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Celeste's story--the story of a pig rescued from one of those 'humane' family farms

.........On that New Years Day in her barn, 730 days ago, the CD player played old French songs and I sang along as I stroked Celeste's belly. Glacial dusk sky, dead of winter. It was an old French love ballad whose rich words are meaningless to all who don't speak French, just as Celeste's rich language is meaningless to all who don't speak pig.

But the music captured and expressed what we all feel beyond language.

Celeste propped herself up, sat up, her face a few inches from mine, cocked her head, looked me straight in the eyes. I sang directly to her: "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai." She uttered a sound I had never heard her, or any other pig, make. A series of open mouthed, melodic, rhythmic, throaty purrs. A musical response.

I repeated the refrain: "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai." She listened, wide mouthed, as though waiting for her turn. I paused. She repeated her musical reply. We did this till the song ended, each of us responding to music with music, to deep, universal feeling with like feeling. "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai." "I’ve been loving you for so long, I will never forget you".

She sang in pig, I sang in human. We understood each other. Not because we were especially gifted at inter-species communication, not because we knew each other all that well, but because we both knew the love, the grief, and the hope of being alive in a soul burdened body.......


Source: Celeste's story...


Date: 2009-01-04

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