Seals Animal Quotes

To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.

The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.

She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one had, took her two wrists, pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades. She twisted her head back. She felt his lips on her breast. She tore herself free…She fought like an animal. But she made no sound. She did not call for help. She heard the echoes of her blows in a gasp of his breath, and she knew that it was a gasp of pleasure…She felt the hatred and his hands; his hands moving over her body, the hands that broke granite. She fought the last convulsion. Then the sudden pain shot up, through her body, to her throat, and she screamed. Then she laid still. It was an act that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in contempt, as a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be an act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of scorn. Not as love, but as defilement. And this made her still and submit…the act of a master taking shameful , contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted…

It is easy to take a stand about a remote issue, but speciesists, like racists, reveal their true nature when the issue comes nearer home. To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada, while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, or the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.

It was possible, I saw now, to be a grotesque, to be huge and free, to wander the streets in utter freedom despite your atrocity, as long as you did it when everybody else was sealed inside their little lit boxes. Now it made sense – why monsters came out at night.

After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant. Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America, and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics. -

Sometimes all you need is a big heart and burning desire.

There were events that stuck in my mind. One, for example, was the case of the missing palace seal at the beginning of winter.’ ‘Oh the poor animal,’ she cried out, ‘they’re such beautiful creatures.’ ‘I’m speaking of the royal seal placed on correspondence, as you would know,’ he said.

You think that the world we live in is ordinary. We make noise and static to fill the empty spaces where ghosts live. We let other people grow our food, bleach our clothes. We seal ourselves in, clean the dirt from our skins, eat of animals whose blood does not stain our hands. We long ago left the ways of our ancestors, oracles and blood sacrifice, traffic with the spirit world, listening for the voices out of stones and trees. But maybe sometimes you have felt the uncanny, alone at night in a dark wood, or waiting by the edge of the ocean for the tide to come in. We have paved over the ancient world, but that does not mean we have erased it.

wup-wup-wup" - Pil and Popo

In the preface of "The Rifles" "Another rule we followed was never kill an animal that we were not going to use for food or clothing." Barnabas Piryuaq "Well, in those high latitudes we found such quantities of seals and walruses that we simply did not know what to do with them.There were thousands and thousands lying there; we walked among them and hit them on the head, and laughed heartily in the abundance which God had created." Jan Welzi 1933.

Wild animals, like wild places, are invaluable to us precisely because they are not us. They are uncompromisingly different. The paths they follow, the impulses that guide them, are of other orders. The seal's holding gaze, before it flukes to push another tunnel through the sea, the hare's run, the hawk's high gyres : such things are wild. Seeing them, you are made briefly aware of a world at work around and beside our own, a world operating in patterns and purposes that you do not share. These are creatures, you realise that live by voices inaudible to you.

The seals are scarce and the whales are almost gone. The spirits of the animals are passing away. Amaroq, Amaroq, you are my adopted father. My feet dance because of you. My eyes see because of you. My mind thinks because of you. And it thinks, on this thundering night, That the hour of the wolf and the Eskimo is over.

To acquire the full consciousness of self is to know oneself so different from others that no longer feels allied with men except by purely animal contacts: nevertheless, among souls of this degree, there is an ideal fraternity based on differences,--while society fraternity is based on resemblances. The full consciousness of self can be called originality of soul, -and all this is said only to point out the group of rare beings to which Andre Gide belongs. The misfortune of these beings, when they express themselves, is that they do it with such odd gestures that men fear to approach them; their life of social contacts must often revolve in the brief circle of ideal fraternities; or, when the mob consents to admit such souls, it is as curiosities or museum objects. Their glory is, finally, to be loved from afar & almost understood, as parchments are seen & read above sealed cases.

I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it...I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.

The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.

all animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately.

I have a habit of being an archaeologist of my own past, a sentimental collector of personal artefacts which may at first glance appear random, but each of which holds a unique significance. As the years pass me by, I find that the number of objects within my possession begins to accumulate. A torn map. A sealed letter. A boat full of paper animals. Each item encapsulates within itself a story, akin to an outward manifestation of my inner journey.

To step inside a sealed, twelve-by-twelve-foot space with a wild animal that is many times your size is extremely hazardous to say the least. Yet sending these frightened animals out into the real world without giving them tools to safely deal with a new environment...could be disastrous. It would not be unlike sending a soldier on a mission without any training. Clearly, it was not a scenario lending itself toward safety or success for either horse or new owner.

There are lots of animals in the house. There's an elephant in the hall, a seal in the bathtub, a crane in the laundry, a tiger on the stairs, and a polar bear by the fridge. Does this have anything to do with you?

Ensuring that our home planet is healthy and life sustaining is an overwhelming priority that undercuts all other human activities. The ship must first float. Our failure to grasp these fundamental tenants of existence will be our undoing. And one thing is for certain. No calvary is going to come charging to our rescue. We are going to have to rescue ourselves or die trying. Workable solutions are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real issue is our elementary accord with Earth and the plant and animal kingdoms has to be revitalized and re-understood. The burning question is, How?

sealing the pores were undertaken, famously with a horse. The poor animal was carefully varnished all over with several layers of shellac (the same solution that is used to varnish furniture) to ensure a complete seal, and died within hours. It was assumed that it had asphyxiated, thus ‘proving’ that the skin played an important role in respiration as well as perspiration.

After all, the right stuff was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life (by riding on top of a Redstone or Atlas rocket). Any fool could do that (and many fools would no doubt volunteer, given the opportunity), just as any fool could throw his life away in the process. No, the idea (as all pilots understood) was that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back at the last yawning moment—but how in the name of God could you either hang it out or haul it back if you were a lab animal sealed in a pod? Every

As Darwin noted, “It is certain that with almost all animals there is a struggle between the males for the possession of the female.” When males of a species battle it out directly, be it through the clashing antlers of deer, the stabbing horns of the stag beetle, the head butting of stalk-eyed flies, or the bloody battles of massive elephant seals, they win access to females by driving off competitors. Selection will favor any trait that promotes such victories so long as the increased chance of getting mates more than offsets any reduced survival. This kind of selection produces armaments: stronger weapons, larger body size, or anything that helps a male win physical contests.

Olive Wellwood told no stories about Goldthorpe, or the Gullfoss mine. She had packed away the slag-heaps and winding-gear, the little house in Morton Row, with its dark uninhabited parlour, its animated kitchen and pocket-sized garden, the ever-present stink of the ash pits across the yards, and the grime that floated onto the strips of lace curtain. She had packed it away in what she saw in her mind as a roped parcel, in oiled silk, with red wax seals on the knots, which a woman like and unlike herself carried perpetually over a windswept moor, sometimes on her head, sometimes held before her on two arms, like the cushion on which the regalia lie at coronations. This vision was not a story. The woman never arrived, and the parcel was never opened. The weather was grey and the air was turbulent. When Olive Wellwood found her mind heading in that direction, she was able to move imaginary points on an imaginary rail and shunt her mind away from “there” and back to Todefright, with its penumbra of wild woods and flying elementals.

You took a seal club and threw it in the water." Watson's response: "Well holy shit. The jerk was about to bash in the brains of a baby seal, for Christ's sake, I was not going to stand there and watch it.

But Wilson was ahead of the curve. Long before the first octopus-enrichment handbook was published, many octopuses ago, he set out to create a safe toy worthy of an octopus’s intellect. Working at his lab at Arthur D. Little Corp., Wilson devised a series of three clear Plexiglas cubes with different locks. The smallest of the three has a sliding latch that twists to lock down, like the bolt on a horse’s stall. You can put a live crab—a favorite food—inside and leave the lid unlocked. The octopus will lift the lid. When you lock the lid, invariably the octopus will figure out how to open it. Then it’s time to deploy the second cube. This one has a latch that slides counterclockwise to catch on a bracket. You put the crab in the first box and then lock it inside the second box. The octopus will figure it out. And finally, there’s a third cube. This one has two different latches: a bolt that slides into position to lock down, and a second one with a lever arm, sealing the lid much like an old-fashioned canning jar closes. Bill told me that once the octopus “gets it,” the animal can open all four locks in three or four minutes.

My heart was pounding out of my chest as I tried to decide if I wanted to hold position or take cover. In a few short seconds, I’d gone from feeling like a zoo patron watching the animals in their cage to being the main attraction.

