Happy because unconcerned with past or future, or not stricken by heavy thoughts (here, chewing the cud means focused in the present moment, not prone to nausea). The cow is also patient and seeing, and thus a metaphor for reading and interpretation as an art lost in modernity; rumination means to consider and contemplate without hurry. The cow is trusting, not slighted by distance or change; warm and reassuring like a faithful companion. The cow is an essential religious symbol in many Eastern religions: the ‘voluntary beggar’, learning contentment from a herd of cows, is a portrait of Jesus as a displaced and misunderstood Eastern sage.