About the Animal Messenger Sanctuary

VISION The Animal Messenger Sanctuary is dedicated to celebrating the connection between humans and animals and providing an opportunity for humans to receive the wisdom that the Animal Messengers (all living creatures) have to impart to us, reconnecting us to nature and our higher selves in the process.

MISSION STATEMENT

The Animal Messenger Sanctuary provides a safe haven for farm animals, a wildlife refuge, an open-space preserve, and educational opportunities for humans on living respectfully with nature.

GOALS

• Provide a free-range home for "farm" animals—sheep, goats, cows, pigs, donkeys—where they can live out their lives with lots of space to roam.
• Provide holistic health care for the animals, using natural medicine approaches to deal with health problems whenever possible
• Set aside non-pastureland as a wildlife refuge and open-space preserve to conserve a piece of our shrinking green space and wildlife habitats.
• Conduct workshops on the topic of farmed animals, offering people the opportunity to interact with them (it will be the animals’ choice to interact or not) and discover the deep spiritual connection possible between all animals and humans.

THE STATUS OF THE ANIMAL MESSENGER SANCTUARY The sanctuary is a new project. The director is in the process of setting it up as a nonprofit organization and looking for land for the sanctuary (see A Visionary Call). The founding animal members (see Meet the Messengers) are currently living on five acres and there is no room to accommodate more animals. To carry out its mission, the sanctuary needs a farm or ranch with acreage to be dedicated to providing a home for farmed animals and preserving wildlife habitat. An agricultural and/or environmental conservancy will be attached to the land if appropriate to the site to further ensure its preservation in perpetuity. If you can help, please contact the director, Stephanie Marohn, at sanctuary@stephaniemarohn.com or write to P.O. Box 2256, Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Stephanie Marohn, the founder and director of the Animal Messenger Sanctuary, is an animal shaman, which means she does the mystical work of communing with animals on a deep level and, with them, helps to heal the planet's energy wound from thousands of years of violence and exploitation. She has always had a strong connection to animals, beginning with communing with pigs (see "Pearls of the Swine" below) and wild cats when she was a child. For the past 15 years, she has been living closely with farm animals and learning what vast wisdom they have to offer humans if we are open to receiving it. It is this experience that led to the vision of creating the Animal Messenger Sanctuary as a safe haven and a place where other humans can receive the wisdom.

Stephanie is a writer as well and, among other works, the author of seven books on natural medicine (see her book page). She has applied her knowledge of natural medicine to the care of the animals in her life as part of a holistic model of interaction, to in all ways “Do no harm.” She is currently at work on a nonfiction book about her animal experiences and a novel about the spiritual lives of animals through time (see an excerpt from the latter, The Animal Messengers).

Stephanie also runs Angel Editing, specializing in editing nonfiction books, and the Wonderlamb Shoppe, which offers organic wool comforters, made with wool donated by sheep who live on the sanctuary. Their wool itself transmits healing, loving energy.

Pearls of the Swine A story about an Animal Messenger When I was four, my parents were teaching at a Quaker boarding school that was also a working farm. While my mother was in class, I wandered around the campus. All the adults knew each other’s children and looked out for them, so I enjoyed a certain degree of freedom even at that age. Near the barn on campus was a pigpen, a large jungly pasture of gnarled trees and high grasses. The grass hid the pigs from view, so one day I climbed over the fence. The pigs had worn paths through the undergrowth and it was a thrill to be all alone in there, in the dimness of the shaded paths, shielded from the outside world. I walked the maze of paths in hopes of meeting one of the huge pigs. When one finally came snuffling and snorting along the path toward me, I wasn’t at all afraid though she was gigantic to a child of my size. She stopped, and we stood still, looking into each other’s eyes for what seemed a long, long time. I felt myself flow into the pig and felt her flow into me. Then I was back in my own body, meeting the pig’s deep and wise gaze. She stayed a moment longer, then turned around and trotted away down the path. I was elated by this encounter; not by my bravery in facing the pig (I took that for granted and didn’t even think about it), but by what my adult self now terms the transcendent connection I experienced between us. After that, I visited the pigs whenever I could. I kept silent about these visits, knowing that this was probably not condoned behavior. Unfortunately, a whiny brat who didn’t abide by the children’s code of honor saw me go in one day and told on me. My mother declared the pigpen off-limits. Ordinarily, I would have been scared to disregard a parental taboo, but transcendence in the pigpen was too strong a draw. Already a mystical junkie, I kept returning in hopes of more amazing encounters, but as so often happens, the luminous quality of the first was not repeated, though a calm communion took its place. The pigpen transcendence story now serves as an immediate reminder to me that I am always walking the path of the sacred, regardless of where I am and in what muck I find myself, and that the sacred is all around me. —Stephanie Marohn