Well, horses take a lot of work, they’re dirty animals, so every weekend he puts on his waders, goes out in the barn, and shovels the manure, and the dirty hay, and puts the new hay in, and feeds the horses, and cleans up their piss. It’s not a good job. It’s miserable, but someone has to shovel the shit so the family can enjoy what they have. That is how he framed it for me. ‘You shovel the shit so your family, so the United States, can have what we have and live the way we do.’ 

Animal rights people get upset over things like whaling and baby seal clubbing, but what seems particularly cruel is humans stealing honey from bees. Bees work their tails off all day, then we swipe it and say, Sorry guys, we like to put this stuff in our tea.

Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly. The lovely, colored world is glassed over. Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand. And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell. A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again. Here a crab tears a leg from his brother. The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or little tide-pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down. Then the creeping murderer, the octopus, steals out, slowly, softly, moving like a gray mist, pretending now to be a bit of weed, now a rock, now a lump of decaying meat while its evil goat eyes watch coldly. It oozes and flows toward a feeding crab, and as it comes close its yellow eyes burn and its body turns rosy with the pulsing color of anticipation and rage. Then suddenly it runs lightly on the tips of its arms, as ferociously as a charging cat. It leaps savagely on the crab, there is a puff of black fluid, and the struggling mass is obscured in the sepia cloud while the octopus murders the crab. On the exposed rocks out of water, the barnacles bubble behind their closed doors and the limpets dry out. And down to the rocks come the black flies to eat anything they can find. The sharp smell of iodine from the algae, and the lime smell of calcareous bodies and the smell of powerful protean, smell of sperm and ova fill the air. On the exposed rocks the starfish emit semen and eggs from between their rays. The smells of life and richness, of death and digestion, of decay and birth, burden the air. And salt spray blows in from the barrier where the ocean waits for its rising-tide strength to permit it back into the Great Tide Pool again. And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

[Giant northern elephant seals] were presumed extinct as late as 1912 when a group of eight seals was spotted on Guadalupe Island in the South Pacific by a Smithsonian expedition, which shot seven of them! Fortunately they missed one and failed to spot a few others.

He is surrounded. Even the sealed cabin around him has grown septic with life. Everything is animate, green and encroaching. Dozens of millions of species seethe around him, few of them visible, even fewer named, ready to try anything once, every possible cheat and exploitation, just to keep being.

strongest animals in the world thrive on a fruit-and plant-based diet. Silverback gorillas, for example, are thirty times as strong as man and three times our size. Their DNA is 99 percent similar to that of humans, and they are our closest living relatives next to chimps. How are they so strong? Oh

It was the mystery that biologists from Darwin onwards had been longing to solve. How could we understand the ability of fish and seals to survive in the cold dark waters of the Antarctic? How could humans see inside a biotope that was sealed with layers of ice? What would the Earth look like from the sky, if we crossed the Mediterranean on the back of a goose? How did it feel to be a bee? How could we measure the speed of an insect’s wings and its heartbeat, or monitor its blood pressure and eating patterns? What was the impact of human activities, like shipping noise or subsea explosions, on mammals in the depths? How could we follow animals to places where no human could venture?

Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski poles and shouting for Wild to bring his rifle. The animal—a sea leopard—sprang out of the water and came after him, bounding across the ice with the peculiar rocking-horse gait of a seal on land. The beast looked like a small dinosaur, with a long, serpentine neck. After a half-dozen leaps, the sea leopard had almost caught up with Orde-Lees when it unaccountably wheeled and plunged again into the water. By then, Orde-Lees had nearly reached the opposite side of the floe; he was about to cross to safe ice when the sea leopard’s head exploded out of the water directly ahead of him. The animal had tracked his shadow across the ice. It made a savage lunge for Orde-Lees with its mouth open, revealing an enormous array of sawlike teeth. Orde-Lees’ shouts for help rose to screams and he turned and raced away from his attacker. The animal leaped out of the water again in pursuit just as Wild arrived with his rifle. The sea leopard spotted Wild, and turned to attack him. Wild dropped to one knee and fired again and again at the onrushing beast. It was less than 30 feet away when it finally dropped. Two dog teams were required to bring the carcass into camp. It measured 12 feet long, and they estimated its weight at about 1,100 pounds. It was a predatory species of seal, and resembled a leopard only in its spotted coat—and its disposition. When it was butchered, balls of hair 2 and 3 inches in diameter were found in its stomach—the remains of crabeater seals it had eaten. The sea leopard’s jawbone, which measured nearly 9 inches across, was given to Orde-Lees as a souvenir of his encounter. In his diary that night, Worsley observed: “A man on foot in soft, deep snow and unarmed would not have a chance against such an animal as they almost bound along with a rearing, undulating motion at least five miles an hour. They attack without provocation, looking on man as a penguin or seal.

Horse Latitudes" When the still sea conspires an armor And her sullen and aborted currents Breed tiny monsters True sailing is dead! Awkward instant And the first animal is jettisoned Legs furiously pumping Their stiff green gallop And heads bob up Poise Delicate Pause Consent In mute nostril agony Carefully refined And sealed over The Doors, Straqnge Days (1967)

As they strolled along the firm part of the beach, Cate paused. She’d been looking at the calm sea ebbing and flowing when she saw a black blob on the surface. “Look, that’s not just a rock, is it?” she asked. Lyall followed her gaze. “I do believe it’s a seal popping up to have a look around.” “Oh, how adorable! I’ve never seen a real one, except at the zoo long ago.

What sensitive, sane soul can stand in the presence of such insanity and do nothing? Yet to expose the slaughter of seals in Canada is to deliver oneself into the hands of a bureaucratic inquisition. To witness the killing of a seal is a crime. To film or photograph the slaughter is a felony. To oppose the massacre is to subject oneself to jail time, beatings, heavy fines, and officially sanctioned harassment. - Paul Watson

No salvation comes from exhumed gods; we must penetrate deeper into substance. If I take a fossil, say, a trilobite, in my hand (marvelously preserved specimens are found in the quarries at the foot of the Casbah), I am transfixed by the impact of mathematical harmony. Purpose and beauty, as fresh as on the first day, are still seamlessly united in a medal engraved by a master's hand. The bios must have discovered the secret of tripartition in this primordial crab. Tripartition then frequently recurs, even without any natural kinship; figures, in transversal symmetry, dwell in the triptych. How many millions of years ago might this creature have animated an ocean that no longer exists? I hold its impression, a seal of imperishable beauty, in my hand. Some day, this seal, too, will decay or else burn out in cosmic conflagrations of the future. The matrix that formed it remains concealed in and operative from the law, untouched by death or fire.

When you cut yourself with a blade, there’s an open wound, and blood and pain, but the pain comes to an end and the wound seals to a scar. So you cut yourself again and again, because you forget how much it hurt the first time. The heart is a different animal. A caged, lonely scavenger that feeds on its own wounds. Its scars never heal, because you can’t mend the very thing it needs to survive. So the wound continues to fester, until what’s left of the organ is eventually consumed by its own self-mutilation.

The day had warmed, but the rain continued, which Gwen saw as a benefit. Just like with Ethan, the downpour would keep people indoors. Until she was able to get the place sealed up, she felt they were as exposed as mice in a field. While the rain was a nuisance, it had the added benefit of grounding the hawks, allowing her time to dig a burrow. Puppies, cats, ducks, and now mice, why she always thought of them in terms of small animals she had no idea except that such things were cute but also often a burden.

Still, the piers as they had been gave my mind a place to wander, outside the gleaming factory of monogamy, the pressure to cuddle up, to couple off, to go like Noah’s animals two by two into a permanent container, sealed from the world. As Solanas bitterly remarked: ‘Our society is not a community but merely a collection of isolated family units.’ I didn’t want that any more, if in fact I ever had. I didn’t know what I did want, but maybe what I needed was an expansion of erotic space, an extension of my sense of what might be possible or acceptable.

