Many wise people have used a great diversity of stories and words to describe spirituality. When we get down to the essence of spirituality, however, it is simply about love.
Animals are experts on love.
In the last twenty years, thanks to researchers like Jane Goodall, Roger Fouts, and Jeffrey Masson, we have learned more about animals both those who live free and those with whom we share our lives and their ability to love. One young chimp that Jane Goodall studied loved his mother so much that after she died he wasted away, eventually dying of grief. Ally, another young chimp, would have died after his separation from his human mother, the only mother he had known, if it were not for the intervention of Roger Fouts and his assistant, Bill Chown. After Ally s human mother decided she could no longer look after him, she left him with a small colony of chimpanzees under the care and study of Roger and Deborah Fouts and their graduate students. After the separation, Ally became despondent, pulling his hair out and losing the use of his right arm from hysterical paralysis.