Today, we are going to talk about pigs.
Not the kind you might have in your backyard - not that many of us have pigs in our backyard.
I do have clients who have pigs. For example, the ones I am sitting amongst in the photo of this podcast belong to my dear friend, Ann Firestone, Founder of Save Your Ass LongEar Rescue.
I want to tell you about some recent conversations with farm pigs today.
One of my amazing clients is devoted to farm pigs. She feels that though the animals are eventually taken off the premises to be processed, we can honor and respect their life while amongst us.
Last year, a retired sow my clients had visited weekly for years was going to send to slaughter, and so my client wanted to talk with her and see what we could do to prepare her.
My client had tried several times to find a home for the pig, but things didn’t align.
During our call, the pig explained that she would love to retire and grow old. The sow was so clear about it that I put the word out, and as luck would have it, a gentleman saw the post, started to build a pen for her, and the pig moved within a month to her new home.
Yay for the sow and my client.
Every day, this incredible woman drives a bunch of miles to a local farm to spend time with the pigs. This time of the year, there are bunches of piglets, some with the mom, some already weaned, so I offered to meet her at the farm so we could have a chat with the litter.
These piglets were well-kept. Low fencing sectioned off an area in one of the large barns. The area was filled with fresh shavings and a few little huts with a dirt floor. The whole scene looked like a doggy daycare. Small and medium-sized piglets were rooting and sleeping, and playing and running around. The smallest piglet was the size of a 5-month-old Frenchie, and the largest was the size of a large bulldog. I didn’t count how many, but I guess there were about 25 of them milling around.
I immediately noticed that my enthusiastic energy was, at times, too much. The moment I honed in on a piglet and pointed to it to share something about it with my client, the pig stood up or turned to move away from my energy. Who knew pigs are THAT sensitive? I didn’t. I dialed my enthusiasm down, and we began to connect with the piglets, not literally, but energetically, from outside the fence.
I suggested that we follow one of the piglets with our eyes to see what s/he was up to. The smallest one, a black piglet, caught our attention. As we watched her move amongst the larger animals, we noticed that thai little one was quite the caretaker. She walked around and checked in with those that laid aligned the way. She cleaned this one's ear, sniffed this one's nose, and then went over to the feed station, squeezing her little snout in between the bigger butts to get her nose into the trough.
I looked at my client and said, “This one looks like an amazing caretaker. Always checking in with everyone.”
Then we realized one of the larger pigs was lying right by the fence. Her coloring was brownish with some spots on her. The pig opened her mouth, making some funny sounds, and her wrinkly tongue crunched up. Was she choking, I wondered.
I asked the pig what was going on. Are you choking?
She said, “Something is stuck.”
The grunting seemed to come from her throat. She was trying to dislodge something and eventually chewed a few times and then lay down again.
Curious enough, this particular pig was surrounded by other pigs checking in with her. They pushed their snout toward her and checked her face. Someone licked her ear. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how thoroughly other pigs were sticking their snout into her ear and cleaning the heck out of it.
Who knew that pigs were so compassionate and companionable?
Curious enough, the client and I had spoken the week prior with a little pig who had died. My client wanted to know if the piglet was ok and see if she had anything she wanted to share. My client felt so bad that this girl and another piglet boy had passed away after a few weeks.
Piglet didn’t hold back. She explained, “Oh, that’s why we have so many of them. There is always a chance of some not making it.”
So I said, “Ahhh, did you know you were one of those cases?”
Again, her answer came quickly, “It was clear that I was weak, so it was no surprise.”
She sounded so utilitarian.
I asked if she knew how much my client cared about them.
The piglet had answered, “Oh, but of course, hard to miss.”
Next, the piglet took me into her body so I could experience it from her point of view. We were looking up, and I saw the fence around me. And I felt a person nearing the fence. Before the person came into sight, though, her energy had already arrived. And it was nice energy. I didn’t see it as a color or texture, more like energy that clarifies and beautifies everything. The energy that makes everything look sharper. Love!
The piglet continued, “It comes over us like a blanket.”
When I translated the visual, I quickly asked the pig if it felt like the women’s love was raining
on her. The piglet scuffed, “... not rain, like a BLANKET!” And then she said, she giggled, “Pigs and a blanket ... get it?”
