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The one room cabin, housing several types of critters, many of the rodent family, had one window without glass, the straw and mud chinking between the logs was mostly gone, and the stream was a small creek over grown with tall grass and was the water supply that barely flowed in the summer time. I became aware of survival at an early age, watching my father adorn a modified horse harness to pull a hand plow guided by my mother to break ground for a garden. We lived off the land. Eating my beloved animals and what we grew was the way of life. We had a pet deer, named Skeeter. Mother (not knowing better at the time) picked up a newborn fawn and carried it out of the rain into the house to show my brother and me. Of course, the mother deer would not take it back. We nursed and fed it into a spunky yearling that butted my father one too many times while he was bent over working on some survival invention. He said he took it out in the forest, but I knew better. I think my brother knew, as well, because he wouldn't eat meat, he hid his pieces on a ledge under our table and the dog got it after dinner. It was a good trick until Dad found out. My brother still eats meat to this day.....but I don't. After raising my three children, managing a medical clinic, performing as a white water - river rat hunting and fishing guide, operating a wilderness lodge, cooking and managing several restaurants in several states, I searched for my own “last frontier”. On my arrival at the airport, I saw a t-shirt that read: “Alaska-Home of the individual and other endangered species”. I bought one and had seven bucks left in my pocket. That was March of 1981. Five years in the land of “hard knocks” awakened me into natural healing, alternative medicine and learning the business of care giving for all walks of life. Then survival from not so nice humans moved me to Maui for a much needed rest. Eighteen years satisfied the experience of living on an island and I now reside outside Asheville, NC, writing stories to enlighten those who have never known Mother Nature and to break some of the fear regarding the animal kingdoms. The homes of our animals are being invaded by the times and unfortunately the confrontation of that effect is what most people get to know. My desire for writing is to show that animals are like humans and not that humans are like animals. I am a Story Teller. |
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Time Is Certain -Teach Our Children |
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An Adventure in Creative Writing for all Ages by Author JaiLeen Shepherd |
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About JaiLeen Shepherd |
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Moving to the “last frontier” became the basis for my understanding of life. My father searched out a 360-acre homestead plot and then began painting the picture of a Paradise to my mother, “Owning land from the base of a mountain to a river with a log home and a wonderful stream”. In 1947 he moved us, mother (7 months with child) and me at age 6 from a small town in Colorado to the wilderness of NW Montana. We arrived by train where he had arranged for us to be taken to our new life. |
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“Animals, too, are My creatures and possess life and feeling. In every animal there dwells already an active more or less developed soul, which sets it apart from the vegetable kingdom and even more from the mineral kingdom.
The soul of an animal senses the emanation from a well-ordered human soul and the thereby formed sphere of light and warmth of its external life. The animals thrive in this perfect outer life sphere and develop in such a spiritual light and its warmth towards a further passing into a higher state.
Rational man shall not wantonly misuse them. I tell you: I shall look with anger at the one who should misuse animals (and torment them). For whoever can with indifference watch an animal die has not much love in his heart because when true and living love dwells in a heart there dwell also compassion and mercy.”
“ The Great Gospel” vol. 2, chap. 94; chap. 216. |