Strange game, this stating the obvious,” Suri said, shaking her head. She got up and joined Minna at the woodpile. “Pointless, but popular. Everyone plays it. You’re eating our bread. That isn’t your bed. You have a wolf. But as you can see, I’m getting the knack of it. Tura told me to blend in at villages, especially the dahls. She said people who live inside walls are crazy and can be dangerous. Touched animals are, too. Cursed by the gods, sort of like you, and even a tainted squirrel’s bite can make you that way.” “I merely meant, well…” Persephone hesitated. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.” Suri pointed at the treetops visible over the rear wall of the dahl where the gray spears had become a curtain of green. “Was waiting on the leaves.” Persephone laughed. “It’s been two weeks.” The mystic twisted her face, thinking hard. “You have two ears.” She smiled proudly. “I’m starting to see the fun of this. Using a part of what another person says makes it harder, doesn’t it? Probably gets more challenging late in winter when you’ve been sealed up for months— I assume you can’t repeat the same thing twice, right?

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

I took a moment to breathe in the fresh air, glad I’d decided to get out of the house. After a moment, I continued on to Fisherman’s Wharf. Paul and I had often taken the kids there to feed the harbor seals—you could buy a bucket of fish for a dollar. Lisa had been obsessed and talked about becoming a marine biologist for years. She’d loved animals ever since she was little, begging to come to the clinic with her father, sitting up with a sick animal. Many nights we had to drag her home. We’d been sure she’d become a vet of some kind, but that was another dream that had fallen by the wayside. I still liked to go down and see the seals myself, though it was lonelier now

The ambition of domineering over the mind, is one of the strongest passions. A theologian, a missionary, or a partisan of any description, is always for conquering like a prince, and there are many more sects than there are sovereigns in the world…. I conclude, that every sensible man, every honest man, ought to hold Christianity in abhorrence. ‘The great name of Theist, which we can never sufficiently revere,’ is the only name we ought to adopt. The only gospel we should read is the grand book of nature, written with God’s own hand, and stamped with his own seal. The only religion we ought to profess is, 'to adore God, and act like honest men.’ It would be as impossible for this simple and eternal religion to produce evil, as it would be impossible for Christian fanaticism not to produce it…. But what shall we substitute in its place? say you. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place! Is it you that put this question to me? Then you are a hundred times more odious than the Pagan Pontiffs, who permitted themselves to enjoy tranquility among their ceremonies and sacrifices, who did not attempt to enslave the mind by dogmas, who never disputed the powers of the magistrates, and who introduced no discord among mankind. You have the face to ask what you must substitute in the place of your fables!

Stories of the Street" The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh. The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas, And I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose, Yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose. I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come, The cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone. But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk, All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us? And where do all these highways go, now that we are free? Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me? O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel, You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal. The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask The nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass. And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite, And one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night. O come with me my little one, we will find that farm And grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm. And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb. With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world. We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, And lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

And everywhere, just as there were animals on land, were the animals of the sea. The tiniest fish made the largest schools- herring, anchovies, and baby mackerel sparkling and cavorting in the light like a million diamonds. They twirled into whirlpools and flowed over the sandy floor like one large, unlikely animal. Slightly larger fish came in a rainbow, red and yellow and blue and orange and purple and green and particolored like clowns: dragonets and blennies and gobies and combers. Hake, shad, char, whiting, cod, flounder, and mullet made the solid middle class. The biggest loners, groupers and oarfish and dogfish and the major sharks and tuna that all grew to a large, ripe old age did so because they had figured out how to avoid human boats, nets, lines, and bait. The black-eyed predators were well aware they were top of the food chain only down deep, and somewhere beyond the surface there were things even more hungry and frightening than they. Rounding out the population were the famous un-fish of the ocean: the octopus, flexing and swirling the ends of her tentacles; delicate jellyfish like fairies; lobsters and sea stars; urchins and nudibranchs... the funny, caterpillar-like creatures that flowed over the ocean floor wearing all kinds of colors and appendages. All of these creatures woke, slept, played, swam about, and lived their whole lives under the sea, unconcerned with what went on above them. But there were other animals in this land, strange ones, who spoke both sky and sea. Seals and dolphins and turtles and the rare fin whale would come down to hunt or talk for a bit and then vanish to that strange membrane that separated the ocean from everything else. Of course they were loved- but perhaps not quite entirely trusted.

This will not be a normal winter. The winter will begin, and it will continue, winter following winter. There will be no spring, no warmth. People will be hungry and they will be cold and they will be angry. Great battles will take place, all across the world. Brothers will fight brothers, fathers will kill sons. Mothers and daughters will be set against each other. Sisters will fall in battle with sisters, and will watch their children murder each other in their turn. This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no better than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places where the humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation. Then, when the few remaining people are living like animals, the sun in the sky will vanish, as if eaten by a wolf, and the moon will be taken from us too, and no one will be able to see the stars any longer. Darkness will fill the air, like ashes, like mist. This will be the time of the terrible winter that will not end, the Fimbulwinter. There will be snow driving in from all directions, fierce winds, and cold colder than you have ever imagined cold could be, an icy cold so cold your lungs will ache when you breathe, so cold that the tears in your eyes will freeze. There will be no spring to relieve it, no summer, no autumn. Only winter, followed by winter, followed by winter. After that there will come the time of the great earthquakes. The mountains will shake and crumble. Trees will fall, and any remaining places where people live will be destroyed. The earthquakes will be so great that all bonds and shackles and fetters will be destroyed. All of them. Fenrir, the great wolf, will free himself from his shackles. His mouth will gape: his upper jaw will reach the heavens, the lower jaw will touch the earth. There is nothing he cannot eat, nothing he will not destroy. Flames come from his eyes and his nostrils. Where Fenris Wolf walks, flaming destruction follows. There will be flooding too, as the seas rise and surge onto the land. Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent, huge and dangerous, will writhe in its fury, closer and closer to the land. The venom from its fangs will spill into the water, poisoning all the sea life. It will spatter its black poison into the air in a fine spray, killing all the seabirds that breathe it. There will be no more life in the oceans, where the Midgard serpent writhes. The rotted corpses of fish and of whales, of seals and sea monsters, will wash in the waves. All who see the brothers Fenrir the wolf and the Midgard serpent, the children of Loki, will know death. That is the beginning of the end.

Miraculously, some animals survived at the zoo and many escaped across the bridge, entering Old Town while the capital burned. People brave enough to stand by their windows, or unlucky enough to be outside, watched a biblical hallucination unfolding as the zoo emptied into Warsaw's streets. Seals waddled along the banks of the Vistula, camels and llamas wandered down alleyways, hooves skidding on cobblestone, ostriches and antelope trotted beside foxes and wolves, anteaters called out hatchee, hatchee as they scuttled over bricks. Locals saw blurs of fur and hide bolting past factories and apartment houses, racing to outlying fields of oats, buckwheat, and flax, scrambling into creeks, hiding in stairwells and sheds. Submerged in their wallows, the hippos, otters, and beavers survived. Somehow the bears, bison, Przywalski horses, camels, zebras, lynxes, peacocks and other birds, monkeys, and reptiles survived, too.

This canvas of human prehistory is distinctively modern. The renowned theorist of culture W. J. T. Mitchell once remarked that dinosaurs are the quintessential modernist animal, since in Shakespeare’s time no one knew such creatures had ever existed. In a similar way, until quite recently most Christians assumed anything worth knowing about early humans could be found in the Book of Genesis. Up until the early years of the nineteenth century, ‘men of letters’ – scientists included – still largely assumed that the universe did not even exist prior to late October, 4004 BC, and that all humans spoke the same language (Hebrew) until the dispersal of humanity, after the fall of the Tower of Babel sixteen centuries later.1 At that time there was as yet no ‘prehistory’. There was only history, even if some of that history was wildly wrong. The term ‘prehistory’ only came into common use after the discoveries at Brixham Cave in Devon in 1858, when stone axes, which could only have been fashioned by humans, were found alongside remains of cave bear, woolly rhinoceros and other extinct species, all together under a sealed casing of rock. This, and subsequent archaeological findings, sparked a complete rethinking of existing evidence. Suddenly, ‘the bottom dropped out of human history.

