that might help for better well-being.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Well, I know you've brought a lot of awareness to the life of veterinarians and the very high stress that they experience.
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Genie Joseph: They probably went into the profession out of a deep love with animals, and then they find themselves in situations where they're dealing with lots of euthanasia or lots of no solutions medically, and they have tremendous stress.
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Genie Joseph: And so, tell us a little bit about that, about your work with increasing awareness about what veterinarians are going through.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Yeah.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, it started when I read a report that said veterinarians had the third highest rate of suicide of any profession.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And when I read that, I was taking it back a little, and I thought, now, what is that?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And Jeannie, you've just described some of the reasons why that can be so difficult.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, think about going into a profession where, you know, you love animals, you want to help animals, you want to save animals, and yet our systems and our structures, you know, kind of are working against you with that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so I started doing a lot of talking with veterinarians about, you know, hey, what's going on?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, what kind of support do you have?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And we started doing workshops at veterinary hospitals, at different types of clinics, and said, let's work on a couple of things.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Let's figure out how to get some self care in here.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Let's also figure out how that we might educate the people who come into a veterinary clinic, a little bit about, you know, your job and what your role is.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And let's also attend to that kind of, the end and the last piece, what I like to call Sacred Sendoffs, and how people can honor those beings that don't go back out the door.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, the whole kind of thing.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And we've had some really great response from veterinarians, also vet techs, people who work the front desk.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, there's a whole staff that goes on in these type of context that needs some support.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So we're working on that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: We also do, we've been to the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, the AHVMA Conference, and, you know, just talk with vets and say, you know, tell us what's going on.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: We're like that safe space to be able to help you process what's going on, whether you're, you know, you're a pet person or a veterinarian.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah, and I think most people walking through the doors of a veterinary office are probably worried, if not deeply terrified, you know, coming in, you know, because they're animals.
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Genie Joseph: They're not coming because their animal is feeling well too often.
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Genie Joseph: And maybe there's that yearly checkup, but for the most part, they're in high stress and veterinarians are having to deal with that energy and without any training in veterinary school for how to deal with the human emotional element, you know what I mean?
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Genie Joseph: It's like they need a psychology degree or something to help them.
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Genie Joseph: And yet, you know, they're without those tools because they were trained to work with the animals and there's a human attached to that animal.
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Genie Joseph: That human has...
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: There is.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I often go with people to the vet.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So if someone's stressed out about going to an appointment because of what's going on with an animal that they love, I'll go with them to help manage their emotions and to help with that connection through whatever, you know, what they're hearing and processing.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It can be so hard when, you know...
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Genie Joseph: So hard.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: When you start to hear things and, you know...
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I think any support that we can give people for that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I read a report recently that...
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Well, it didn't surprise me, but it said that cats get less veterinary care than dogs because it's so darn hard to get them in the cat carrier, right?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I'm a cat house, so I know this one.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: How can we help people with that aspect of this too, if you have a stressful cat, a stressed out cat for, you know, more easily convincing them that perhaps getting in the carrier might be in their best interest today.
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Genie Joseph: Right.
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Genie Joseph: Well, I heard Rupert Sheldrake wrote a book called Animals Who Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, and he tells the story about most vets in England will not accept appointments for cats because the cats tend to know, even before you get the cat carrier out, they know the night before you're going to the vet.
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Genie Joseph: So they don't take appointments.
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Genie Joseph: They say, well, bring them in when you can.
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Genie Joseph: That's it.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: When you can.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I love that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I love that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: We have a big pair of ski gloves over here.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: One of my cats who had a lot of trauma in his shelter.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so when, you know, there's a big set of ski gloves and a lot of treats that come out when we do that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But what you're pointing to, Jeannie, I think, is, you know, that necessity of really understanding an animal that you're in relationship with or you're in connection with and trying to do all that you can.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: The many, many different modalities we have of being able to support that relationship in those stressful times.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: You know, it's easier for us to handle the kind of happy times.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But those tension points or those stressful points, being able to have a little support can be useful.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Genie Joseph: Well, can I ask you a big question?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Big questions.
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Genie Joseph: Go for it.
