I'm very happy to be Community Manager of the GREECE AND CYPRUS Community on the Network. I'm also associate editor of the International Friends Community and work with animal activists in Europe, especially in Greece.

My blog Friends of Animals in the Holy Land has been superseded by the Israel Community, while the blog Dutch Voices: Adopters Speak Out to Help Greek Dogs is a work always in progress but perhaps never to be completed!

Athens, Greece, my home for 16 years, is still my love, as it was when I excavated, taught university, and traveled extensively in that land of breathtaking natural beauty.

In Greece outside the cities, donkeys were everywhere, and I became interested in their lives. Happily, there are now donkey sanctuaries in Israel (Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land) as well as in Cyprus (Donkey Sanctuary Cyprus), Spain (El Refugio del Burrito), and Italy (Il Rifugio Degli Asinelli).

The Donkey Sanctuary in Devon (UK), SPARE, SPANA, GAWF, GAR, the Brooke, and others help donkeys in Ethiopia, Egypt, Jordan, and other countries of North Africa and the Middle East.

From the Mediterranean to the mystical, it is the reality behind the mask of the visible world that intrigues me, the flashes of mystery like messengers between the two dimensions. Animals, and the earth, and the interconnectedness of absolutely everything, our mysterious relationship to the veiled divine--these things are always on my mind.

The realization that all of the cosmos is one sacred whole is a very ancient way of relating to the earth. I trust that BF's "Religious Proclamation for Animal Compassion" will spread this ancient wisdom around the world.

In my photos, the woman with the baby donkey is Lucy Fensom, founder and director of Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land Safe Haven. The donkeys in beautiful green fields belong to The Donkey Sanctuary at Sidmouth, Devon, UK Donkey Sanctuary)

I live with two cats, Alexandra whose photo you see, and Zoe, whose name in Greek means "life." Both are rescues, one from the local shelter, one from my backyard.