Dreams in which the dead interact with the living are typically so powerful and lucid that there is no denying contact was real. They also fill us with renewed life and break up grief or depression. In chapter 16, on communicating with the dead, you will learn how to make such dreams come about. Another set of dreams in which the dead appear can be the stuff of horror. If you have had a nightmare concerning someone who has recently passed, know that you are looking into the face of personal inner conflict. You might dream, for instance, that your dead mother is buried alive or comes out of her grave in a corrupted body in search of you. What you are looking at here is the clash of two sets of ideas about death. On the one hand, a person is dead and rotting; on the other hand, that same person is still alive. The inner self uses the appropriate symbols to try to come to terms with the contradiction of being alive and dead at the same time. I am not sure to what extent people on the other side actually participate in these dreams. My private experience has given me the impression that the dreams are triggered by attempts of the departed for contact. The macabre images we use to deal with the contradiction, however, are ours alone and stem from cultural attitudes about death and the body. The conflict could lie in a different direction altogether. As a demonstration of how complex such dreams can be, I offer a simple one I had shortly after the death of my cat Twyla. It was a nightmare constructed out of human guilt. Even though I loved Twyla, for a combination of reasons she was only second best in the hierarchy of house pets. I had never done anything to hurt her, and her death was natural. Still I felt guilt, as though not giving her the full measure of my love was the direct cause of her death. She came to me in a dream skinned alive, a bloody mass of muscle, sinew, veins, and arteries. I looked at her, horror-struck at what I had done. Given her condition, I could not understand why she seemed perfectly healthy and happy and full of affection for me. I’m ashamed to admit that it took me over a week to understand what this nightmare was about. The skinning depicted the ugly fate of many animals in human hands. For Twyla, the picture was particularly apt because we used to joke about selling her for her fur, which was gorgeous, like the coat of a gray seal. My subconscious had also incorporated the callous adage “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” This multivalent graphic, typical of dreams, brought my feelings of guilt to the surface. But the real meaning was more profound and once discovered assuaged my conscience. Twyla’s coat represented her mortal body, her outer shell. What she showed me was more than “skin deep” — the real Twyla underneath,

The very human-looking, terrified eyes of the young woman are burned into my mind. “What are they?” I ask, still shaken. “They’re seals. Very fierce seals, at that.” My aunt pauses to lean back against the elaborately embroidered cushions. “Long ago, the Selkies were enchanted by a sea witch. Every full moon they come to shore somewhere on the coast, step out of their seal skin and emerge in human form. For many years they caused a great deal of havoc—attacking sailors, dismantling ships. It was terrible.” “But she looked so frail.” “Ah, it’s like I just said. Appearances can be deceiving. Selkies, in possession of their skins, are stronger than the strongest Mage, and like most seals, they are very dangerous predators.” “And without their skins?” “Very good, Elloren.” My aunt looks pleased. “You’ve gotten right to the heart of it. Without their skins, they can be easily controlled.” “Why?” “Because they lose their strength, and because they cannot transform back into seals without them. Without their skins, they cannot get back to the ocean. Being wild animals, no matter how long they are kept in human form, they desperately want to get back to their ocean home. They’re not human, Elloren. It’s only an illusion. Don’t let it trouble you.” “But why was she in a cage?” My aunt grimaces at my question, like she’s detected an unpleasant odor. “Some people like to keep them...as pets.” I scrutinize her face. She’s not looking at me. She’s now glancing toward the window impatiently. “She...she looked so terrified,” I say, upset. My aunt’s expression softens. “Well, caged wild animals are never a pleasant sight. I am completely and utterly against the Selkie trade and am doing everything I can to wipe it out.” She pats my hand reassuringly.

But we have, if not our understanding, our own experience, and it feels to me sealed, inviolable, ours. We have a last, deep week together, because Wally is not on morphine yet, because he has just enough awareness, just enough ability to communicate with me. I’m with him almost all day and night- little breaks, for swimming, for walking the dogs. Outside it snows and snows, deeper and deeper; we seem to live in a circle of lamplight. I rub his feet, make him hot cider. All week I feel like we’re taking one another in, looking and looking. I tell him I love him and he says I love you, babe, and then when it’s too hard for him to speak he smiles back at me with the little crooked smile he can manage now, and I know what it means. I play music for him, the most encompassing and quiet I can find: Couperin, Vivaldi, the British soprano Lesley Garret singing arias he loved, especially the duet from Lakme: music of freedom, diving, floating. How can this be written? Shouldn’t these sentences simply be smithereened apart, broken in a hurricane? All that afternoon he looks out at us though a little space in his eyes, but I know he sees and registers: I know that he’s loving us, actively; if I know nothing else about this man, after nearly thirteen years, I know that. I bring all the animals, and then I sit there myself, all afternoon, the lamps on. The afternoon’s so quiet and deep it seems almost to ring, like chimes, a cold, struck bell. I sit into the evening, when he closes his eyes. There is an inaudible roaring, a rush beneath the surface of things, beneath the surface of Wally, who has now almost no surface- as if I could see into him, into the great hurrying current, that energy, that forward motion which is life going on. I was never this close to anyone in my life. His living’s so deep and absolute that it pulls me close to that interior current, so far inside his life. And my own. I know I am going to be more afraid than I have ever been, but right now I am not afraid. I am face to face with the deepest movement in the world, the point of my love’s deepest reality- where he is most himself, even if that self empties out into no one, swift river hurrying into the tumble of rivers, out of individuality, into the great rushing whirlwind of currents. All the love in the world goes with you.

She helped the hunter with the cooking as a husband helps his wife: when he had gone out to hunt and left something to stew, she would take the pot off the fire. But she never knew when to take it off; sometimes it was cooked to pieces, and she never got it right except by accident. But when the accident happened the hunter would laugh and say, "You're as good a cook as my mother!" After all, why should he want her to keep house? If you have a seal that could talk, would you want it to sweep the floor?

All of the real original stories, all of the best stories, were first told by the animals. The bears were superb story-tellers; so were the deep-space geese (they took nine generations to make a migration, laying eggs on the space journey and hatching out of them on the space journey, for the summer-land of their migrations was not on Earth). The brindled cave-cats were very good story-tellers. Among the stories were well-established genre stories. The seals told under-water stories that they learned from river-and-ocean creatures; and the golden weasels, who really came from the moon, told all sorts of space stories. So the Neanderthals, who learned the stories from the animals, had a very good stock of tales.

Residents of Iqaluit—“many fish” in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit in Canada’s eastern Arctic—divide the world into unequal halves. Where they lived was the north. The south, the other half, was a distant foreign place accommodating everyone else. You were “in the south” whether you lived in Toronto or Miami. Southerners could not read the sky; could not butcher a seal; constantly hurried; wrongly believed they and not the weather could control the course of a day. They didn’t understand ice, the bringer of animals to the hunter, and knew dangerously little about how to dress or eat.

Ah, yeah. I’m surprised you’re even up. When I got back at three o'clock, you were jerking off like an animal." His blue eyes widen. "How do you even know that?" "Royal, you were locked up in your bedroom grunting like a caveman and calling out God’s name," I chuckle. "Was I that loud?" "I wouldn't be surprised if the concierge downstairs heard you," I laugh.