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Genie Joseph: All right.
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Genie Joseph: Well, so the big question, and I'm sure people have asked you this a million times, but do animals have souls?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: That's the million dollar question.
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Genie Joseph: The million dollar question.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It takes a lot of time to unpack this.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So most people want me just to say yes.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: If you just want to hear yes, I can say yes.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But I'd like to add to that a little bit, which is I'm very curious about the question why we ask, do animals have souls?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I think it's for two reasons.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: One is that some of us received messages growing up that animals didn't, that animals were somehow lesser than humans.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Humans had souls, animals didn't.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so we're seeking some sort of confirmation that what we feel in our experience, which is that animals have as much value as, or as rich internal lives as animals, as humans.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I think that's one reason.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I think the second reason we ask why do animals have souls is because we're concerned when they transition about the what's next.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And if we have some confirmation that an animal has a soul, then we're more likely to believe that, you know, and to experience that whatever comes next, it's going to be a positive experience for that animal.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: What is interesting from an interfaith perspective, I'm an interfaith, again, a free agent, so willing to look at all of the world's wisdom, traditions and philosophies.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: There are so many different words for this soul.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Soul, spirit, chi, prana, claw.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: There are all these different types of words, and they're slightly different things.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: But they all speak to this idea that whatever that essence that humans have, that animals also have this kind of essence that we experience.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So you may be, soul may be your word for it.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Know that for other people, there may be a different word for it.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And if you can be curious about all those different expressions, in the different worlds, wisdom and spiritual traditions, we can learn a lot about how we care about animals and how we interact with them.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So that was a longer answer than you expected, Jeannie, for that big question.
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Genie Joseph: Well, I love both answers.
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Genie Joseph: I love the quick yes and I love the more nuanced answer.
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Genie Joseph: So I think that's really important because I think that people do struggle with this.
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Genie Joseph: I mean, some people have an absolute yes or an absolute no, but I think a lot of people are trying to sort it out, you know, trying to figure out what feels true for them and how does that impact the decisions that they make or the way that they relate.
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Genie Joseph: And so, you know, I don't think we have to have an absolute answer, but I think it's a good exercise to take the question out, shake it out, exercise it, see what it is today and see what it is tomorrow.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Absolutely, absolutely.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I think that that gives us a lot of information too about our relationships and how much we care.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: I think we ask this question because we really, really care.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So going behind the question, Angie, I like that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: Take it out, take it and shake it out.
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Genie Joseph: Yeah.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: It's why we care.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And then that might lead us to, okay, if I care about this, what does that mean about how I'm in relationship with this animal?
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so, you know, there's a lot that follows behind that.
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Reverend Sarah Bowen: So it is a big question and it's a great question for all of us to ask.
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Genie Joseph: A good one to play with.
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Genie Joseph: Well, we're going to take a very short break.
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Genie Joseph: When we come back, I want to hear some stories about you working with people and their animals.
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Genie Joseph: We'll be right back in just a moment.
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Announcer: You know the expression, cats have nine lives.
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Announcer: Well, what if you can give them one more?
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Announcer: The Give Them Ten Movement is on a mission to help give cats an extra life.
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Announcer: How?
00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:48.200
Announcer: With spay and neuter.
00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:53.460
Announcer: Spaying or neutering your cat helps them live a longer, healthier life.
00:15:53.460 --> 00:15:57.720
Announcer: And it helps control free roaming cat populations too.
00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:05.000
Announcer: Learn more about the benefits of spay and neuter and meet Scooter, the neutered cat, at givethemten.org.
00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:07.420
Announcer: That's givethemten.org.
00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:14.340
Announcer: Hey friends, if you like what you're hearing and want to learn more, check out Dr.
00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:21.780
Announcer: Joseph's book, The Human-Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and Ourselves.
00:16:21.780 --> 00:16:29.100
Announcer: Or visit the website, thehumananimalconnection.org, to book an online consultation.
00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:31.460
Announcer: Thank you for loving animals.
00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:33.160
Announcer: Now back to the show.
00:16:34.760 --> 00:16:37.260
Announcer: Let's talk pets on petliferadio.com.
