We are game-playing, fun-having creatures: we are the otters of the universe.
~ Richard Bach
"It was clear to everyone on the sea otter exhibit team that Toola, not me, was really in charge. When she wanted to work on something in a training session, she’d give me a ‘look’ or vocalize and I’d immediately cave in and do whatever she wanted. Now that she’s passed, we’re in need of another ‘head trainer’ to run the place.”
—Monterey Bay Aquarium associate curator of mammals Christine DeAngelo remembers Toola, the 16-year-old sea otter who passed away Saturday, March 3 2012, from the infirmities of age.
Watch Toola on The Awl
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An animal communicator, who passed on a message from the cow consciousness, said that the only contract is a contract to teach and to learn love.
I note a subtle nuance there : a contract to teach, not a contract to teach love.
As a sometimes animal communicator myself, I sense that animals teach us how to participate in our own care. We are human animals and can easily forget the animal of our nature and dwell overmuch in our mind, our logic and intellect. The cows say the human species' choise is to take the path of greed, excess and ill-health.
Well, cows would say that and perhaps something to remember the next time you chow down on twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun.
As a Consultant in Sacred Contracts & Archetypes, over the years I have been questioning this concept of 'sacred contract' and how, in some circles, archetypes have been misused to stigmatise the behaviour of people seeking resolution of valid grievances with family members, partners, friends, colleagues, and just about every vicissitude that life throws our way.
I don't teach Sacred Contracts a la Myss style anymore. Over the last few years I have shifted away from the Mystic Macca interpretations of this journey of being behind the wheel of a human body on a planet where most of the other species have fangs, claws, fur, scales, feathers, flippers, venom, and nice tough skins.
We are rather ill-equipped and I sense some species feel compassion for us, while others are sizing us up for breakfast.
Many years ago whilst taking a shower, one of my cats sauntered into the bathroom, popped its head around the shower curtain, looked aghast at my butt and I sensed the question:
Where's your tail!?!
That lovely black-and-white cat, called James, taught me that I could communicate with animals and there is a sad spot in my heart that out of all my cats, James, was the only one who went into that dark night without being held in my arms. Feline AIDS : fucking sod of a disease!
How I came to be taught by James is a long story. It involved a schizophrenic work colleague, her unneutered cat who had a litter of six kittens and my offer to look after the little feline family while said work colleague and her boyfriend went on holiday. After a few days, this one one little black-and-white kitten developed a lump on its tummy, so I took it to the vet to have it checked out, fearing it might be a hernia. I assumed this work colleague would want me to take good care of her pets. The vet said the lump was just an abscess, administered an injection, instructed me on how to care for the kitten; which meant separating him from the others for a while.
I was astonished at how this little fluff-butt flourished with receiving my undivided attention. How his personality just popped out and asserted itself : no longer lost in the crowd. Not just another tumbling, rough-housing, one-in-six: he had this aura of dignity. When I returned him to his mum and siblings, I noticed he didn't seem too pleased about it and shot me that look of feline disdain that belied the tender weeks of his age.
The work colleague came back from holiday and upon collecting her cats, was not at all impressed with the course of action I took, in taking this kitten to the vet. Actually, she wasn't impressed with the bill for $25 that I gave her and my request to be compensated, which I thought was fair and reasonable, considering I had saved her a heap of money by looking after her cats for 'free' for two weeks. It would have cost her more to put them into a boarding cattery yet you just can't reason with some people, and schizophrenics are particularly afflicted with a sense of entitlement.
Which is why I mentioned the schizophrenia detail. Not to stigmatise the behaviour of this work colleague; just to pass on a message from a non-human consciousness, that an entitlement mentality lies at the core of all distortions in the human psyche, and is particularly embedded in humans who exhibit a querulous paranoia.
I digress.
A week or two later, this work colleague calls by my home, not with the $25 she said she would pay me, but with the black-and-white kitten who didn't look like he'd been having a good time since I last saw him. She said that she felt this kitten belonged with me and that if I didn't take him, her partner said that he would take it somewhere and dump it.
I lifted this little kitten out of the box, brought him up to my face for a head-butt and said: I shouldn't have let you go in the first place.
And that's how James came into my life and shared eleven years of it. A couple of years later, I took up quilting and the task of Colour Consultant & Chief Quilt Inspector was one that James took very seriously. During my mystic dark years of agoraphobia from 1990-1993, quilting kept me sane; kept me productive, and kept me afloat in those same waters that schizophrenics drown in.
James loved that I was home 24/7 and had lots of time for playing, eating and napping while my Shaman self was cocooning in quilts of many colours.
When going through Hell, one needs a seeing-eye cat.
In 1995, my then-husband and I relocated to the country where there are no six-foot high wooden fences and big skies filled with more stars than one ever sees in the cities. The first time I carried James outside, he was so scared of the wide outdoors that he pee-ed in fright. All down the front of my body. He was a very proper cat and I sensed he was embarrased about soiling himself, which he had never done before, and I stilled my tongue to not grouch at him and speak words that shamed and blamed.
I sensed how bewildered he was and just held him close in to my body and softly chatted away, explaining where we were, what this tree was, what that flower was, where I was taking him. I walked slowly, meandering about the large yard, weaving back and forth from this tree, to that tree, letting him smell the leaves and take in this new environment. I paused when his body tightened, only moving on after he relaxed...slowly...slowly....approaching the far northern border of the property. Turning around every now and then so he could still see the house and being very aware that for a city-slicker cat like him, this country gig was more than a little alien.
After a slow spiralling path, I reached the far perimeter of the block, holding James firmly yet gently in my arms - he hadn't wriggled once - I stopped and we gazed across this vast paddock that stretched on for miles and looked at the black-and-white cows that were grazing there.
One looked up and moo-ed : Wassup?
James dug his claws in, looking frantically up at me, wide-eyed with fear. I laughed and drew him him up for a head-butt and said: It's okay. That's a cow. That's where the milk comes from that you like to drink.
He looked at me, amazement replacing fear: No shit?
No shit, Jimmy-Wimmy. He looked back at the cows and I felt I had taught him something that he didn't know. That milk comes from cows, not from plastic bottles in the fridge.
I have never forgotten that wild and precious day. All creatures seek life, happiness and freedom from fear.
James remembers that I held him for as long as it took for his fear to ebb away. He loved the country. His bones are still there.
Otters give us the all important gift of laughter. They are joyful, talkative creatures who float in the womb of the Earth, enjoying her bounty and playing much of the time. If Otter has come to you, see what areas of your life can do with a bit more laughter and lightness. ~ Gary Buffalo Horn Man
Must Surf
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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