Controversy remains about what kind of ceremony is carried out in Ge 15:9–21. What/whom do the pieces represent (possibilities: sacrifice for oath, God if he reneges, nations already as good as dead, Israelites in slavery)? Whom do the birds of prey represent (nations seeking to seize available land, e.g., Ge 14, or to plunder Israel)? Whom do the implements represent (God and/or Abram)? These issues cannot currently be resolved, but a few observations can help identify some of the possible connections with the ancient world. Before we look at the options, a word is in order about what this is not. 1. It is not a sacrifice. There is no altar, no offering of the animals to deity and no ritual with the carcasses, the meat or the blood. 2. It is not divination. The entrails are not examined and no meal is offered to deity. 3. It is not an incantation. No words are spoken to accompany the ritual and no efficacy is sought—Abram is asleep. The remaining options are based on where animals are ritually slaughtered in the ancient world when it is not for the purposes of sacrifice, divination or incantation. Option 1: A covenant ceremony or, more specifically, a royal land grant ceremony. In this case the animals typically are understood as substituting for the participants or proclaiming a self-curse if the stipulations are violated. Examples of the slaughter of animals in such ceremonies but not for sacrificial purposes are numerous. In tablets from Alalakh, the throat of a lamb is slit in connection to a deed executed between Abba-El and Yarimlim. In a Mari text, the head of a donkey is cut off when sealing a formal agreement. In an Aramaic treaty of Sefire, a calf is cut in two with the explicit statement that such will be the fate of the one who breaks the treaty. In Neo-Assyrian literature, the head of a spring lamb is cut off in a treaty between Ashurnirari V and Mati’ilu, not for sacrifice but explicitly as an example of punishment. The strength of these examples lies in the contextual connection to covenant. The weakness is that only one animal is killed in these examples, and there is no passing through the pieces and no torch and firepot. Furthermore, there are significant limitations regarding the efficacy of a divine self-curse. Option 2: Purification. The “torch” (Ge 15:17) is a portable, handheld object for bringing light. The “smoking firepot” (15:17) can refer to a number of different vessels used to heat things (e.g., an oven for food, a kiln for pottery). Here the two items are generally assumed to be associated with God, but need not be symbolic representations of him. These implements are occasionally used symbolically to represent deities in ancient Near Eastern literature, but usually sun-gods (e.g., Shamash) or fire-gods (e.g., Girru/Gibil). Gibil and Kusu are often invoked together as divine torch and censer in a wide range of cultic ceremonies for purification. Abram would have probably been familiar with the role of Gibil and Kusu in purification rituals, so that function would be plausibly communicated to him by the presence of these implements. Yet in a purification role, neither the torch nor the censer ever pass between the pieces of cut-up animals in the literature available to us. Further weakness is in the fact that Yahweh doesn’t need purification and Abram is a spectator, not a participant, so neither does he. In the Mesopotamian Hymn to Gibil (the torch), the god purifies the objects used in the ritual, but the only objects in the ritual in Ge 15 are the dead animals, and it is difficult to understand why they would need to be purified.

Differences between the relatively promiscuous Ache and the relatively monogamous Hiwi also illuminate the cultural variability of human sexual strategies. The different ratios of males to females in these two cultures may be the critical factor in eliciting a different sexual strategy. Among the Ache, there are approximately one and a half women for every man. Among the Hiwi, there are more men than women, although precise numbers are not available. The prevalence of available Ache women creates sexual opportunities for Ache men not experienced by Hiwi men. Ache men seize these opportunities, as evidenced by the high frequency of mate switching and casual affairs. Ache men can pursue a temporary sexual strategy more successfully than Hiwi men can. Hiwi women are better able than Ache women to secure a high investment from men, who must provide resources to attract and retain a mate.19 The cultural shifts witnessed today, such as the hookup culture on college campuses and in large urban settings and the rise of casual sex and online dating apps such as Tinder, probably reflect shifts in mating strategies as a function of a perceived or real sex ratio imbalance. One key cultural variable centers on the presumptive mating system, especially monogamy and polygamy. Some Islamic cultures permit men to marry up to four wives, as specified in the Qur’an. In parts of Utah and Texas in the United States, some fundamentalist Mormon groups place no formal limits on the number of wives a man can marry, and a few marry more than a dozen. Even presumptively monogamous cultures are often effectively polygynous, with some men having multiple mates through serial marriage or affair partners. The more polygynous the culture, the more some men will be inclined to pursue high-risk tactics in an effort to gain status, resources, and mates, either in the current life or in aspirational notions of life after death. Just as mating is a key cause of violence among nonhuman animals from elk to elephant seals, mating and violence are inexorably linked in our own species. Evolved mating strategies are influenced by, and implemented within, these key cultural contexts

The Parable of the Six Kinds of Beings There's a Buddhist parable that describes the generative, fictional function of awareness quite well. Here's how the 17th century Tibetan monk Ngawang Kunga Tenzin explained the parable: Ultimately there is nothing other than mind alone; nevertheless, because of delusion and karma it manifests as all kinds of things. This is similar to the different perceptions of water by the six kinds of beings. Water is indeed only one thing, but if the six kinds of beings were together at a river bank, when looking at it they would see it in different ways. A being of a hot hell would see a river of fire, while one from a cold hell would see it as snow and ice. For the hungry ghosts known as pretas it would be pus and blood. Animals who live underwater would see it as their abode, while those scattered on land would see it as drink. Humans would also see it as drink, and accordingly they would classify it into drinking or non-drinking water. The demigods called asuras would perceive it as weaponry. Gods would see it as nectar (amrita). So beings would see what we perceive as water in different ways according to their particular karmic perception and thus water becomes manifold. This is known as the karmic perception of one's mind. Ultimately things do not exist outside—they are only projections of the mind. —from The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume One, A Guidebook for the Realization of Co-emergence

We live on a cursed earth in a cursed universe. Both are under the baleful influence of Satan, who is both “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). The devastating effects of the curse and satanic influence will reach a terrifying climax in the events of the Tribulation. Some of the various bowl, trumpet, and seal judgments are demonic, others represent natural phenomena gone wild as God lets loose His wrath. At the culmination of that time of destruction and chaos, Christ returns and sets up His kingdom. During His millennial reign, the effects of the curse will begin to be reversed. The Bible gives us a glimpse of what the restored creation will be like. There will be dramatic changes in the animal world. In Isaiah we learn that The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain. (Isa. 11:6-9) “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isa. 65:25) The changes in the animal world will be paralleled by changes in the earth and the solar system: Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders. (Isa. 24:23) The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted. (Isa. 30:26) No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light; but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. Your sun will set no more, neither will your moon wane; for you will have the Lord for an everlasting light. (Isa. 60:19-20)

As Karen returned from the restroom, the gate agent explained the order of boarding: People with disabilities or in wheelchairs, people over the age of 100, people who act like they’re over the age of 100, families with children (children are two-year olds and younger, not fifteen-year olds), in-uniform military personnel, first class, business class, platinum frequent flyer members, gold members, silver members, bronze members, associate members, people who just applied for the airline’s credit card five minutes ago, group 1, groups 2 through 10 in that order, and finally, anyone too clueless to figure out how to get into one of the groups already called. We had “group 8” boarding passes. We felt smug as we pushed our way past the five remaining passengers who were lower on the boarding list than us. I don’t like being trapped in a small place, such as an airplane, with a large cross-section of humanity. I think airlines should announce before every flight, “Listen up people. We’re all sealed in here together for the next four hours, so try not to be annoying until the flight is over. Once you exit the plane, then you can whistle, hum, fart, snore, talk baby talk, take your shoes off and put on as much bad perfume as you want.” I think this would make air travel more bearable. We arrived in El Paso with enough time to pick up the rental car, have dinner (at Carlos and Mickey’s) and buy groceries for the week: peanut butter, jelly, bread, water, blue corn chips, peppermint patties, animal crackers and beer.

She cries, but so does the sky; the whole universe sobs, the people and animals and land and water, all weeping for a unity nearly sealed between two divergent worlds, but that could not, in the end, be sustained.

Jesus’s victory over the devil was like D-Day to World War II—the decisive battle that marked the beginning of the war’s end. The devil’s fate was sealed on the first Easter, as Hitler’s was on June 6, 1944. But there are still many miles to cover to reach our equivalent of Berlin. In the interim, the devil is like a wounded animal, a dying dragon, more dangerous than ever. Contrary to popular artistic imaginings, the devil is not in hell; he’s here, on earth. If Jesus’s anthem is “On earth as it is in heaven,” the devil’s is “On earth as it is in hell.

Revelation 6:5–8 (HCSB): When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a black horse. The horseman on it had a set of scales in his hand. Then I heard something like a voice among the four living creatures say, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius—but do not harm the olive oil and the wine.” When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. The horseman on it was named Death, and Hades was following after him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild animals of the earth.

Revelation 6:7–8 (NLT): When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living being say, “Come!” I looked up and saw a horse whose color was pale green. Its rider was named Death, and his companion was the Grave. These two were given authority over one-fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword and famine and disease and wild animals.

We get too sentimental over dead animals. We turn maudlin. But only those with fur, only those who look like us, at least a little. Those with big eyes, eyes that face front. Those with smallish noses or modest beaks. No one laments a spider. Nor a crab. Hookworms rate no wailing. Fish neither. Baby seals make the grade, and dogs, and sometimes owls. Cats almost always. Do we think they are like dead children? Do we think they are part of us, our animal soul stashed somewhere near the heart, fuzzy and trusting, and vital and on the prowl, and brutal towards other forms of life, and happy most of the time, and also stupid? (Why almost always cats? Why do dead cats call up such ludicrous tears? Why such deep mourning? Because we can no longer see in the dark without them? Because we’re cold without their fur? Because we’ve lost our hidden second skin, the one we’d change into when we wanted to have fun, when we wanted to kill things without a second thought, when we wanted to shed the dull grey weight of being human?)

