Relationships with Other Species Members
While I/we were still focused on science in January 2007, we pulled out a book that had really impressed me a couple of years ago, Jeremy Narby’s Intelligence in Nature, an Inquiry into Knowledge, published in 2005. The pith of what Narby is saying is that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone; that bacteria, plants, animals, and other forms of nonhuman life display an uncanny penchant for self-deterministic decisions, patterns, and actions. The Japanese word for this universal knowing is chi-sei (pronounced chee-say), meaning “the capacity to know.” As an anthropologist, Narby has travelled the globe to to find out what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life.
Bringing the past freshly to the present, during the time decades ago in the Sierras when Jim and I were using simultaneousness and interconnectedness extensively, along with seeing ourselves in horizontal ways in relationship with other species members, there were some really interesting events.
A raccoon walked up on our deck one rainy night when Jim and I were sitting on the floor, without inside lights, in front of the closed sliding glass door to the deck. We were watching the thunder and lightning to the east. The raccoon came up to the glass and played “paws” with us for quite awhile, where we would put a hand on our side of the glass and it would put a paw directly on the other side. What fun!
One day Jim was sitting on a chair in the sun in front of the house, playing his guitar. When he looked up, there were a group of rabbits sitting in a semi-circle in rapt attention. They seemed to be especially attuned to the F chord.
Once when I was on a plateau in the nearby meadow, I was amazed to realize that a bird was playing with me. It would fly down to hover just in front of my body and then fly up—over and over again. There were other times when butterflies would delightfully accompany me on the path to the meadow.
On another occasion in the meadow, while watching two ducks on the pond, their familiar forms were replaced by glowing globes of pulsating light that returned to “duck” forms after a while.
Then one night in my dreams in the later 1970s, I-as-an-experiencer was in a male eagle’s body, soaring through the air on wind currents, alert to potential prey below.
And probably the event that was the most thrilling was one rainy day when a gaggle of geese, in the process of their twice-yearly flights over our area, performed what I called a goose ballet in front of our second floor deck. As they swooped down and come back for other passes I was outside on the deck in the light rain, delightedly dancing and calling sounds to harmonize with theirs. Meanwhile, Jim had been close by on the road, and had also been part of that celebration of Life.
In the present, Jim has put together both a book manuscript and video movie, A Goose Family and Me, based upon experiences he recorded with photographs one spring along the Huron River when we lived in Ann Arbor. Around our home now, he has been taking still life photographs and making digital motion pictures of the natural world. Because of plat restrictions about fences, there’s a large open expanse of land for many species in our area. Along with numerous birds and butterflies, here at Harmony Hill we’ve had deer, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, an opossum, rabbits, ring-necked pheasants, turkeys, and a red fox.
A few years ago, much to the joy of some of us humans, there was a red fox family of two parents and their five children in the neighborhood. As the baby foxes grew, there were many occasions to watch the family interactions. Then one day a young male from the group, with an injured left front leg appeared alone in our side yard. He was unable to walk on the injured leg. When he came around other days Jim commented, “Poor little fellow. I don’t think he’ll make it through the winter without some help.” From then on Jim and I began providing some raw hamburger and chicken for him, where we saw our relationship in a framework where we were as fortunate to have this opportunity with him as he was to have it with us—it was a lovely two-way street. I especially enjoyed summer days one year when I would lie in the hammock in the woods in the back of the house and he would rest nearby.
One of the focuses during my recent natural world sun-cycle year was a direct relationship with other species members, including plants. Such an experience occurred when “we” were giving the indoor plants fresh compost-type soil last fall (2006), for their potential use over the winter and early spring. I/we were sitting on a beach chair in the garage, close to the ground in front of the open garage door. A chipmunk came over a few inches from where we were sitting, sat up on its hind legs and inquisitively moved its head back and forth as it searched our face. We sensed it was communicating a lovely hello. Then when it stayed for many minutes, we slowly moved our hand over to stroke its back with two fingers. It stayed awhile longer before scampering off.
I/we have read about fellow humans having communicative connections, a direct knowing with other species members, and have reasoned that this is something we too can do. Since I no longer personally use the concept of superiority and inferiority in relationships with other species members, and am doing what I/we can to experience these relationships directly, I’m fascinated to form my own interpretations over time about how I think we humans are similar to and are different from other species, and how to apply those Understandings in my own life.
I’m realizing that a large part of the DC basics of this reality system are relationships of many kinds. Hence, I’ve added to my questions of which me, which matrix, and which mind and brain, what kind of relationships do I/we choose to have?
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