00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:46.880
Genie Joseph: Welcome back to The Human-Animal Connection, where I'm speaking with Rev.
00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:50.840
Genie Joseph: Sarah Bowen, and she is an Animal Chaplain.
00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:57.360
Genie Joseph: And so you must get some unusual calls, because people come from all different belief systems and have all different needs.
00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:04.560
Genie Joseph: Can you share a story with us of a memorable experience with a client who needed an Animal Chaplain?
00:17:04.560 --> 00:17:06.640
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Certainly can.
00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:12.460
Reverend Sarah Bowen: There are so many, and they're so fascinating to see the different ways and the different questions that we have.
00:17:13.100 --> 00:17:23.040
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I got a call from someone whose animal had passed, and she was interested in doing some sort of ceremony for the animal.
00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:37.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so she had reached out to her local priest and had asked for some support, because the end last week was really difficult for her with her dog, and she wanted some support from her local parish priest.
00:17:37.780 --> 00:17:43.000
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And he said to her, I'm sorry, I can't help you because animals don't have souls.
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:44.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I don't work with animals.
00:17:44.280 --> 00:17:49.940
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so, and not all priests believe that same way, but this particular man did.
00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:52.840
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so I'm sorry, I can't help you with that.
00:17:52.840 --> 00:17:58.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so she somehow found my number, perhaps on my website or somewhere else or on Find Animal Chaplain.
00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:01.560
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And she called up and said, I'd like to have a ceremony.
00:18:01.560 --> 00:18:04.880
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I said, great, tell me a little bit about your belief system.
00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:10.680
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And she said, well, I'm Catholic, but I would like a Buddhist funeral.
00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:12.740
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I said, now, that's interesting.
00:18:12.740 --> 00:18:15.440
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Tell me more about that.
00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:24.100
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And she described this experience that she'd had, you know, that had kind of, she was a little feeling a little tension with the Catholic way of perhaps doing a funeral.
00:18:24.100 --> 00:18:35.980
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And she said, but I have a friend who's a Buddhist who told me that if I do a Buddhist funeral, that that animal could have a more auspicious next lifetime.
00:18:36.120 --> 00:18:38.180
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I would like that for my dog.
00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:40.380
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Is that possible?
00:18:40.380 --> 00:19:01.540
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I shared in the Buddhist tradition, that is the belief, there is a period of seven weeks after an animal passes called the bardo, where you still can have a connection to animals, you leave their food bowls out, you can dedicate the merit of your good deeds for them, for that next auspicious next lifetime.
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:06.380
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so we planned a Buddhist ceremony.
00:19:06.380 --> 00:19:15.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I showed up at her house and she had invited a couple of other people to attend, and they showed up wearing very large crosses.
00:19:16.520 --> 00:19:31.820
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So at that point, we ended up with kind of a Catholic slash Buddhist animal, something or other, that defies the name of what we might call it, but was incredibly meaningful to all who were involved.
00:19:31.820 --> 00:19:39.000
Reverend Sarah Bowen: We did some beautiful practices with writing prayers and on beautiful Joss paper, and then burning those.
00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:45.740
Reverend Sarah Bowen: The belief in Buddhism is that as you burn those prayers, they go to the animal up through the smoke.
00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.260
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And then we had some Christian prayers tossed in there too.
00:19:50.260 --> 00:20:08.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I like this story to wrap it up, Janie, because it shows that sometimes our beliefs and practices that are meaningful to us might come from a couple of different traditions or a couple of different things we've assembled along the way in our spiritual journey.
00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:28.360
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And being able to attest to our traditions and also be open to new ideas can really make meaning and really kind of frame that transition as something that, you know, might be something useful also to the animal past their life with us, if that makes any sense.
00:20:28.360 --> 00:20:29.400
Genie Joseph: Absolutely.
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:36.040
Genie Joseph: And I just love the flexibility of really being able to say, what does this person need in this moment?
00:20:36.040 --> 00:20:42.680
Genie Joseph: And what does this, you know, how can we be of service to them rather than saying, well, this is the one way I do things.
00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:43.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Exactly.
