Animal Aspects of Human Psyche discussion opens with primate or 'man of the forest ∙ warrior' and specific attention to silverback gorilla and the indigenous human mind.
Our discussion includes comparative psychology with attention to one of primate's close distant relatives, cetaceans, and how these intelligences differ from animals who do not know meta-cognition, thinking about thinking. All this to consider how the current world of human affairs exemplifies behavior seen in silverback gorilla and to explore the deep, miraculous intelligence the rational mind can ignore.
Our next video/audio meet is scheduled for Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 5:00 PM PST.
Please read the October 8, 2015 ex·tinc·tion wit·ness post 'live unbruised, we are friends'.
image: 'man of the forest' by Denise Monaghan denisemonaghan.com
Replies
Two Books:
In the Kingdom of Gorillas by Bill Weber and Amy Vedder
http://books.simonandschuster.com/In-the-Kingdom-of-Gorillas/Bill-W...
Animal Weapons by Douglas J. Emlen
http://www.animalweapons.com/
I really liked hearing the poems. I don't know too much about the gorillas except from the movie about Dian Fossey and what I have read by Jane Goodall.
What I didn't share in class is that my partner and I have a farm. We raise mainly heritage breed animals. Part of what I feel is missing for many people is an actual physical connection with nature and animals. In a couple of weeks we will be lambing over 50 ewes. We will assist some of those births and will be actively involved in the care and well being of the lambs. We will handle everyone of them. The sheep we raise are Icelandic, a very old Island breed. I have witnessed the breeding behaviors of these animals and could tell stories about their ways of being...what is distinct to the males vs the females. Mostly it is the females which dictate when actually breeding takes place. Males wait until females are ready and willing to accept them. The males fight, but also engage in love. They have "brotherly" and will also mount each other. They will fight sometimes to the death to establish dominance. Once the pecking order is determined they are fine and get along great, especially outside of the rut. During rut they go a little crazy and will run themselves lame. The females have their own pecking order, with more dominant ewes and lesser dominant ewes. There are also watcher ewes who are very flighty and dictate flocking responses that are based on fear stimulus. Mothering instincts are very strong. Sometimes a ewe will violently reject her lamb. This can be remedied, but only with difficulty and sometimes not successfully. When observing them, it's like they don't understand that the lamb is theirs, or something about the lamb scares them, or their hormones have gone awry. It's all quite interesting, but if you never have access to animals in their habitat, it's hard to really feel into all of this. It's quite fascinating.
I do feel that there is something different between making things in a artistic way and making things on a production line based on invention. Art opens the poetic, which is to say feelings conveyed through image, sound, language. In today's world, when we produce commodities, build functional items, research, engage our cognitive left brain, we are a step removed from the poetic aspect of "making with hand". Perhaps when primitive man, or primates, made things with their hands, perhaps it was the thing which opened the left brain function.
I think innocence as was attributed in the story of the indigenous man, glamorizes him a bit. Many cultures that are indigenous are warring and not trusting of those outside the group. This is true in nature of many animal groupings. I feel this innocence is better felt as the innocence of the newborn, one who has yet to experience life. From a psychological perspective, the innocent child, the innocent soul self...pure, whole.
I think that much of what we feel about the animal kingdom is a projection of our own pain and suffering as well as our own awe onto them. I feel terrible pain when a ewe rejects her lamb, especially when she is "abusive" to him. I experienced rejection and abuse and so have trauma that gets projected onto my animals sometimes, but the animal's experience is their own and as long as I can see my own pain as something outside myself, I am removed from it. Both pain/suffering as well as awe can inspire us to tap into our creative selves and bring our experience of this forward in word, poem, images.
I see animals often in my dreams. Sometimes my farm animals come. Sometimes it is the beasts of the forest and jungle or the those of the air or sea. When they come to us this way, it is an invitation to embrace the medicine that they have to offer, to feel our deeper connection with these parts of ourselves and our greater connection to gaia, universe.
I most always work with dream clients in this way. What is happening with the animal in the dream? What is the dreamer's association with this animal? If there is death, injury we look to how the aspect of the animal is sick or injured, or how it had to "die" that we might live...which is usually trauma based. How can we face into the archetypal fear we experience in facing animals in our dreams. How are we in relationship to the animal.
I had a dream once where I a man and woman handed me the tether of a massive bull. In the dream I got to feel the strength of this bull, how I was holding this powerful animal, keeping him tethered. I got to feel my fear of this bull which lives in me and I could begin to feel into all the ways in which I had tethered this part of myself. I did a painting of him which is attached here. I guess you could say the discussion brought up a lot for me.
Thank you, Laura, for all of this. I'm in agreement, fully, and much appreciate the perspective you bring born of intimacy with other animals. In the introduction to the book and much throughout the witness, I note that what I offer is from a distance, in abstract, however deep and real the dive was for me and can be given that information is accessed in many different ways. As I mentioned during the meet, I had chance to farm sit last summer and tended sheep, cows, chickens, cats/kittens, dogs/puppy, hummingbirds and many plants in addition to moving irrigation line. That labor pulled me away from my writing, the witness practice, and into my body and the body of the real world of hunger, thirst, and electric fence :) I am grateful for that time, which brought close all I've been with. I then moved to a yurt on a farm at the edge of Bozeman and shared the area between cornfield and apple orchard with mama black bear and cubs. I chanced to hear mama bear speak in clicks for the first time. Part of the grief I carry is the reflection you offer in how distant I and so many humans have grown from these members of our community. I mend the wound by placing my attention with them and communicating that attention out steadily online. Your dream reminds me of a dream I had recently, which I'll hold for now though the dream has been called forth indirectly in my writing. I see the heat around the bull you painted and also a seed or bean. i feel in the painting the life energy of seed or bean, boundless. Reflecting on what you've offered here during my errand this afternoon, I see that part of why I've called us together is to move into a more dreamlike state with these others. Much of the witness was consumed with reading, taking in, integrating and sharing of what others have written from experience along with what was happening with, in and through me at the time. The child's innocence and projection of that and the wound is so real and is much tended to in the chapter on regeneration with butterfly. Thank you. Seed planted and much appreciated. I will sit with the dream I had along with invitation for gorilla to join me and us. with love, m
Thanks Megan!
Thank you, Laura. Since this exchange Bonobo has come into conversation during the 'waking' dream we walk. love, m