Dear Spirit to Spirit friend,
I'm sure that we all have many beautiful stories to share about the emotional intelligence we experience with our animal family members and perhaps other animals too- the wild ones of the sky, land, and sea. This wonderful true story by Carlo Carretto speaks to something that so many of us know in our hearts... the profound emotional intelligence animals possess and our deeper interconnectedness with them.
"I wonder what I ought to tell you about the friendship there was between me and a falcon?
I was in a certain hermitage, where I had withdrawn to pray in peace.
I noticed that very nearby there was a falcon, with its nest.
We became friends. . . .
Then the falcon undertook to rouse me from my rest at the hour of prayer—at midnight, and again at dawn for Lauds. . . .
He always performed his duty with precision.
Once he even went beyond the call of duty.
He had noticed that I was not feeling well—and so he did not awaken me in the night, but only in the morning for Lauds.
I think God was guiding me by the falcon.
You can go ahead and smile. . . . But it happened to me, and I took pleasure in it all, even going so far as to hold conversations with all manner of creatures, and preach various sermons to them. . . .
I made an effort to make them understand that I was a friend. At first they were astounded and incredulous. But then they believed.
And they drew near.
And they listened to me. . . .
It was as if the dimensions of the Kingdom had been enlarged for me. . . .
It was as if the number of my sisters and brothers had become measurelessly greater."
Carlo Carretto (1910–1988) was a member of the Little Brothers of the Gospel,
a community of contemplatives based on the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi.
In Gratitude & Love, Joanna