00:20:43.780 --> 00:20:44.340
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Exactly.
00:20:44.340 --> 00:20:49.800
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Animal Chaplains, the first thing that we do with anyone is something called, you know, a spiritual inquiry.
00:20:50.600 --> 00:20:54.040
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So what we want to know is, you know, what do you believe?
00:20:54.040 --> 00:20:56.080
Reverend Sarah Bowen: What's important to you?
00:20:56.080 --> 00:21:00.960
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Tell me about your relationship with this animal and let's figure something out.
00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:02.720
Reverend Sarah Bowen: It's going to be helpful to you.
00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:14.360
Reverend Sarah Bowen: People sometimes call me also after an animal has passed to ask me about what to do with the, you know, the animal who's still in the home, who's also grieving.
00:21:14.360 --> 00:21:16.140
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so that can become another piece.
00:21:16.140 --> 00:21:30.580
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And number one recommendation for that is, don't remove all the Amazon boxes that your cat loved, because another cat may find comfort in those Amazon boxes, you know, that still smell like the person they lived with.
00:21:30.580 --> 00:21:37.940
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So there can be a lot of flexibility in the way that we, that we look at, you know, this time, which can be, can be hard for us.
00:21:37.940 --> 00:21:46.400
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Or if you're supported, you're supported, it can actually be a time of tender kind of beauty and reflection.
00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:49.320
Genie Joseph: Yes, definitely so, definitely so.
00:21:49.320 --> 00:21:55.060
Genie Joseph: And I know that from, you've done small ceremonies, you've also participated in rather large ceremonies.
00:21:55.060 --> 00:22:00.400
Genie Joseph: I think you went to a, an event for, was it a lion or a tiger?
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.580
Reverend Sarah Bowen: It was a mountain lion.
00:22:02.580 --> 00:22:03.300
Genie Joseph: A mountain lion.
00:22:03.300 --> 00:22:03.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Yeah.
00:22:03.780 --> 00:22:17.900
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So those of you who might be living near LA, might remember P22, so named because P22 was the 22nd Puma in a national park survey.
00:22:17.900 --> 00:22:20.120
Reverend Sarah Bowen: They, they number the animals.
00:22:20.120 --> 00:22:37.520
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And P22 had crossed 10 lanes of traffic to get into this kind of large park in Los Angeles, and lived there for a decade, kind of coexisting with the people of that city, who, who many came to love him greatly.
00:22:37.520 --> 00:22:45.060
Reverend Sarah Bowen: He was still, you know, wild, semi-wild, you know, kind of running around and occasionally got into trouble doing different things.
00:22:45.060 --> 00:22:54.140
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But he had gotten very sick and also had been paradoxically hit by a car and had a lot of injuries.
00:22:54.140 --> 00:23:02.860
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so they made the choice to, to euthanize P22 and to hold a celebration of life.
00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:06.300
Reverend Sarah Bowen: 5,000 people came.
00:23:06.300 --> 00:23:07.340
Genie Joseph: Wow.
00:23:07.340 --> 00:23:14.360
Reverend Sarah Bowen: It was at the Greek theater in that park, in that park where he lived, a huge open amphitheater.
00:23:14.360 --> 00:23:19.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And, and the tickets for it, they were free, but they sold out like a number of hours.
00:23:19.280 --> 00:23:20.420
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I flew from New York.
00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:21.140
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I got a ticket.
00:23:21.140 --> 00:23:23.760
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I flew from New York all the way to LA.
00:23:23.760 --> 00:23:28.600
Reverend Sarah Bowen: There were a few other Animal Chaplains and animal people I knew there and we showed up for this thing.
00:23:28.600 --> 00:23:32.100
Reverend Sarah Bowen: People were walking around in cat ears and had tails on.
00:23:33.020 --> 00:23:35.240
Reverend Sarah Bowen: There were kids playing ukeleles.
00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:59.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: There were people from the state giving speeches about the impact this animal had had and now they are building a massive archway, a wildlife pass over that highway, that freeway in LA so that they can have more safety for animals and less defragmentation of habitat.
00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:03.420
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So we can have very small ceremonies and we can have very big ceremonies.
