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 and opportunities for human visitors to experience living respectfully with nature.
GOALS
- Provide a sanctuary (peaceful, safe, loving, respectful home) for "farm" animals—sheep, goats, cows, pigs, donkeys—where they can live out their lives with lots of space to roam.
- Support the animals' natural well-being with holistic health care
- Provide sanctuary for all the wild animals, birds, and other beings whose habitat is on the land.
- Offer visitors opportunities to interact with nature on the sanctuary and discover the deep spiritual connection possible between humans and the rest of nature.
ABOUT STEPHANIE MAROHN, THE SANCTUARY'S GUARDIAN
I started the Animal Messenger Sanctuary to provide a home for "farm" animals who had begun to arrive in my life, seeking refuge, around the turn of the millennium. Since then, they have taught me the true nature of sanctuary and I see that they had a much bigger plan for me, and for other humans. Though I have always had a strong connection to animals, beginning with communing with pigs (see "Pearls of the Swine" below) and wild cats when I was a child, these most recent animals have brought me to a whole new level in the years that we have lived closely together. Who they are is the greatest source of the gratitude I feel, though I also give thanks for all their gifts to me, including some hard lessons. Now I know that sanctuary is a place where all beings can be fully and completely themselves, where who they are is honored and treasured, and connection and love is the means of exchange. Now I know that sanctuary is everywhere that we interact with each other in this way. The Animal Messengers are giving us this message all over the globe, and so many people are hearing it now that I am heartened by all the sanctuaries being created every day.
Along with being the caretaker of the animals, I am a writer—author of ten books (see my book page). My latest book, What the Animals Taught Me: Stories of Love and Healing from a Farm Animal Sanctuary, was endorsed by Jane Goodall, among other luminaries. I also run Angel Editing, specializing in editing nonfiction books
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