Many of the seals incorporate animal designs of elephants, tigers, water buffaloes, and other animals

journey he headed directly to it, leaving his tunnel behind him and stopping only when the thinnest film of bark separated the tunnel from the outdoors. Then the larva backs up. Having moved an appropriate distance from the exit, he proceeds to hollow out a chamber not his size but large enough to accommodate the beetle who does not yet exist. The larva’s brush with destiny, however, is not yet done. He seals the chamber at either end with a natural cement produced in his stomach. Now, with doors neatly closed, he rasps down the walls of his sealed chamber to cover the floor with a soft down. Using the same wood-wool, he completes the decor by felting all walls a millimeter thick. Now at last his preparations for the accouchement are finished and he lies down and sheds his skin, becoming a pupa which in turn will become a beetle. But the wonders of instinct have not yet been finally recorded. He lies down always with his head toward the exit. Were he to lie down the wrong way,

One day a young man stood at the foot of Shackamaxon Street in Philadelphia, sugar town, 1882. Folded into his vest, a letter of reference. He had an idea that involved a railroad ticket and the millions of dead buffalo out west. If he could get those bones into railroad cars and ship them to Philadelphia, they could be heated in a sealed vessel at 700 degrees Celsius, which was 1292 degrees Fahrenheit, not easy to imagine. The super-heating would drive off the organic matter in the bones, leaving activated carbon, composed of tricalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, and carbon. Bone charcoal. Bone black. Ivory black. Animal charcoal. Abaiser. Pigment black 9. Bone char. Carbo animalis. Buffalo black. This substance could be used to refine crude raw sugar processed from sugarcane, slave sugar, although of course the slave trade had been abolished, then as now, but there still were enslaved people, then as now. Bone char worked better than bull’s blood or egg whites or any other substance to bleach the sugar white. And the bones! The bones were everywhere, he’d heard, littering the ground, so thick that a farmer couldn’t plow without stacking them beside the fields. He went into

he knew something that the men did not; namely that the Devil trying to kill them up here in the Devil’s Kingdom was not just the white-furred thing killing and eating them one by one, but everything here — the unrelenting cold, the squeezing ice, the electrical storms, the uncanny lack of seals and whales and birds and walruses and land animals, the endless encroachment of the pack ice, the bergs that plowed their way through the solid white sea not even leaving a single ship’s length lee of open water behind them, the sudden white-earthquake up-eruption of pressure ridges, the dancing stars, the shoddily tinned cans of food now turned to poison, the summers that did not come, the leads that did not open — everything. The monster on the ice was just another manifestation of a Devil that wanted them dead. And that wanted them to suffer.

One day a young man stood at the foot of Shackamaxon Street in Philadelphia, sugar town, 1882. Folded into his vest, a letter of reference. He had an idea that involved a railroad ticket and the millions of dead buffalo out west. If he could get those bones into railroad cars and ship them to Philadelphia, they could be heated in a sealed vessel at 700 degrees Celsius, which was 1292 degrees Fahrenheit, not easy to imagine. The super-heating would drive off the organic matter in the bones, leaving activated carbon, composed of tricalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, and carbon. Bone charcoal. Bone black. Ivory black. Animal charcoal. Abaiser. Pigment black 9. Bone char. Carbo animalis. Buffalo black. This substance could be used to refine crude raw sugar processed from sugarcane, slave sugar, although of course the slave trade had been abolished, then as now, but there still were enslaved people, then as now. Bone char worked better than bull’s blood or egg whites or any other substance to bleach the sugar white. And the bones! The bones were everywhere, he’d heard, littering the ground, so thick that a farmer couldn’t plow without stacking them beside the fields. He went into business. The bones were picked up by human

The war against the Canadian seal hunt is more than a protest. It is a crusade to bring harmony between the natural world and humanity. All of us who oppose it are dedicated to the protection of life and the abolition of cruelty.

Douglas Mock has assembled the animal behavioural evidence in More than Kin and Less than Kind.6 In the Galapagos Islands young fur seals attack their newborn siblings, seizing them by the throat and tossing them into the air, killing them unless the mother seal intervenes.

In their important masterpiece entitled When the Earth Nearly Died, Allan and Delair write: In Europe immense herds of diverse animals utterly vanished off the face of the earth for no obvious biological reason Coincident with this dreadful slaughter upon the land was the deposition of myriads of contemporary marine shells, and the stranding at great elevations of marine mammals, porpoises, walruses and seals In Siberia, the picture is everywhere one of appalling disorder, carnage and wholesale destruction, with countless animals and plants frozen in positions of death ever since the day they perished. As a result, their remains are amazingly fresh-looking and are frequently indistinguishable from those of animals and plants that have died mere weeks ago The magnitude of the biological extinctions achieved by the Deluge almost transcends the imagination. It annihilated literally billions of biological units of both sexes and every age indiscriminately. Only incredibly powerful flood waters operating world-wide could have achieved such results, and only a flood produced by the means previously suggested could have operated globally They comment on the preposterous Ice Age theories of their predecessors. Although these theories hold little water, they are accepted by supposedly intelligent people. ...it is astonishing that such an unscientific explanation ever came to be formulated, yet in a short time both it and the concept of immense thick ice-sheets descending from a hypothetical northern mountain system, to cover all of northern and eastern North America and western and northern Eurasia, was enthusiastically embraced...as virtually established fact The evidence is perfectly unambiguous. Along with the removal of an “Ice Age” like that which has been hitherto commonly envisaged, the evidence suggests that there is something seriously amiss with the last phases of standard geological chronology Evidence thus converges from numerous directions to support the conclusion that, on the testimony of radio-carbon and other dating techniques, immense physical and climatic changes occurred on earth some 11,000 years or so ago – when an Ice Age that probably never existed came to an end, and an apparently uniformitarian regime was abruptly terminated The gigantic worldwide tectonic disturbances of the ‘late Pleistocene’ times occurred almost simultaneously on a nearly unimaginable scale – precisely what could be expected from a powerful external influence but not from the ‘Ice Age’ conditions conventionally believed to have existed then They note the change in the magnetic fields that occurred during the cataclysmic period of Earth’s recent history: Significantly, a drop in the strength of the earth’s magnetic field appears to have occurred sometime between 13,750 and 12,350 years ago...attended by various other important changes, including earthquakes, vulcanism, water table fluctuations and large scale climatic variations. Of these, severe earthquakes in particular may even induce axial wobble, and polarity reversals

The village had survived many such storms. They knew what to expect – before, during, and afterward The Plains of Megiddo were a silent void. Nothing stirred – no wind, no birds, no animals. Even the buildings that marked where the roads joined were blanketed by sand, rendering them all the same shade of sunlit yellow. The stone walls that had faced the storm’s wrath were all heaped with sand as high as the roofs. Doors had to be forced open. The finest dust had sifted through the sealed portals and now coated every surface. The work done in the village above had to be repeated here, but there was no rush. Yelban predicted it would be at least a week before the next caravans arrived, perhaps longer.

Standing there small among the boxes of Kandy Kakes that rose like brownish cartoon cliffs around him, he resembled the videos I'd seen of sea lions floating angelically among the kelp, black bodies filmed from below, their shapes cut out in bright sunlight, bodies mistakable for those of a human being. I felt the memory of a shadowy arm around me, a watcher again, sitting there on the couch with my boyfriend, watching the animals become prey. Somewhere there were giant whales feeding on creatures too small to see, pressing them against fronds of baleen with a tongue the size of a sedan. There were polar bears killing seals, tearing ovoid chunks from out of their smooth, round bellies. In the surrounding vastness of the warehouse, I heard something scratching against the concrete floor and knew there were rats here, scraping a thin film of nutrient from the dry packaged matter that surrounded them. Life was everywhere, inescapable, imperative.

