Ecological Intelligence (23 page)

TO BECOME THE ANIMAL

W
hat does the traditional hunter mean when he says you must
become
the animal? In its most practical sense, if you are living in wolf country, to become a wolf is to know how to see like a wolf, says Barry Lopez. It is to know how to find your way home in polar darkness and in a whiteout. It is “to be comfortable without that one thing indispensable to a Western navigator—an edge.” It is to have an affinity for relationships rather than boundaries, to read the wind, the contours of the land, and the language of the snow underfoot. To become that animal, borrowing words from naturalist and author David Abram, is to “turn inside out, to loosen the psyche from its confinement within a strictly human sphere.” It is to discover that intelligence is not peculiar to the human animal, but a property of the Earth and of every living thing, where each terrain, each ecology, each animal seems to have its own particular intelligence.

To become one with the other is to be receptive to a one-to-one exchange that is physical, cognitive, interpersonal, but most of all, intuitive. It is what Rayner refers to in psychotherapy as “matching activity.” Emphasizing the intuitive aspect of the exchange is an acknowledgment that the way we perceive and translate our correspondence with others is mostly subliminal—we are not aware that we are doing it. We focus on things, yes, but we are essentially unconscious scanners, taking in information that is not censored by the ego and that, from time to time, is perceived on a subjective level as a hunch, a resonance, or a sense that something is happening out there. And, as the following example will show, it can happen while you are asleep. It is an example that is supported by many of the wilderness guides with whom I have worked.

During the months that I spent in Botswana’s Linyanti wilderness consolidating the content of this book, I was often awakened at night by elephants, lions, and sometimes by leopards, not because they were making a noise, but because of the silence. Sitting up and peering through the gauze netting of our tent, I would see them—the dark silhouettes of the gray giants on their way to the river. Sometimes there was nothing to see, but the morning would confirm the reason why I had been awakened. There, in front of the tent, like an open diary, were the records of the nocturnal visitors. Perhaps a leopard and, later, a lion had come and gone. My internal antennae were active. Of course, there were other nights when the sounds of breaking branches or the thundering roar of lions could awaken the dead. However, thank heavens for the safety of the tent. Without it I would have slept very poorly.

B
ut what about mismatching—the sensing of a relationship where the chemistry is absent, or where the contact is premature or threatening? If to ask permission to enter the space of another is an art, then the awareness of mismatching is part of that art. This, too, is intuitive. Matching and mismatching are essential aspects of a process in which neurochemical/archetypal responses of withdrawal, flight, approach, challenge, cooperation, and delayed gratification can be triggered. Sometimes mismatching has much to do with one’s own sense of vulnerability. Sometimes you simply don’t have time to ask permission. What do you do when there is no neutrality in the space between you and the other? What then? Sometimes, the only choice you have is to let the wildness in you meet the wildness out there—head on. An example of this comes from an encounter my wife and I had with a spotted hyena.

One new-moon night, while camping in the Savuti Channel in the Linyanti, I found myself suddenly awake. Next to me, my wife was sit-ting bolt upright, listening. Out of the dark night we heard the footsteps of something very close. In an instant, we simultaneously roared our territorial call: “
Hay
!” Reaching for my flashlight I quickly picked up the eyes and the shape of the intruder. Having smelled the leftovers of our supper, a spotted hyena had come to investigate. Reflecting on the incident, I was intrigued by the explosive, anxious, animallike nature of my response. Where did it come from? Who knows. What I do know is that it was loud, it was natural, it was territorial, and it was aggressive. I believe it was coming from the depths of an ancient mammalian bloodline, or, if you prefer, an ancient evolutionary Self.

INTENTION

W
e all know that our domestic animals somehow see through our deceptive sweetness and avoid us or mysteriously disappear when our intentions are to get them to a vet. It is also well known in the wild that animals quickly learn the difference between a hunter and a photographer and that even a photographer can be threatening.

