Personal Thoughts about Animal Souls
I am not an advocate of spiritual souls in any kind of religious sense. I do believe that there is some kind of organizing principle that manages the life of a plant, an animal, or me. Maybe consciousness is responsible in me, but that seems an unlikely solution for animals and particularly plants which have no brain or noticeable nervous system.
I don’t think living organisms can be defined by a descriptive write-up of their component parts and then a summation of those parts. I can examine and describe a sheet of paper lying here on my desk. That would be a simple task. But if that paper stood up and began walking across my computer keypad then dipped one of its ends into my coffee for a drink, I would have to define that 8.5" by 11" sheet using highly different vocabulary which might be more subjective than objective. Science may someday find this illusive organizing principle, but until then, I’m satisfied to sit back and wonder at the mystery of it all. The following two short stories are part of this enigma.
The Killdeer Soul
Not long ago, I walked through some high grass in an open area of a nearby cemetery. I noticed a bird about fifteen feet away flopping about as if it were injured. As I approached the poor thing, the bird recovered somewhat and walked another ten feet or so dragging its wing. Not wanting to frighten it, I snuck closer and closer, but the bird eyed me carefully and again walked some distance away. This behavior continued until the animal suddenly took 
flight and turned back toward the area where I first encountered it.
From a search on the Internet, I found that this display of injury was an instinctual behavior of a killdeer bird to lead prey away from its nest. The nest is usually built on the ground in weedy and/or grassy areas an must always be protected. Science would call this an instinctual display, but it made me wonder where this urge to preserve its young came from in the killdeer. Was it also in the eggs the bird had laid several days ago?
An Elm Tree's Soul
Last week, I called a tree expert to examine an elm in by backyard. The tree barely had any leaves on its many towering branches. But it did have a multitude of weak, twig-like shoots bearing small leaves, which began to appear all over the tree's trunk. The tree expert explained that the tree had Dutch Elm Disease. It was in its final stages of life.
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