Prince Yosef glanced at the bright anomaly and also wondered if it would ever cease existing or if it were to be a permanent addition to the night sky. “But then, what is permanent? The stars that men gaze on, are they really there? The atmosphere of the earth, has it always been oxygen? Could it not have been another substance? The animals on the earth, were they always as they were or were there different types?” Yosef pondered. “How often have oceans risen and fallen? “The mysterious light that has been present since Miriam’s conception, does it descend from a star that is real or from a star that had perished eons ago? Do our words somehow remain, captured in the atmosphere, waiting to return to someone’s ears. The internal energy of man—his soul—when it perishes, as it must, will the man whom it embraced be forgotten? “Ideologies, how often do they change? Every generation? Every hundred years? Every thousand years? Mohse wrote the books of constant law! Ezra sealed them, making them unchangeable! But then the Greeks came. They invaded the world with different ideas. Different ways of discerning truth! Cyrus came before them with his Zoroastrianism, challenging the established Marduk! Can Yehuway’s truth reside alongside Greeks and Babylonian philosophers? No. For man is a thing inside Yehuway, and without Yehuway, what can be? Can Yehuway perish leaving us behind?” Yosef shook his head. “No! Yehuway’s essence cannot perish! Nothing exists without Yehuway! The Greeks’ intellect, how cunning is its invasion into the concrete reality of Mohse! Hellenistic thoughts have penetrated and conquered the P’rushim’ and Tz’dukim’ intellect. Immortality of the soul! No resurrection! No angels. Heaven’s reward and hell’s damnation according to one’s earthly deeds! All invasive Greek ideologies that are steadfastly adhering and corrupting the Mosaic truths. The Greeks’ intellect is an infectious intellect, founded on nothing but myth and fantasy. “It is man’s spirit that transcends itself to wait in a holding place in Yehuway’s memory. The Greeks declared a heaven and a hell. A tormenting residence and a rewarding residence. Such invasive thoughts are hideous to me. Paganism at its supreme level! The soul perishes. All thoughts become nonexistent! The body is consumed by the earth’s processes. A well versed man in the laws of Yehuway could not accept anything else! I will teach my son to be aware of false tautologies. “It is the personality of the individual that is remembered by Yehuway and it is that exact personality that is brought back to life. It will come back in a different body. In a different tone of voice. But the mannerisms will be the same. The intellect identical. “Yet, what man can return if the Mashi’ach fails in his mission to ransom man’s sins? What man may dwell alongside his past, risen ancestors if the Mashi’ach fails? What man can be if the Mashi’ach fails? What future can there be? Before Adam was created there was void! What is void? It is nothingness. It is total darkness! Total nonexistence. No thoughts. No light. No stars. No motions of the wind or of the seas.

His gaze fell to the rolling table beside his bed and the tattered brown teddy bear resting there. “Your boss said the little girl you saved wanted you to have it while you were sick, but she expects to get it back.” Emotion constricted his throat and he had to look away from Cat to clear it. Reaching out a finger, he stroked down the stuffed animal’s head. “She didn’t have to do that.” “Chad seemed very surprised she had given it up.” He nodded, his head throbbing from emotion and physical pain. He wanted to crawl into bed and drag Cat with him. She seemed to sense as well that he had almost reached his limit, because she peeled the blankets back on the bed. “Why don’t you chill for a little bit? We’ll go over our options later. Want me to help you with the sling?” Without argument he turned to let her release the Velcro strips, then shifted himself back to the mattress, dragging a spare pillow over his aching eyes. The lack of light immediately eased some of the tension in his head. “Can you hang out with me for a while?” She stroked her hand down his arm and squeezed his fingers. “I will.” Huffing

There’s something else, too, Miss Emmie.” Stevens had gone bashful now, and Emmie was intrigued. “Here.” Stevens beckoned her to follow him out the back of the stables, to where a separate entrance led to a roomy foaling stall. “He said you needed summat other’n t’mule, and you’re to limber her up, as Miss Winnie will be getting a pony soon.” A sturdy dapple-gray mare stood regarding Emmie from over a pile of hay. She turned a soft eye on Emmie and came over to the half door to greet her visitors. “Oh, Stevens.” Emmie’s eyes teared up again. “She is so pretty… so pretty.” “He left ye a message.” Stevens disappeared back into the barn and came out with a sealed envelope. “I can tack her up if ye like.” Emmie tore open the envelope with shaking fingers. How dare he be so thoughtful and generous and kind? Oh, how dare he… She couldn’t keep the horse, of course; it would not be in the least proper, but dear Lord, the animal was lovely… My dear Miss Farnum, Her name is Petunia, and she is yours. I have taken myself to points distant, so by the time I return, you will have fallen in love with her, and I will be spared your arguments and remonstrations. She is as trustworthy and reliable a lady as I have met outside your kitchen, and at five years of age, has plenty of service yet to give. Bothwell has been alerted you will be joining him on his rides, should it please you to do so. And if you are still determined not to keep the horse, dear lady, then consider her my attempt at consolation to you for inflicting Scout on the household in my absence. St. Just He’d drawn a sketch in the corner of Scout, huge paws splayed, tongue hanging, his expression bewildered, and broken crockery scattered in every direction. The little cartoon made Emmie smile through her tears even as Winnie tugged Scout out behind the stables to track Emmie down. “Are you crying, Miss Emmie?” Winnie picked up Emmie’s hand. “You mustn’t be sad, as we have Scout now to protect us and keep us company.” “It isn’t Scout, Winnie.” Emmie waved a hand toward the stall where Petunia was still hanging her head over the door, placidly watching the passing scene. “Oh.” Winnie’s eyes went round. “There’s a new horse, Scout.” She picked up her puppy and brought him over to the horse. The mare sniffed at the dog delicately, then at the child, then picked up another mouthful of hay. “Her name’s Petunia,” Emmie said, finding her handkerchief. “The earl brought her from York so I can ride out with the vicar.” “She’s very pretty,” Winnie said, stroking the velvety gray nose. “And not too big.” The mare was fairly good size, at least sixteen and a half hands, and much too big for Winnie. “Maybe once I get used to her, I can take you up with me, Winnie. Would you like that?” “Would I?” Winnie squealed, setting the dog down. “Did you hear that, Scout? Miss Emmie says we can go for a ride. Oh… We must write to the earl and thank him, Miss Emmie, and I must tell Rose I have a puppy, too. I can knight Scout, can’t I?” “Of course you may,” Emmie said, reaching for Winnie’s hand. “Though you must know knights would never deign to be seen in the castle kitchens, except perhaps in the dead of winter, when it’s too cold to go charging about the kingdom.” “Did knights sleep in beds?” “Scout can stay with Stevens above the carriage house when you have repaired to your princess tower for your beauty sleep.” “I’ll ask Scout.” It

If language sealed off man from animal, then the Theory of Evolution applied only to animal studies and reached no higher than the hairy apes. M

The economy of the three countries was of course dependent on local conditions. In most places agriculture was the backbone of the economy, but the life of a Danish farmer was very different from that of a farmer in northern Scandinavia, where crops were much less important and people’s livelihood (mainly sheep and cattle) was often heavily supplemented by fishing and hunting reindeer, elk, birds and animals for their pelts. Seals, walruses and whales were also hunted, and natural resources such as iron deposits, or certain types of stone suitable for making cooking-pots, whetstones and querns, were another source of wealth.

matured satisfactorily in that climate. Some green foods were available in the summer and some vegetables were grown and stored for winter. This diet, which included a liberal supply of fish, included also the use of livers of fish. One important fish dish was baked cod's head that had been stuffed with oat meal and chopped cods' livers. This was an important inclusion in the diets of the growing children. The oats and fish, including livers, provided minerals and vitamins adequate for an excellent racial stock with high immunity to tooth decay. For the Eskimos of Alaska the native diet consisted of a liberal use of organs and other special tissues of the large animal life of the sea, as well as of fish. The latter were dried in large quantities in the summer and stored for winter use. The fish were also eaten frozen. Seal oil was used freely as an adjunct to this diet and seal meat was specially prized and was usually available. Caribou meat was sometimes available. The organs were used. Their fruits were limited largely to a few berries including cranberries, available in the summer and stored for winter use. Several plant foods were gathered in the summer and stored in fat or frozen for winter use. A ground nut that was gathered by the Tundra mice and stored in caches was used by the Eskimos as a vegetable. Stems of certain water grasses, water plants and bulbs were occasionally used. The bulk of their diet, however, was fish and large animal life of the sea from which they selected certain organs and tissues with great care and wisdom. These included the inner layer of skin of one of the whale species, which has recently been shown to be very rich in vitamin C. Fish eggs were dried in season. They were used liberally as food for the growing children and were recognized as important for growth and reproduction. This successful nutrition provided ample amounts of fat-soluble activators and minerals from sea animal

To make a forty-inch fur coat it takes between thirty and two hundred chinchilla, or sixty mink, fifty sables, fifty muskrats, forty-five opossums, forty raccoons, thirty-five rabbits, twenty foxes, twenty otters, eighteen lynx, sixteen coyotes, fifteen beavers, or eight seals.