Researching the sometimes baffling ability of humans and animals to anticipate other people’s intentions, a group of Italian neurophysiologists at the University of Parma may have stumbled onto what they believe to be a key to this mystery. They have described in humans and in our primate cousins a new class of nerve cells called mirror neurons. These remarkable cells are situated in the premotor cortex of the frontal lobe. Studying macaque monkeys, they noted that this particular area of the brain becomes active not only during certain motor tasks such as reaching out for food, or moving to pick up specific objects, but they also become active in monkeys that are
observing
the ones that are performing the action. In effect, the observer unconsciously mirrors the action of the performer. Upon closer examination, they discovered that the patterns of the brain waves were not only specific to the task, but were shared by both the performer and the observer. In other words, you could expect a different anticipatory brain wave in an animal observing a man picking up a camera to that of a man reaching for a gun.

Linked to memories and emotions surrounding similar tasks, actions, and situations, these mirror neurons appear to be essential to the way we anticipate and understand the intentions of the other. They are therefore essential for what we call learned behavior. In humans, the mirror neurons are situated close to Broca’s area, that part of the brain responsible for executive speech. Could mirror neuron activity be the neurological precursors of speech and language—an older evolutionary function than speech itself? Are they the neurological triggers of the alarm calls and contact calls that we share with all red-blooded creatures? But there is more. The fact that they appear to be firing in sympathy in both the observer and the performer suggests that they could be linked to the neurobiology of empathy, compassion, and what has been frequently referred to in this book as the art of getting into the skin of the other. The poets, like Rilke (in these lines from “Turning Point”), have known about mirror neurons for ages:

T
here is no doubt that some people have a way with animals. Notwithstanding the bonds that build up over time between animals and their handlers, mutual trust, sometimes immediate, has much to do with the demeanor, the attitude, and the intention of the animal handlers themselves. The following remarkable and well-documented story is an example of what I mean. It involved a Botswana-based American safari operator, Randall Moore, and a wounded elephant bull in the Pilanesburg Game Reserve in the Northern Province of South Africa. The wound had been caused by a deep hippopotamus bite to one of its legs which had then become infected, resulting in a need for surgical intervention. The animal was darted, anesthetized, and the infected area appropriately treated. The wound did not heal immediately, however, and it was soon realized that several interventions would be needed. The surgeon was faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, the animal needed to be treated, but on the other there was a serious risk to the elephant if it was to undergo repeated anesthetics. Moore, who had released this animal from captivity into the wild twelve years previously, was called in from his elephant-back safari operation in Botswana to help. To the astonishment of all involved, the elephant immediately recognized Moore’s call and approached him as if to greet him. Moore, in turn, expressed his intention to help in the way that he “spoke” to the animal, telling it what was required. As if permission had been granted, the sugeon was able to treat the animal’s wound and, over a period of several days, the elephant would stand and quietly allow the wound to be bathed and dressed.

In another fascinating story about animal-human communication, Heinz Koors, a veterinary surgeon involved in an elephant relocation program near Kruger National Park, was asked why “his” elephants seemed to be so relaxed while those handled by another operator kept breaking out of their enclosures. He answered, “I speak to the matriarch in the group and ask her not to break out.” When I asked him to confirm this story, he confessed that he couldn’t be specific about it. However, his reputation had preceded him and a fellow wildlife man-ager supported the popular version of Koors’s particular gift.

Does this imply that there is some special technique for communicating with elephants or other animals? I suspect there is, but it is not something one can learn from a book. I believe, even if it is on a subconscious level, you would have to
know
the animals with whom you are relating, and if they happen to be elephants, you would have to know the elephant in you.

T
o me, the aim of human-to-animal communication is clear. It is not about trying to get the animals to like you, or to have them at your beck and call. Instead, through body language, tone of voice, or even music (on several occasions I have inflicted the gentle strumming of a guitar on elephant bulls as well as spotted hyenas), it is to let them know that you mean no harm; that you want to learn not only about them, but from them. I believe it works. Whether they warmed to it or not, I don’t know, but on two separate occasions I had a hyena, at less than 100 feet, respond to the strumming with its characteristic contact call. On each occasion the hyena then moved on. The elephant bulls, on the other hand, would often stand quite still, listening, the base of their trunks expanding and contracting in what I believe is an infra-sound response to the musical strings. I was subsequently delighted to read, in Douglas Chadwick’s book
The Fate of the Elephants
, a report by longtime elephant researcher Joyce Poole about elephants “drawn to the strains of guitar music issuing from camp some evenings.” She observed how, compared with other elephant incursions into the camp-site, no one bothered to chase these elephants away.

