piranhas and the eco-mind

It is interesting and eye-opening how "the truth" can be so deeply in the eyes of the beholder.  We see what we believe, and we don't see what we don't believe.  We have been thinking along the (somewhat) misinterpreted Darwinian lines of nature's potential ferociousness and cruelty in the name of the survival of the fittest.  But scientists are beginning to dismantle this paradigm. Sunday's NY Times article took wildly exaggerated reports about the supposedly blood thirsty piranhas apart and reduced them to nothing much.  Growing up I remember hearing stories about entire cows supposedly being stripped to the bones in minutes by a huge swarm of these fish.  But I also acknowledge reading later about indigenous people wading and swimming fearlessly in piranha inhabited waters.

photo credit www.dooyoo.co.uk

A short video on Suzanne Simard's work on the wood-wide-web and the mycorhizzal (mushroom) network recently made the rounds on Facebook.  Dr. Simard is involved in research about mother trees (huge old trees in the woods) and their social network, where plant seedlings grow up around the mother tree, and mushroom networks reach far underground, living in symbiotically nourishing relationships with the trees for their mutual benefit.

photo credit www.tompeters.com

Nature is becoming friendlier by the minute as our outlook on the environment is shifting and we are becoming more eco-minded.

the significance of animals in our life

photo credit simplycatbreeds.org Since the death of our beloved cat this past summer I have been pondering our relationships with animals in general, and more specifically through my relationship with our cats.  I have read several books on communication with animals since then because I really see a soul when I look into an animal's eyes (a cow's on a walk, a deer's in a field, a lion's in a zoo, a horse in a stable), the same way we see it in people  - you have probably heard the saying "the eyes are the mirror of the soul."  Well, it's as true for animals as it is for humans (and why would it be different anyhow?).

photo credit allpetnews.com

It is telling to watch people interacting with their pets.   Amelia Kinkade, the noted animal communicator, writes in her book The Language of Miracles "The animals are here to facilitate our enlightenment through their unconditional love."  Some people get it, some not so much yet.

While I by no means pretend to be able to communicate with our cats, I totally get that you can tune into them by becoming silent (.....quieting the mind as in meditation or simply tuning in and tuning other stuff out) and learning it the way we would learn Spanish or Russian.  It is a matter of practicing and a matter of applying the appropriate techniques.  You wouldn't try to learn to speak Spanish by practicing scales or chopping up onions.

photo credit dailytransformations.com

What astonished me most from reading this particular book is how well developed animals' emotional lives are, and how precisely they are able to communicate to anyone who is able to listen - on how they are being treated, on what they prefer to eat, on their own and even their owner's state of health, on their preferred toys, on the layout of the place where they live, on the family dynamics of their host family, even everyone's names.  Quite amazing.

I am so much more careful now with how I interact with the cats after reading this book because I realize that they are more aware than you would ever believe it - a total eye-opener.

photo credit lanternhollowpress.com

animal consciousness

I have always wanted to delve a bit deeper into the question of animal consciousness. The death of our dear cat Snowball a few weeks ago became the catalyst for it.  We all know the relationship between brain size and depth of consciousness, awareness and intelligence.  So it might seem that the larger the animal's brain, the deeper a relationship we can forge with it because of the animal's deeper awareness.  I did not experience an animal relationship until we got Snowball, our first cat (I grew up in city apartments with fish and hamsters - no deep relationship there).  He was white with a few well placed black spots, gentle and regal, and sociable to a point.  Sometimes, he would jump up on the bed to snuggle, but he was not a lap cat.  Snowbie A few years later we adopted Mieze as a companion for him, our little black very assertive female tuxedo cat.  She talks a lot, while Snowball did not, she jumps on our laps, he did not, she'll wake us up in the morning by prancing around on the headboard and meowing by the side of the bed (not out of hunger, but for companionship).  She is very sprite, quick, and playful, a perfect hunter (she even caught bats on two occasions they made their way into the house), he lost a lot of his playfulness over the years.  I learned how individual animals' personalities are, and how they truly become a Screen Shot 2013-07-09 at 10.09.20 AMbeloved family member.  Just like with my children, my nurturing gene kicked in, and I made sure the cats get the best holistic cat food and vet care and emotional nurturing.

