{"id":1717,"date":"2026-01-20T16:08:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:10:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T21:10:46","slug":"donkeys-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=1717","title":{"rendered":"Donkeys Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n

I hope you are finding ways to take care of yourselves, tend to your needs and have fun in these fraught and uncertain times. When life is so precarious it feels more important than ever to do these simple things.<\/p>\n

As an example, I recently paid a visit with some friends to the Primrose Donkey Sanctuary<\/a>. I have always loved donkeys. When I was a child, I had a picture book called \u201cDonkey, Donkey\u201d about a donkey who doesn\u2019t like his ears. I didn\u2019t like mine either so I understood him.<\/p>\n

In 2013, when I was on a month-long retreat in Ireland, I made friends with a donkey who lived in a field along my walking route. Once we established a connection, he would come to the fence to say hello and get a rub whenever I passed by.<\/p>\n

During our visit at the Primrose Donkey Sanctuary<\/a>, a donkey named Zak walked all the way around the other donkeys to come and stand by me. I reached my hand over the fence to give him a good rub but he was too far away and would not come any closer. He seemed very sad!<\/p>\n

A Primrose<\/a> volunteer wandered over and said Zak had been pretty depressed lately because his partner had just died. I learned donkeys tend to pair bond<\/a> and can show obvious signs of mourning<\/a>. Zak evidently wanted our company, because he stayed with us even while maintaining his distance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about Zak all week. Some farms acquire donkeys because they calm the other animals. Despite his grief, he gave me<\/em> that sense of calm. The way he stood by us, stock still, quietly breathing in the cold winter air, seemingly listening to our conversation, giving us his full presence.<\/p>\n

While the circus of global politics screams on, climate catastrophes rage, and staggering injustices occur around our planet, it has brought me strange comfort to think of Zak, a very present donkey living on a farm, missing his partner.<\/p>\n

From his world to my world to yours, and all the worlds in-between \u2026<\/p>\n

Celia<\/p>\n

PS ~ My mother wrote a book called \u201cDandelions Help\u201d<\/a> so thanks, Mum, for inspiring this month\u2019s title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers, I hope you are finding ways to take care of yourselves, tend to your needs and have fun in these fraught and uncertain times. When life is so precarious it feels more important than ever to do these simple things. As an example, I recently paid a visit with some friends to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1113,1109,835,1112,1111,1110,910],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animals-rule","tag-donkeys","tag-grief","tag-mourning","tag-pair-bonding","tag-retreat","tag-spiritual-journey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}