I
n a poignant and humbling record of a piece of research in which the importance of the seeking of permission is powerfully evident, University of Michigan primatologist Barbara Smuts describes what she has learned about herself from her encounters with baboons.

I was lucky to be accepted by the animals as a mildly interesting, harmless companion, permitted to travel amongst them. Under the guise of scientific research, I was in the company of expert guides—baboons who could spot a predator a mile away and who seemed to possess a sixth sense for the proximity of snakes. Abandoning myself to their far superior knowledge, I moved as a humble disciple, learning from masters about being an African anthropoid. Thus I became (or, rather, regained my ancestral right to be) an animal, moving instinctively through a world that felt (because it was) like my ancient home. The baboons stubbornly resisted my feeble but sincere attempts to convince them that I was nothing more than a detached observer, a neutral object they could ignore. Right from the start, they knew better, insisting that I was, like them, a social subject vulnerable to the demands and rewards of relationship. The deepest lessons came when I found myself sharing the being of a baboon, because other baboons were treating me like one.

What I see as a creative or critical distance between one’s self and the other, Smuts sees as an invisible line that defines the personal space between each troop member, a space that expands and contracts, depending on the circumstances. Anyone involved in the dynamics of one-on-one psychotherapy will know about that invisible line.

Do we still need reminding that we have within us millions of years of life as corresponding, reflecting beings? We must not forget this. This, in essence, was Smuts’s secret. She stopped thinking about what to do and instead “surrendered to instinct, not as mindless, reflexive action, but rather as action rooted in an ancient primate legacy of embodied knowledge.” She learned how to ask permission to be with the baboons. And it was granted.

O
ne of the most sobering experiences I have ever had in the wild occurred on an open plain in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. I was guiding a group of tourists when a herd of elephants just over a mile away began to run away from us. Having picked up the scent and sight of humans, the reaction was one of obvious mistrust. The reason for this was clear. The area I was in had been a hunting concession less than a year previously. Who could blame the elephants? Our timing was wrong, and so was our sensing of the critical distance between us. As it is with humans, experiential memory runs deep in the animal kingdom. It did not matter that our intentions were benign. Human beings had lost the elephants’ trust and our group had unwittingly crossed the invisible line. It would take a long time for other humans to reestablish the trust. We would need to get to know that place all over again.

T
homas, the Saint, has urged us to follow the birds and the beasts, for they will show us the way. Is this really applicable? I believe it is and what follows confirms this belief. It concerns the recreating of ancient migration routes of large animals like elephants. The question is where, exactly, should these corridors be established? Iain Douglas-Hamilton of the Save the Elephant Foundation and, more recently, Michael Chase of the Elephants Without Boundaries project in Botswana have come up with a brilliant answer—let the elephants decide. Let the animals show us the way. Absurd? Not at all. As a result of his outstanding radio-tracking studies on the seasonal paths and patterns of migrating elephants, Douglas-Hamilton has been able to tell us more than we previously understood about elephant migrations, the directions they wish to take, as well as the land areas in which they are comfortable or uncomfortable—they move at high speed through these uncomfortable areas. Not surprisingly, these very areas are the ones that are in close proximity to human habitation and to hunters. Who could argue that these elephants were not telling us something? Should we not listen to them? And could we take this work further? How about a north-south and an east-west elephant corridor through central and southern Africa, with the elephants showing us the way? And remember, where elephants go, many other animals follow. I can see the heads shaking and I can understand why. Veterinary fences and civil conflict will make it impractical. It will be too expensive, too political, too risky, and it is going to take a long time to implement. Political and economic logistics aside, I believe it is an idea and a dream that we must not give up on. After all, are we not trying to open the corridors in the human psyche?