Emily the Cow
Escaped from Slaughterhouse
November 14, 1995

Entered Abbey Sanctuary
December 24, 1995

Passed to Greener Pastures
March 30, 2003

Buried behind Gandhi Statue
April 2, 2003

Above: A model of the life-size bronze statue of Emily that will be unveiled at the Abbey at her burial site located behind the statue of Gandhi. It will be at the center of the newly-created SACRED COW Animal Rights Peace Memorial. Read More

Emily served as a loving symbol of courage, inner wisdom and survival to thousands of people who came to know and love her. She encouraged many to embark on the road to vegetarianism and cruelty-free living while inspiring people to appreciate the sacredness of all life.

Emily's gentle and loving nature imbued us all with a better understanding and respect for all creatures with whom we share this planet. This is her legacy. Emily's spirit will live on in the hearts of minds of those who were touched by her grace and beauty.

	Above: Sri. M. Bairava Sundram from Sri Laksmi Hindu Temple in Ashland, MA blesses Emily's grave.

Hair clippings from Emily's markings on her forehead and from the tip of her tail, traces of her blood and a piece of golden thread (placed through Emily's ear by Hindu priest Krishna Bhatta of the Lakshmi Temple) were released into the holy river Ganges in the city of Benares, India. Abbey members Bram and Elizabeth DeVeer organized and assisted the Temple priest in this traditional sacred cow ritual on the Ganges River in April 2003.

Poem for Emily and all cows throughout the world.

Taken from Chapel Prayer Book
April 4, 2003

Emily, I did not know you. You were in the hospital when I visited the Abbey for the first time.

Today I felt your presence in Lewis remembering you. I saw and touched and smelled your blanket from India and I visited your grave. I will return to the Abbey with children, one will be named Emily.

In the mean time and forever, may God bless abundantly everyone who knew you and learns of you in the future and bless all whom they know and will know until this blessing includes everyone who has lived, is living or will be living in the entire world. Namaste, Cecilia Gilchrest

Lewis has asked me to set down some of my thoughts on Emily.

The spoken words just seem to flow naturally but trying to put them in writing I become self-conscious. Perhaps it will help if I think of this as what I would have liked to be able to communicate to Emily about how much she meant to me--and still does.

Emily, thank you for the gift of your presence in my life.

It was, quite simply, your gift of presence that I will remember most about you You were always purely and simply present, always in the moment. You invited every person who came to you to do the same.

During my many visits to you in your barn over the years you lived at the Peace Abbey , I now realize that I was receiving darshan. You reminded me of the true meaning of the word darshan, which simply means "sight" in Sanskrit--sight of a sacred being.

When I think of the many elaborate efforts I had made over the years before meeting you to receive darshan at the feet of human spiritual teachers, I can only smile. I have waited in line for hours for a momentary hug from Ammachi and driven to another state to hear Mother Theresa address an audience of thousands. Certainly these great beings had their own special gifts to share but how different was your darshan in its utter simplicity! The door to your barn was always open. Often there were other visitors there to see you and often we were alone. There was no protocol to being with you, no schedule of events. You were open and accessible to all. There were no boundaries of culture or religion. The apparent difference of species didn't seem to matter either.

You were a living reminder that we are all One. You made no distinctions and reminded us to do the same. You catalyzed a new awareness in people by your very presence. One look into your large, luminous brown eyes communicated so much more than words ever could. Who can say how many people felt a new awareness of compassion as they stood quietly with you? I've heard you whimsically described as the "poster girl" for vegetarianism but you lived beyond all "-isms" and you changed people not by rhetoric or reproach but simply by your being. You gave wordless testimony to the urgent necessity for an all embracing compassion that naturally affected so much more than what goes on one's dinner plate (although that's a good place to start). You embodied the title of Michaelle Small Wright's book " Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered". Speaking humbly and gratefully for myself, this is your legacy to me personally, Emily. I must recommit to living as if the divine presence in each and every being matters. This will be a lifelong journey and not an easy one in a world where not all beings live in the state of all-inclusive harmlessness that you did.


Your memory will be an ongoing reminder that it is important to try. I will continue to fail often, to be sure. The memorial to be erected in bronze and marble in your memory will be an outward and tangible sign of your continued presence in the heart of every person whose life you touched. And the countless lives you will continue to touch after the passing of your physical form. I feel very blessed to have known you in that physical form and will always be grateful for the joy you brought to my life and the lives of all the family members and friends I brought to see you. "Let's go see Emily!" we would say, and a happy sense of anticipation always filled us as we pulled in through the gates of the Peace Abbey and made our way over to the barn.

Our visit this Sunday followed the usual pattern until another visitor told us of your passing. Emily, I wish I had known you were sick. I would have come and given you Reiki. I wish I had known your body was lying in the barn draped in sacredness and surrounded by flowers so that I could have come and been in your peace-full presence one last time . I wish I had known about your memorial service so I could have been present. I realize, however that these regrets are all about me and not about you . There can be no "final respects" to you, Emily, and there can be no closure until the last slaughterhouse has closed its doors, until all beings show compassion to each other, locally and globally. This is a process that will outlive me, too. Your courageous life journey will be an ongoing reminder that I must never give up. You never did.

Kathy Berghorn