By Sally Saint
My son’s school has recently acquired some rescue chickens, which were straight from their cages having been the industry’s laying machines. They arrived with very little feathers, lots of bare skin and bottoms that were bigger than I ever realised. The nakedness of their form really highlighted the areas you don’t get to see unless it’s the parts packaged in a supermarket!
Two things have amazed me with this whole experience. First of all, the absolute love and concern the children have for these chickens, they have only been at the school for a couple of weeks. But also the absolute freedom of the chickens’ spirits.
Every child shows such genuine affection for them, a number of children don’t have animals at home so have little experience but they have exactly the same capacity to love. From the nursery children and all the way through, these chickens are surrounded with love.
It is interesting to observe that it’s the age of the child that dictates how much notice they take of the actual appearance of the chickens. The younger ones just totally accept them as they are, no questions asked. Then as they progress in age they become more aware of appearances, perhaps a mirror of the society we live in.
Acceptance gets replaced by so many other emotions. When we look at something, do we respect and accept someone or something EXACTLY as it is? It is a question worth sitting with and seeing what comes from this quiet contemplation.
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