00:24:03.420 --> 00:24:05.360
Genie Joseph: Yeah, that's awesome.
00:24:05.360 --> 00:24:07.460
Genie Joseph: Well, I know you're a squirrel lover.
00:24:07.460 --> 00:24:11.260
Genie Joseph: Can you tell us a little bit about your love and life with squirrels?
00:24:11.260 --> 00:24:11.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I am.
00:24:11.780 --> 00:24:14.040
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I love squirrels.
00:24:14.040 --> 00:24:28.180
Reverend Sarah Bowen: When I was a kid, we had black squirrels in the neighborhood we lived at in Nebraska, and they would they would go across a tree branch and drop walnuts on our cat's head as he was sitting on a picnic table.
00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:35.000
Reverend Sarah Bowen: He would look up at them and go, and they would look down at him and go like that.
00:24:35.260 --> 00:24:37.460
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Did they have good aim?
00:24:37.460 --> 00:24:38.140
Genie Joseph: Did they hit the table?
00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:40.220
Reverend Sarah Bowen: They had remarkable aim.
00:24:40.220 --> 00:24:45.640
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I was six or seven years old, but I remember, he didn't want to seed, he was a cat.
00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:48.560
Reverend Sarah Bowen: He did not want to seed his property.
00:24:48.560 --> 00:24:51.800
Reverend Sarah Bowen: This is my table and they'd be like, let's go get the cat.
00:24:51.800 --> 00:24:52.680
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I don't know.
00:24:53.140 --> 00:24:54.940
Reverend Sarah Bowen: These are the conversations I make up for them.
00:24:56.400 --> 00:25:00.440
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But from a very early day, I loved squirrels.
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:10.700
Reverend Sarah Bowen: They were outside animals, but what we call commensal animals, animals who live near us and in relationship with us, but most of the time not in our homes.
00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:16.460
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so there's a different kind of relationship with them.
00:25:16.660 --> 00:25:20.720
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And there have been squirrels in every state that I've ever lived in.
00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:22.940
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so they are in my life.
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:27.360
Reverend Sarah Bowen: They're outside the window, and they connect me to wherever I'm living.
00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:33.100
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I spend a lot of time, they'll come and look at me through the window, and I'll look out at them.
00:25:33.100 --> 00:25:34.800
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I call it meditating with squirrels.
00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:38.820
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I'm not sure if they're meditating or meditating.
00:25:38.820 --> 00:25:53.300
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But they really connect me to this idea that there are many more animals in the world that I want to be concerned about, and know about, and be in relationship with, than just the ones who are in my home.
00:25:53.300 --> 00:26:08.920
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so I talk about squirrels a lot, because I hope that people will start to really have a lot of curiosity about who lives in your habitat, and what are the challenges they face, and what are the joys they bring.
00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:12.640
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And squirrels are just bouncy, bouncy fun.
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:18.520
Reverend Sarah Bowen: They just, to me, imbue joyfulness and happiness.
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:20.700
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I know a lot about squirrels now.
00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:28.860
Reverend Sarah Bowen: When I did my Master in Science, I specialized in squirrels as my chosen species.
00:26:28.860 --> 00:26:31.540
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But yeah, do you have squirrels around you, Janie?
00:26:31.540 --> 00:26:32.380
Genie Joseph: Oh yeah.
00:26:33.380 --> 00:26:33.760
Genie Joseph: We do.
00:26:33.760 --> 00:26:40.240
Genie Joseph: We have little other things, and I'm not exactly sure what they're called, but they're kind of squirrel-like.
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:45.200
Genie Joseph: And if you're very, very quiet, they will sit up and look at you, and then they will go back down into their hole.
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:48.700
Genie Joseph: So you have to be very, very quiet to engage with one of them.
00:26:48.700 --> 00:26:51.800
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Maybe chip, yeah, some sort of chipmunk or ground squirrel of some sort.
00:26:51.800 --> 00:26:52.520
Genie Joseph: Ground squirrel, yeah.
00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:56.360
Genie Joseph: If you're not peaceful, they will not come near you.
