Editorial submitted to the New York Times
It is understandable that “Rare white giraffes cause a stir in Kenya” (Sept 16, 2017, New York Times). White Spirit Animals, animals that are all white coated unlike the rest of their species, have long and venerable ties to shamanic and indigenous traditions worldwide.
All white spirit animals appear for our benefit, to remind us that life on Earth is predicated on animal survival, not human exploitation and ruination of our planet and our animal kin. Considered historically as harbingers of Earth changes, the White Spirit animals are each associated with elder lore, prophecy about calamitous times and similarly share histories of collaboration with off planet elders from the Pleiades, Sirius, Alcyon, Lyra and elsewhere. I spent four years collecting stories, the science, and prophecy associated with the White Spirit mammals, whose matriarchal land cultures hold mother and child as the centerpiece of survival and proliferation. Our human society has lost this ethos of care that matriarchies embody.
Besides teaching humans how to survive the last ice age which ended 12,500 years ago, the White Spirit Animals and their species also show us that enabling mammals, apex guardians of entire segments of the Earth to flourish, is the right strategy for resilience and continuation of Earth life. Yet, the very mammals I speak of, such as the White bear, elephant, lion, buffalo, wolf, to name a few, are the ones most vulnerable. From the elephants and lions of Africa and Asia, the bears, wolves and buffalo of the east and west, are endangered species and yet remain the targets of humans who like to kill for pleasure, or to extract body parts for profit or disgracefully trophy hunt animals kept in cages and perimiterized areas, explicitly bred or taken captive from the wild to murder. The enslavement and decimation of these animal cultures is reflected in the depreciation of the ecosystems they preside over, from the plains and woods of America, to the savanna grasses of Africa. Animalcide is as ruinous as genocide.
Animals are extraordinary wisdom teachers about shared society, Earth care and how to restore our ailing planet. CPR is their message; conservation, preservation and restoration — a simple formula to remember and act upon.
Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus, D.H.L.
Author of White Spirit Animals: Prophets of Change
(Inner Traditions/Bear & Co., Oct 2017)