Appreciation for Life on Earth

Recently a small act of nature had a strong impact on me.  It happened one afternoon in London when my sister’s cat caught a blackbird chick making its first attempts at flying.  Unfortunately for this little bird there were cats around and it quickly fell prey.  The parents of the bird started to bombard the cat, swooping low and chattering noisily in an attempt to get it to drop their babe.  No such luck.  The cat raced into my sister’s house and created equal mayhem inside amongst a family that hates flapping birds and feathers!!  Harassed, the cat dropped the bird, but serious damage had already been done.  The chick had a broken leg and wing, and the decision was made to take it to the local vet who administered the coup de gras so that it didn’t have to suffer a long slow death, or a second bout of trauma at the hands of man or cat.  This was quite the happening in our household and at dinner that evening we discussed it over the continuing cacophony of noise from the grieving adult blackbirds, who still maintained a constant call for their fledgling and bombarded anyone coming into the garden.  In the course of our conversation, one of the younger members of the family, an intelligent 14yr old, said that she didn’t think the parent birds were suffering much – after all they didn’t have feelings and they wouldn’t know what had happened, and if they did they’d get over it soon!!

It is a moment of true revelation when you realize that the youngsters you love, who you know are receiving an excellent education, including an awareness of country life and the processes of nature and nurture, seemingly have neither sympathy nor understanding of the consciousness of another species. On reflection, I realized, perhaps this wasn’t so surprising.   We teach our children in school that we are the most advanced living creature on this planet and that all others have only a limited intelligence.  We throw a bone, so to speak, to chimps, elephants, whales, dolphins, parrots, and other species who understand and respond to arbitrary tests that we devise for them, but we describe them as being far less able than we are, and much less intelligent.  Very few of us stop and think about how they communicate, just that they can’t communicate as we do, or solve puzzles that we set them, and so we label them as ‘less than’ us.  Yet some of the languages that they have developed are so sophisticated that we can’t begin to measure or interpret them.  We haven’t yet invented the technology to do so.  We know that whales and dolphins communicate with inaudible high frequency sound over hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles – we can pick up some of their transmitted sonic waves, but we don’t know what they mean; elephants too use sound waves – their low rumblings suggests that they are communicating in the extremely low frequency ranges, but we haven’t a clue what they are talking about.  All of us, human beings and animals alike, communicate with vibrations of light and sound.

Isn’t it time that we, 21^st century beings, started to teach our children an awareness of the consciousness and sophistication of the many species with whom we share this planet, alongside lessons based on the 18^th century Newtonian cause + effect scientific model that they study at school?  Within the science programs, shouldn’t a new curriculum be developed to encourage a true balance of traditional sciences and the ‘newer’ metasciences.  Many schools have ‘green’ programs that teach about recycling and global warming and how to live responsibly, all relatively new concepts in the classroom.  It is time now to move one step on so that the concepts taught don’t just take the form of an intellectual exercise in right action.  A significant section of our agricultural communities are steeped in the lores of the land and in working with awareness of the rhythms and workings of the earth. Perhaps it would be useful to point teachers and students alike to their example, to bring people who have their hands in the earth forward to enrich the educational system with their experience either in the classroom or in situ. Animal ‘whisperers’ and alternative energy therapists would be perfectly placed to awaken in each one of us the possibilities of communicating in other ways than we currently accept in our society. Ways that might, for instance, come from non-linear dimensions, or dimensions outside of time and space, dimensions that quantum theoretical science continues to point to.  Ways that include using the accepted five primary senses that we favor now – sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling – as well as some of the extrasensory modes that we have access to including our intuitive senses and our inner knowing.

These practical programs of planetary appreciation and the understanding of the true nature of being and of beings ought to be common place by now, and not the exception.  They should be freely provided in our public schools systems, and not just by small independent organizations and individuals who are already offering them as extra-curricular activities that parents can elect to enroll their children in outside of school time, and at their own expense; and most certainly shouldn’t they be taught to those people who often dictate what our children learn today but who commonly live in our cities and towns and are steeped in street lore, not the lores of the land and her species. Once upon a time we knew, as second nature, how to live in true balance with our surroundings. It is time that we all remembered it.  In doing so, perhaps we can reduce our role as the great terminators of life on earth.

So much is at stake for us and our future quality of life, shouldn’t we stop and think about how we need to encourage in each other and in our children an understanding, appreciation, and love for the land we live on and all the inhabitants of the planet that are now under our stewardship however we measure their worth?  Yet, listening to my own family this month it occurred to me that unless we take steps to prevent it, we are in danger of losing the ability to connect back to nature and live harmoniously with the earth and all species.  We have become long distance armchair viewers of our landscape, learning about the habits and habitats of earth’s species from documentaries, sending in our contributions to save this or support that.  The technology that gives us an appreciation of the plight of other species and peoples around the world is certainly a gift, but most of us are dangerously close to becoming merely removed donors or witnesses rather than participants in the survival of life on our planet.   The tragedy is that we are handing down to our young our own ignorant attitudes and blindness to life on earth. It would be great if we were handing on our love, understanding, and connectedness instead.

At the close of the day we will be poor indeed if we continue to value material possessions as a sign of progress.  Have you noticed how as a race we western folk are rarely happy with what we have. It is generally only in later life that we wake up and it finally dawns on us that material achievements tend to leave us unfulfilled and empty.  Better to measure our success in how we actively hand on an appreciation, understanding and love for our surroundings. Better to petition our governments to spend their budgets on educational programs that might, as they are introduced, seem alternative and strange, but which will assist our children as they in their turn step forward as custodians to all life on earth.   I believe it is essential that we all move to a higher level of consciousness and wake up to the beauty, complexity, and the simplicity of life all around us, whether it is as common place as a blackbird or as rare as an orangutan – essential to put our interests side-by-side and in balance with all beings to ensure our mutual survival and thus maintain the health of our ecosystems.

©2009 Sarah Lidsey

This is a terrible rap that makes little sense about pussy farts?  I can’t tell if the guy is high or drunk or what, but a lot of it is incomprehensible.  I did a transcript as best I could for this one so you could follow along at home.  His name is Monte Hoffman and apparently he has done some TV.

“Sounds like one of those rap songs you young guys have, please stand up, please stand up.  Oh pussy fart.  Oh pussy fart. Well LL  Thursday, got nothing on me cuz I got that (inaudible) personality.  Him, hi, hippity, high, think I’ll go to the barber shop.  Walk in there, I sit on the chair. Barber (inaudible) aint got no hair. Said hmmm. That’s so cold, said hmmm.  God bless my soul.  Like to (inaudible) that salty strut.  Went to a place called supercut.  Said in the side, ready to buy, all look like my Michael Jackson. (horrible attempt at a crotch grab) Who loves you babe said hmm.  Who loves you babe.  Well I might be fat but I aint no chump.  People say I look like a big speed bump.  I said Tampon, Kotex, Stayfree mini pad. You go’n need protection from my erection cuz what I got aint bad.  So c’mon girls, get on those seats, open those legs let ya hear that quief, oh pussy fart.  A jofichzileels.“

Its dirty, its inaudible, its rap.

A song which is inaudible to humans became Top of the Pops in New Zealand recently. Entitled a “Very Silent Christmas”, it is recorded at such a high frequency that only dogs can hear it. The single & video was released to raise money for the NZ Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So snuggle up with your pooch so it can listen…..and you can …well … just watch!