The Animal Messengers   a novel by Stephanie Marohn

The following is an excerpt from The Animal Messengers, a spiritual history of the world as told by the animals, which I am currently writing.

Chapter One:
The Return of Wonder
2007 A.D.

Wonder returned to the Earth on March 2, 2007. He hadn’t thought he would be coming back again, but these were dark times on the planet. All the Animal Messengers were being called, some taking physical form, others appearing to humans in dreams or visions or showing up as animal guardians or spirit guides. Their mission was to wake up humans, and the reason why they had all been called was that this was the last chance.

The forces of war and hatred were taking over the human race. Humans seemed to have forgotten their natural way of love so completely that it was going to take all the Animal Messengers and all the other assistance that could be summoned from the other side to awaken them, to help them remember.

In the whole history of the world, Wonder had never known all the Animal Messengers to be called at the same time. There had been a number of times in the darkest days of the Earth’s history when many or even most of the Messengers were called, but never all.

Wonder knew before he arrived that this was going to be his hardest assignment ever. And he had been on some of the hardest. He wasn’t complaining. He was well suited to his difficult assignments because he loved Earth and was completely devoted to his work of helping to restore it the place it was meant to be. Like other Animal Messengers, he was humble, even though he possessed knowledge that humans had killed for.

Wonder held the secrets of all the mysteries of all time. He knew where Atlantis was and why it had disappeared. He knew why the horse-riding hordes from the north tried to wipe out the goddess-worshipping cultures of the plains of Old Europe. He knew who set flame to the Alexandria Library. He knew where Jesus went during the Lost Years. He knew from the beginning where the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels were buried. He knew the truth behind the disappearance of Rumi’s beloved Shams. He knew what happened to the fabled Montségur treasure after the massacre of the Cathars. He even knew the truth about Marilyn Monroe’s death and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which though of pressing interest to humans in certain parts of the world in the twentieth century was of little significance to the Animal Messengers, as these events paled before the enormity of the tragedies the Messengers had witnessed at other times in human history.

It wasn’t only Wonder who knew all the secrets of all time. Every Animal Messenger did. Knowledge wasn’t hoarded and traded among the Animal Messengers the way it was among humans. The Messengers knew how to access the universal archives, so all information was available to all. That was part of the natural birthright the Animal Messengers were trying to reawaken humans to. Most humans were no longer able to access the archives of all time, so they could not be wise in their daily lives or avoid repeating their mistakes. Although humans seemed fond of quoting the saying “Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it,” they made the same mistakes over and over and seemed unable to remember and learn from what had happened on Earth before. They also seemed to have little or no awareness of where they were headed, and that too was the result of being cut off from the universal archives and their natural way of love, the deep knowledge of the connection between all beings—animal, vegetable, and mineral.

If Wonder hadn’t known the situation was serious before he arrived, he would have known it immediately upon his arrival. First, his base on Earth this time was an animal sanctuary. The fact that he and other Animal Messengers were to receive this kind of protection told him their assignment was going to be particularly arduous. Awakening humans was hard work at the best of times, and Wonder knew that if these were not the worst of times, they were close.

The second thing that signaled the seriousness of this mission was the fact that when Wonder arrived at the Animal Messenger Sanctuary, he found all the animals he had been with individually on previous missions all together for this one: Pegasus the horse, Gabriel the donkey, Angel the deer, his three closest sheep, and five cats he had worked with during the witch burnings in Europe. Whereas on previous missions, a few of them might have been together, now they were all here. Clearly, there was no time for the Messengers to develop a working relationship. Those who had worked with each other before were grouped together for this crucial endeavor. The fact that four of them were sheep (Wonder; his mother, Charlotte; his cousin Chloe; and his great-grandmother, Queenmere) was also an unusual occurrence. Obviously, the strength of the flock, the ability to act together in times of crisis, was going to be needed.

© 2010, Stephanie Marohn, all rights reserved.

Website last updated, October 4, 2010

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