I bought a box of animal crackers, and it said on it, ‘Do not eat if seal is broken.’ So I opened up the box, and sure enough…” —Brian Kiley

COVENANT The basic structure of the relationship God has established with His people is the covenant. A covenant is usually thought of as a contract. While there surely are some similarities between covenants and contracts, there are also important differences. Both are binding agreements. Contracts are made from somewhat equal bargaining positions, and both parties are free not to sign the contract. A covenant is likewise an agreement. However, covenants in the Bible are not usually between equals. Rather, they follow a pattern common to the ancient Near East suzerain-vassal treaties. Suzerain-vassal treaties (as seen among the Hittite kings) were made between a conquering king and the conquered. There was no negotiation between the parties. The first element of these covenants is the preamble, which lists the respective parties. Exodus 20:2 begins with “I am the LORD your God.” God is the suzerain; the people of Israel are the vassals. The second element is the historical prologue. This section lists what the suzerain (or Lord) has done to deserve loyalty, such as bringing the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt. In theological terms, this is the section of grace. In the next section, the Lord lists what He will require of those He rules. In Exodus 20, these are the Ten Commandments. Each of the commandments were considered morally binding on the entire covenant community. The final part of this type of covenant lists blessings and cursings. The Lord lists the benefits that He will bestow upon His vasssals if they follow the stipulations of the covenant. An example of this is found in the fifth commandment. God promises the Israelites that their days will be long in the Promised Land if they honor their parents. The covenant also presents curses should the people fail in their responsibilities. God warns Israel that He will not hold them guiltless if they fail to honor His name. This basic pattern is evident in God’s covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the covenant between Jesus and His church. In biblical times, covenants were ratified in blood. It was customary for both parties to the covenant to pass between dismembered animals, signifying their agreement to the terms of the covenant (see Jeremiah 34:18). We have an example of this kind of covenant in Genesis 15:7-21. Here, God made certain promises to Abraham, which were ratified by the sacrificing of animals. However in this case, God alone passes through the animals, indicating that He is binding Himself by a solemn oath to fulfill the covenant. The new covenant, the covenant of grace, was ratified by the shed blood of Christ upon the cross. At the heart of this covenant is God’s promise of redemption. God has not only promised to redeem all who put their trust in Christ, but has sealed and confirmed that promise with a most holy vow. We serve and worship a God who has pledged Himself to our full redemption.

If pitches were weapons, the majority would be B-1 Lancers or Navy Seals. The B-1 pitch is up in the clouds. It features a lot of hand-waving, cool PowerPoint animations, and use of terms such as strategic, partnerships, alliances, first-mover advantage, and patented technology. Typically, it’s delivered by an MBA with a finance or consulting background.

This internal exploration is well worth while. For there is something within the mind of man and beast, something that is neither intellect nor feeling, but deeper than both, to which the name of intuition, may fitly be given. When science can truly explain why a horse will take its drunken rider or driver for miles through the dark and find its own way home; why field-mice seal up their holes before the cold weather comes; why sheep move away to the lee side of a mountain before severe storms; when it can tell us what warns the tortoise to retire to rest and refuge before every shower of rain; and when it can really explain who guides a vulture many miles distant to the dead body of an animal, we may then learn that intuition is sometimes a better guide than intellect.

But despite enjoying the whale, I avoided the penguin and the seal. Those animals were too cute to eat.

The Captain told me that formerly numerous tribes of seals inhabited them; but that English and American whalers, in their rage for destruction, massacred both old and young; thus, where there was once life and animation, they had left silence and death

Not long after that, the questions came: Why you? Drag had been around forever. Why had I been able to crack the code after so many false starts and almosts? But I knew they would never understand the delicate choreography I’d done to make it all work. I’d mastered the art of naughty-lite: two spoonfuls of Diana Ross, a pinch of Cher, a shake of Dolly Parton, all sealed with Walt Disney’s family-friendliness. Before, I had been blurry—confusing, a thing that only some people could understand. Finally, I had snapped into focus, just in time for the whole world to see. The eighties, with all its excess and opulence, had also been marred by darkness: the heaviness of crack cocaine, the AIDS epidemic, the crashes of S&Ls in the markets. There was a yearning for levity in the culture, the very same irreverence and sense of play that had animated me my whole life. A window opened. I stepped through it.

As she spoke, she felt something move by her foot. She glanced down and saw a small kitten. It crouched by her foot, biting her shoelace, and lashing its tail from side to side. Laura did not like cats; but this creature, so small, so intent, and so ferocious, amused her into kindly feelings. “How did you come here? Did you come in through the keyhole?” she asked, and bent down to stroke it. Scarcely had she touched its hard little head when it writhed itself round her hand, noiselessly clawing and biting, and kicking with its hind legs. She felt frightened by an attack so fierce and irrational, and her fears increased as she tried to shake off the tiny weight. At last she freed her hand, and looked at it. It was covered with fast-reddening scratches, and as she looked she saw a bright round drop of blood ooze out from one of them. Her heart gave a violent leap, and seemed to drop dead in her bosom. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself and stared at the kitten. Abruptly pacified, it had curled itself into a ball and fallen asleep. Its lean ribs heaved with a rhythmic tide of sleep. As she stared she saw its pink tongue flicker for one moment over its lips. It slept like a suckling. Not for a moment did she doubt. But so deadly, so complete was the certainty that it seemed to paralyze her powers of understanding, like a snake-bite in the brain. She continued to stare at the kitten, scarcely knowing what it was that she knew. Her heart had begun to beat once more, slowly, slowly; her ears were dizzied with a shrill wall of sound, and her flesh hung on her clammy and unreal. The animal smell that she had noticed when first she entered the room now seemed overwhelmingly rank. It smelt as if walls and floor and ceiling had been smeared with the juice of bruised fennel. She, Laura Willowes, in England, in the year 1922, had entered into a compact with the Devil. The compact was made, and affirmed, and sealed with the round red seal of her blood.

Ja kui ma vaatan tagasi oma teostele, siis näen, et tingimata just seal, kus mul puudus poliitiline siht, olen ma kirjutanud elutuid raamatuid ning eksinud kõrvale sädelevaisse lõikudesse, tähenduseta lausetesse, dekoratiivsetesse adjektiividesse ja tüssamisse üleüldse.

There are new signs and seals of this new covenant: first, a sacrificial system that involves the use of every clean animal (Gen. 8:20); and second, a rainbow to remind God of his covenant. (Gen. 9:8–17)

The public face of the covenant has changed too. Gone are circumcision and the animal sacrifices. New, non-bloody signs and seals of the covenant are instituted—the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. These are now the memorials of God’s new covenant.

prevalence of animal symbology on seals, amulets, and pottery

The servant woman was screaming. Screaming like a teakettle. There were still puddles just inside the shut windows—windows Celaena herself had sealed the night before when they’d been flapping in the swift and sudden storm. She had thought the bed was wet because of the rain. She’d climbed in because the storm had made her hear such horrible things, made her feel like there was something wrong, like there was someone standing in the corner of her room. It was not rain soaking the bed in that elegantly rugged chamber at the country manor. It was not rain that had dried on her, on her hands and skin and nightgown. And that smell—not just blood, but something else …“This is not real,” Celaena said aloud, backing away from the bed on which she was standing like a ghost. “This is not real.” But there were her parents, sprawled on the bed, their throats sliced ear to ear. There was her father, broad-shouldered and handsome, his skin already gray. There was her mother, her golden hair matted with blood, her face … her face … Slaughtered like animals. The