00:26:56.360 --> 00:27:03.320
Genie Joseph: But if you get peaceful, they will, they seem to enjoy having a moment of just really gazing at you, and then they go back to their world.
00:27:03.320 --> 00:27:04.800
Genie Joseph: They have a little taste of humanist.
00:27:04.800 --> 00:27:07.780
Genie Joseph: They say, okay, interesting, but I like my world better.
00:27:07.780 --> 00:27:21.240
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Well, and I think that you hit on a great point there, Janie, which is it really teaches us to, if we want to observe wildlife, we have to get quiet, we have to get calm, we have to take some deep breaths, we need to be still.
00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:23.960
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And these days, we are not used to doing that.
00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:29.880
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so when we can, and I'm one to talk because I'm flitting from here to there all the time.
00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:42.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So being able to go, and I recommend people do a practice called Good Morning Habitat every morning, and just sit outside for five minutes with your coffee or your tea, or if it's cold and you don't want to, look out a window.
00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:52.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And just attune yourself to, you know, the birds who are living outside, the animals, if it's snowy, the tracks that are in the snow, who visited overnight.
00:27:52.320 --> 00:28:02.460
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And it can, we know, we have some evidence on this now, that it can really have a great impact on our blood pressure, on our stress level, on our mental well-being.
00:28:02.460 --> 00:28:04.640
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And it's very, very easy.
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:05.200
Genie Joseph: Yes.
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:05.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: It's easy.
00:28:05.780 --> 00:28:06.700
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Just a few minutes.
00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:12.000
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Looking at green for 60 seconds can lower your blood pressure, folks.
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:12.360
Genie Joseph: Wow.
00:28:12.360 --> 00:28:14.600
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So try Good Morning Habitat tomorrow.
00:28:14.600 --> 00:28:15.220
Genie Joseph: Yeah, I love it.
00:28:15.220 --> 00:28:16.900
Genie Joseph: I have wild rabbits in my yard.
00:28:16.900 --> 00:28:18.260
Genie Joseph: I'm very lucky to have them.
00:28:18.260 --> 00:28:19.480
Genie Joseph: So they are fun.
00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:22.560
Genie Joseph: There are lots of life, lots of life outside the window.
00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:25.040
Genie Joseph: Well, good.
00:28:25.040 --> 00:28:27.400
Genie Joseph: Well, how can people get ahold of you or learn more?
00:28:27.400 --> 00:28:29.960
Genie Joseph: Maybe some people even want to become an animal chaplain.
00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:31.920
Genie Joseph: So how can they find you?
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:34.560
Reverend Sarah Bowen: The easiest way is to go to sacredsendoffs.com.
00:28:36.180 --> 00:28:53.080
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And that is the website that has my book, Sacred Sendoffs, which is all about animals, as well as links to our animal chaplaincy training program at the Compassion Consortium and other workshops that I might be doing as well.
00:28:53.080 --> 00:29:14.360
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And you can also go to findanimalchaplain.com, which is a directory of animal chaplains all over the United States, and a couple international where you can search by your zip code and see if there's somebody, if you have a situation where you think an animal chaplain might be useful.
00:29:15.340 --> 00:29:18.920
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Click there, you can look at the different bios of people and who's in your area.
00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:21.280
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Most of them meet by Zoom too or telephone.
00:29:21.280 --> 00:29:23.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So you can pick somebody in a different state.
00:29:23.320 --> 00:29:29.520
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But I think those two resources can give you a lot of information about what we animal chaplains do.
00:29:29.520 --> 00:29:37.660
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And if anyone would like to talk about becoming an animal chaplain, on my website, there's a link there that you can contact me, and I'd be happy to talk to you about it.
00:29:37.660 --> 00:29:44.400
Reverend Sarah Bowen: I think the more of us who are called to this work to support humans and to support animals, the better.
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:52.660
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So I'd be happy to help talk to anyone about whether this might be something you'd like to add to what you do.
00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:57.700
Genie Joseph: Well, I know you can find me on that site, since I'm one of your students in your second cohort.
00:29:57.700 --> 00:30:00.140
Genie Joseph: That was a really wonderful experience.