Yet, René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, believed that animals were nothing more than mechanized, soulless, feelingless, rightless moving bodies we have dominion over - a prevailing understanding of his times.  And you wonder about many still prevailing animal practices like dog and cock and bull fights, raising animals for fur, CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), selective breeding food animals so abnormally that they cannot function anymore  (chickens with breast so heavy they tip over, corn fed cows whose intestines scream because the diet is so unsuitable to their digestive systems, etc.).  We have come a long way, though, thanks to animal rights groups and wake-up calls that happen spontaneously when we look an animal in the eyes and see a soul or consciousness staring back at us with meaning.

Coming to the end of reading Cat Body, Cat Mind by vet Dr. Michael Fox, who obviously has a deeply spiritual understanding of life, I regret not having shown our Mieze the dead body of her companion Snowball.  Animals seem to understand the passing of close mates and companions, and need closure like we do.

Now we are working on integrating her new companion Peter Pepper into our household.  Fox says that it is important for animals to have a like companion so they always remember who they are.  We found Snowball on the side of the road when he was 4 or 5 weeks old, and we are not sure he ever totally understood how to act among cats.  Maybe he was always a bit more human than cat.DSC07865

I am still intrigued and would like to learn more about this collective animal consciousness I read about, that bees or cats or cows are not as individuated as us humans, and are more a fragment of a larger encompassing cat consciousness, or bee consciousness, or cow consciousness.  It may shed some light on our own embeddedness in a larger collective human or universal consciousness, how inseparable we really are of the greater collective consciousness.

shark fin soup and hope

shark fin soupIf the Chinese are back peddling on shark fin soup, so ubiquitous at all festive banquets of the past, there is hope for changes in our attitude about a lot of other things as well.  I am thinking of idling stances on such pressing issues as climate change, pollution, animal welfare, GMOs, child prostitution, and many other ugly realities.  It seems to me that ultimately our collective indecisiveness on these issues boils down to the hesitance of wrestling ourselves away from the profit-first model.  If we only realized that the wellbeing-first model benefits us all around. Bonnie Tsui wrote this week-end in the NY Times about the changing attitude of the Chinese on serving shark fin soup at important banquets, previously a sign of "honoring (and impressing) your guest."  I was served shark fin soup at several banquets in my company's honor in the late 1980s when we lived in Hong Kong, and was oblivious of the gruesome practice (which I can't bear to describe here, but you can look it up).    shark finBecause it has been such an inherent component of Chinese food culture I was really quite amazed to read that "last summer, the Chinese government announced that it would stop serving the dish at official state banquets."

Here's to change for the better, change towards wellbeing, change towards respect of nature and all living beings. shark

buzzing bees

Our new bees arrived this past week-end.  The day they arrived one of them got caught in my hair when it explored the garden.  I panicked and tried to whip it out of my hair – wrong thing to do.  Bees don’t like sudden movements.  So the poor thing stung me (and lost its life, which I felt really bad about).  But that’s not what this post is about.  What it is about is this: yesterday I was in and out of the garden many times, hanging up laundry.  Each time I came outside two or three bees soon enough buzzed around me.  Maybe they wanted to warn me not to come too close to their home, maybe they only wanted to check me out (my bee language skills are not that good yet).  This time I moved very slowly in awareness of the bees.  I talked to them (I told them that I wasn’t going to harm them) and let them “sniff me out” without any sudden movements. And I passed the test without getting stung.

Don’t think I am crazy when I am trying to convey that I attempted to communicate with the bees. I am currently reading Martha Beck’s new book “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World,” about consciousness and how to operate within that nonmaterial plane.  Check it out.  That is the plane from which we can communicate with animals, that is what I was trying to do with the bees – the second time around.

the best cat food

Yesterday was cat food day again, which happens once a month at our house. “Garbage in – garbage out,” or the flipside “quality food in – health out,” is a motto that works for us as it does for animals. Our older 3 ½ year-old tomcat was raised on “high quality” dry food - out of ignorance. Well, the consequences began to show last year. He had gained weight and had become lethargic. So, besides getting him an adorable little black female companion from the shelter, I researched cat food. Since then I have been making my own from scratch based on a recipe by vet Lisa Pierson. It is a mix of raw and semi-cooked chicken, gizzards, livers, and various supplements. The results speak louder than words. Within three months our cat had naturally slimmed down and regained his vitality. Both cats have shimmery shiny fur, chase each other through the house, and maintain an ideal weight. Our holistic vet confirmed that making your own cat food “is the best thing you can do for your cats.”