One of our last assignments that was given for us to write about over the Thanksgiving Holidays was about who we think of as a Hero.

According to Dictionary.com, one definition of “Hero” is as such:

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

Call me skewed in my views but pretty much everyone that I had looked up to as a Hero when I was a child, soon proved to be just as human as I was. Oh, yes, I believe the great Prophets who have seen humanity through the ages such as Abraham, Moses, Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Bab, Baha u llah and others are heroes but they are also greater than a human.

When I got older, my definition of “Hero” began to morph more into real people like you and me who have risen to their greatness against all odds.  I’ve met, read about, and heard about so many which makes me happy.  I’ve noticed, though, that the kind of mystical, magical hero of my youth now tends to be of the non human variety in my animal friends.  I’ve heard of some amazing stories of even your garden variety dog and cat who have endured incredible adversity and overcome them to become great pets.  Take “Maggie” who is what I call a “pocket” Golden Retriever (because she is about the size of my Australian Shepherd).  My friend Martha Cary rescued her after discovering her chained to a tree with a large portion of her fur gone and ant bites all over her from the ant mound that she could not get away from.  MC took Maggie and I’m sure along with tons of love and affection as well as food and nutrition also gave her mega does of Reikki treatments. A few years down the road and Maggie sports an incredible glossy light blonde fur coat and will greet you at the door and welcome you into their home like any great hostess does.  She has helped MC through the loss of her first dog companion and her mom as well as other life changing events.  When I think of what Maggie’s life had been up until the moment MC found her, it would have made sense if she had become either an extremely mean and aggressive dog or a very traumatized scared dog which I am happy to report she is neither.

There are many heroic animal stories in our world from all kinds of cultures about all kinds of species (some of my favorite are the “Old Mother West Wind” stories http://tinyurl.com/39ll4qf) And just like we humans, there are many “average” animal heroes that go unsung for the most part.

I think I’ll go for the average hero whether they be human or animal because when they become more like you and me, we know what adversities they have had to overcome to behave in a higher level of being.