For a second, I laughed, and then it hit me. That was freaking macabre … did this piglet make a reference to pigs in a blanket, the food?
On the phone, this little pig had been so utilitarian and yet also so understanding of the love she was receiving.
Now watching these little pigs, some of them her siblings, taking care of each other was just another expression of that love.
Suddenly, the brown pig got on her feet, small they are, those feet, and walked off to the food trough. I noticed a small limp on her left hind—a slight twist. So I offered her to do some energy work from the far.
A few minutes earlier, I had tuned in to another little one and offered him energy work. I asked him to please turn around and show me his butt if he wanted to receive it. When he did, I followed through with some Flow.
But the brown pig was not sure what to do with my offer. I could feel it. By now, she was lying again near the fence, now facing the opposite way. I explained that I could start by focusing near her tail or her ears, giving her a visual of what I would do … remotely.
She gave me an eyeball.
“I don’t know,” she expressed. “I got a good thing going here. If I feel suddenly better, everyone around me will stop checking in with me.”
What?
Whaaaat?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I thought animals always seek wellness and expansion.
This seemed the opposite.
Then I realized wellness comes in many ways, shapes, and forms. Maybe a tweak in the hip, because your porker sibling sat on you when you were babies, is less important than to be licked, snuffled, and attended to.
That seemed to be the truth, at least for this girl.
We can’t make this shit up, friends. We really can’t.
Next to the enclosure was another one. In it was a sow with her rosy babies.
The babies were sleeping, squashed together, on top and around each other. There must have been eight or maybe ten. Mom was lying next to the fence, sleeping. I looked at her. The massive body, the long, white eyelashes. Snortling in her sleep.
“They are a brood,” I suddenly heard. It came from the mom.
The energy with the words sounded like ‘this is my family. They can be a handful’.
I watched the scene for a second and imagined the little ones awake, running around, getting on Mom’s nerves.
“I take every chance I get.” I now heard her say.
And I knew what she meant. She slept when they slept.
A moment later, a squeaky situation in the next-door pen woke Mom up. Her waking rose the babies, and before you knew it, mom heavily shifted herself from lying on her belly onto her right side to free up the teats. As she plopped down and surrendered, the brood approached at a run to find a nipple on the upper or lower row of teats.
Mom grunted with every breath. Gosh, watching her, all this seemed like a lot of effort. Once again, I gazed at the relatively small legs and small feet in comparison to her body. Mom chimed in again. “I don’t like to walk in this.” Her bedding was two feet of layered hay. Soft and cushy. But I got it; she probably sank in quite a bit, heavy as she was. Lifting the legs out of the layers and moving forward could be hard.
Mom got up to get a drink when the piglets were done snacking.
At this point, my client told me about the piglet’s short future. These young pigs were usually sold when they were around eight months old. At that point, they head off to slaughter. Surprised about the short life span, I wanted to ask another question when the sow chimed in again.
“This is how I make a living.”
I translated this for my client.
Mom continued, “I make a living, she pointed to her piglets.
“They make a living,” she pointed to her piglets leaving the farm.
She continued, “So they can make a living,” now she pointed to the farmhouse.
She said, “Animals make a living.”
I quickly thought, do they? My mind went to dogs. Not all dogs make a liv … the sow interrupted me.
“Dogs,” she scruffed. The word came with a picture of a happy dog trotting through the barnyard. “Dogs don’t make a living. Farm animals do.”
There was no emotion in this statement. It was a matter of facts.
She and her babies were here to make and provide a living.
Engaging with these clear-headed and compassionate beings all afternoon was such a beautiful gift. Seeing their perspectives, getting a sense of their personalities, and simply watching their antics was a-ma-zing!
But the biggest takeaway might be to realize … when we can’t change someone's future, we can always bring love.
It was hard not to think of their short life and the process that followed. But when we bring worry or concern, we are not meeting the pigs where they are, in the now.
My client had it right. She brought a blanket of love. And according to pigs ... what more can a pig ask for?
Join me next time. Can’t wait! Stay open + curious. Bye bye.