OBJECTIVES OF THE ANIMAL MESSENGER SANCTUARY

On the physical level:

• Provide a safe haven for farm animals and fowl to live out their lives. The number of animal residents will depend on the acreage obtained for the sanctuary’s permanent home (the first six animals are now living on five acres and a larger site is needed before others can be added), but will not exceed 30 because the nature of the director’s energetic work (see below) requires having a quality relationship with each animal. There will be at least two of each species to give the animals company of their own kind, but neutering will be the policy since there are already too many farm animals that need a home. With animals waiting to get in to the sanctuary, finding residents will require no effort.
• Offer a permanent natural habitat and refuge to wildlife. The acreage for this again depends on the acreage of the permanent site.
• Preserve some of our precious Earth in its natural state forever. The size is dependent on permanent acreage obtained.
• Conduct workshops to increase community awareness of farm animal and environmental issues. This leads to increased understanding of the importance of treating all beings with respect. Promulgation of this message is an antidote to the violence in our society. Research shows that adults convicted of violent crimes often, as children, abused animals. Conversely, teaching children to treat animals with respect will reduce the likelihood of them committing violent crimes when they are grown. The number of workshops per year depends on the population in the area where AMS finds its permanent home.
• Tread lightly on the Earth. This means: using natural medicine to treat animal ailments when possible; recycling; composting; conserving water and energy; eventual conversion to solar power; not using disposable tableware nor serving animal products at sanctuary workshops and other events; and using no toxic products in house, barn, or land.

On the energetic level:

• Land steward, animal shaman, and sanctuary director Stephanie Marohn will live on the land and interact with each of its elements (including the animals, birds, insects, amphibians, trees, plants, rocks, water, the Earth itself), sending them loving, healing energy. The AMS is not about saving as many farm animals as possible, but creating a sanctuary of love and connection. The love and harmony on the sanctuary will amplify and radiate out into the world, adding much-needed love and peace to the planet’s energy composition, or energy body.
• Through connection to individual animals, the shaman will be working with them to heal the energy wound from the thousands of years of exploitation and abuse of each species by humans. The animals will be treated as individuals, with their individual needs addressed, but they will also be there as representatives of those who are unable to live in this way. They will be a living demonstration of what their species is like when given a life truer to its nature. Farm animals in extreme captivity have no opportunity to show us who they really are.
• The shaman, like the village shamans of ancient traditions, will be doing this mystical work with animals on behalf of the world village. This work is the shaman's talent and so she does it for all.
• The animals, living happy and secure on the sanctuary, will contribute joyous energy, instead of the energy of fear and pain, to the Earth’s energy body.
• Life on the sanctuary will be conducted in as holistic a manner as possible so as to contribute to an energy of responsibility, connection, love, and respect for the planet, according to the holistic principle of action: First, do no harm (see physical level objectives).
• Spiritual observances and ceremonies, both individual and group, will increase the energy of love and healing radiating outward from the sanctuary. These will include ceremonies to honor nature, prayers for endangered species, and community events such as animal blessings and animal memorials for those who have died on the sanctuary or in the community at large.
• A chapel dedicated to animals will be sending out the energy of love and healing 24 hours a day.
• The shaman will conduct workshops as a forum for participants to discover, deepen, and strengthen their relationship with the natural world through animals and return to their human birthright: a sense of oneness and connection. Nurturance of this sense of connection leads to people treating other people and all beings with greater respect. The workshops will consist of education about so-called farmed animals, experiential opportunities to interact with the animals if the animals so choose, and guided meditation and visualization with the Animal Messengers. In addition to the practical information participants will gain, energy ripples will thereafter radiate from participants who have taken in the message, contributing further love, peace, and healing to the Earth’s energy body.

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© 2005, Stephanie Marohn, all rights reserved.

Website last updated, August 2007.