00:30:00.740 --> 00:30:09.720
Genie Joseph: I remember our first conversation, and I said to you, well, I want to do all the spiritual stuff with animals, like all the deep loving, getting presents, all that great stuff.
00:30:09.720 --> 00:30:11.140
Genie Joseph: I don't want to deal with too much death.
00:30:12.340 --> 00:30:28.020
Genie Joseph: Of course, after I graduated and was ordained, my first call was someone who had two dogs that were very, very deeply bonded and one had a stroke and was ready to go, and the other one wasn't, and she needed help with deciding what to do.
00:30:28.020 --> 00:30:30.320
Genie Joseph: Should they both be euthanized so they could go together?
00:30:31.280 --> 00:30:39.100
Genie Joseph: It was a very beautiful experience to be with her and help her and her husband with the passing of these two dogs.
00:30:39.160 --> 00:30:48.520
Genie Joseph: And it was a lovely home, euthanasia, and it was sort of ironic that I said, I don't want to deal with death, but death is part of life.
00:30:48.520 --> 00:30:52.300
Genie Joseph: And it was quite a beautiful experience.
00:30:52.300 --> 00:30:57.700
Genie Joseph: It definitely deepened my capacity to have that experience.
00:30:57.700 --> 00:30:58.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: It is.
00:30:58.320 --> 00:31:00.480
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I think we deal with both sides.
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:03.620
Reverend Sarah Bowen: We deal with the thriving and then also with the transition.
00:31:03.620 --> 00:31:15.880
Reverend Sarah Bowen: But I always think for people, you know, animals, I think, you know, they most need us at that time that we might be afraid of.
00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:16.320
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:31:16.320 --> 00:31:19.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And so how can we help prepare for that?
00:31:19.780 --> 00:31:28.720
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And when we build resiliency and we see that as part of their transition to, you know, what's next or whatever is going to happen for them.
00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:34.160
Reverend Sarah Bowen: We want to make that as beautiful and as wonderful and as holy and sacred for them as we can.
00:31:34.660 --> 00:31:35.380
Genie Joseph: Absolutely.
00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:45.320
Reverend Sarah Bowen: There's a lot of, there's just a lot of strength that we can build at a time where we feel we're going to be very weak.
00:31:45.320 --> 00:31:51.500
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And I think, you know, being able to do that and see their full lives is so very, very useful.
00:31:52.040 --> 00:31:53.980
Reverend Sarah Bowen: So the happy parts, oh yeah.
00:31:53.980 --> 00:31:54.280
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:31:54.280 --> 00:31:57.780
Reverend Sarah Bowen: And the tender parts, oh yeah, too.
00:31:57.780 --> 00:31:58.320
Genie Joseph: Exactly.
00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:00.040
Genie Joseph: The whole range of experience.
00:32:00.040 --> 00:32:00.480
Reverend Sarah Bowen: That's right.
00:32:00.560 --> 00:32:02.700
Genie Joseph: Everything, the entire experience.
00:32:02.700 --> 00:32:14.360
Genie Joseph: Well, it's been delightful to speak with you, Reverend Sarah Bowen, part of the Compassion Consortium, author of Sacred Sendoffs and Animal Chaplain herself.
00:32:14.360 --> 00:32:20.380
Genie Joseph: So thank you so much for being with us and for helping people understand what an Animal Chaplain does.
00:32:20.380 --> 00:32:21.440
Reverend Sarah Bowen: My pleasure, Janie.
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.880
Reverend Sarah Bowen: Thank you for everything that you do for animals.
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:26.680
Genie Joseph: We'll see you soon.
00:32:26.680 --> 00:32:27.760
Genie Joseph: We'll say aloha for now.
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.180
Genie Joseph: Thanks for listening to The Human-Animal Connection.
00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:38.940
Announcer: Thank you for tuning in to The Human-Animal Connection show.
00:32:38.940 --> 00:32:41.720
Announcer: Please visit our website, thehumananimalconnection.org.
00:32:43.660 --> 00:32:50.500
Announcer: There you can sign up for our free email newsletter, book a consultation, or check out our blogs and resources.
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