What does it take to get into the mind of a crow, a panther, a parrot, a squirrel? A little bit of faith, imagination, empathy, respect, spontaneity and patience.
You need to bring your critical intelligence and be ever-vigilant because the risk of anthropomorphizing is high. Our default assumption is that they are just like us. They're not.
You need a childlike intensity to “get” a duck, a tiger or a raccoon because wild animals never develop the repertoire of intellectual defense mechanisms of adult humans. They have no sense of irony; they are deeply serious even when at their most playful.
But most of all you need detachment from human affairs. You must be carefree - if only for a moment - and deeply attentive to the utter otherness of the animal. By abandoning your terms of engagement you can understand a seal on hers or a gull on his.
Animals are free of the autobiographies and ideologies that permeate human consciousness. To understand them we most leave our life experiences, our memories and our philosophy behind. We appreciate our interaction with animals so deeply because they remind us of our abdicated freedom.
By admiring animal consciousness, we allow the creature to teach us about herself and about ourselves. That is the essence of our interactive wisdom and beauty. That is why we can often love each other.
We never know with certainty that we have touched animal consciousness, although we can be certain that our touch is incomplete. The whole remains mysterious after our encounter. We return to human affairs with no empirical evidence, with empty hands but with a blessing and an enriched spirit.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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