What’s Up With the Cow Obsession?

How I Mooed Myself into Metaphor

Someone asked me recently - “What’s up with the cow obsession?”
And I laughed—because it’s a fair question. But also, it runs deeper than it looks.

I’ve always felt a bit like a cow.

Funny, brown-eyed, soulful, slightly baffled-looking. Cows just stand there, doing their cow-thing, completely unaware of how sacred and hilarious they are. And I relate.

My very good friends are Hindu, and I’ll never forget the first time we got together—I gifted them a bag of South African biltong, completely unaware of the significance cows hold in their faith.

For the uninitiated: that’s dried beef. As in, cow. You can imagine the moment. They smiled graciously, returned it gently, and still welcomed me in. That moment stuck. Sometimes, grace really does come wrapped in quiet forgiveness—and maybe a polite refusal of your salty steak snack.

There’s something sacred about cows—across cultures, they’ve represented abundance, patience, devotion. In Hindu culture, the cow is honoured because she gives without demanding. She nourishes. She sustains. She just is—gentle, steady, life-giving.

And isn’t that the dream?

To just be.

No striving. No hustling. No mooing-for-approval. Just existing in your field, chewing your cud in peace, with your people around you, and the occasional breeze in your tail.

And now, in this season of life—one marked by illness, uncertainty, and more than a few stampedes—I find myself identifying more than ever with that one cow in Twister. Spinning through chaos, hooves flailing, wide-eyed, helplessly caught in something far bigger than herself. She wasn’t asking for drama. She was just standing in her field, doing her cow thing… and then bam—swept up in the storm.

I’ve never related to anything more.

One minute I’m grazing gently through the day. Next minute, I’m trying to juggle test results, dinner plans, existential dread, a temperamental printer, and laundry that still thinks it’s funny to multiply overnight.

So yes. I write about cows.

I write about moos and metaphors. About pastures lost and found. About standing firm even when you’re spinning sideways through your own personal twister.

Just one moment grazing in the field.
Next minute: airborne.

And maybe you are too.

Maybe you’re standing in a field one minute—and in a full-blown storm the next. Maybe you’ve been feeding others and forgetting to feed yourself.
Maybe you’ve mooed too softly.
Maybe you’ve stood in the storm and spun through the air, wondering what the hell just happened to your quiet little pasture.

So I write about cows. I write about udders and moos and pastures and hay. I write about storm-spun metaphors and milked meanings. Because sometimes it’s easier to explore big, messy, beautiful truths when they’re wrapped in something that makes us smile.

And because maybe there’s a bit of cow in all of us.