Yesterday, Sunday, Jean and I went North in Oregon to visit Strawberry Mountain Mustangs to explore the pros and cons of adopting a horse previously rescued by Darla, of Strawberry Mountain. It was a long day and by the time I sat down in front of the PC it was already past 5pm.
So for today going to offer you two pictures from our inspiring time with Darla and all her magnificent horses, most of whom have backgrounds that would make one weep.
Tomorrow, I will write more fully about what we are discovering when it comes to adopting a horse.
Trust me, a horse with its tongue in your ear is very ticklish!
Now of all the things I am not, I am neither a biologist nor a scientist of any description. However, general knowledge told me years ago that the human brain is composed of three areas, as the following diagram shows.
The first time you observe the anatomy of the human brain, its many folds and overlapping structures can seem very confusing, and you may wonder what they all mean. But just like the anatomy of any other organ or organism, the anatomy of the brain becomes much clearer and more meaningful when you examine it in light of the evolutionary processes that created it.
The most efficient model for understanding the brain in terms of its evolutionary history is the famous triune brain theory developed by Paul MacLean. According to this theory, the following three distinct brains emerged successively in the course of evolution and now co-inhabit the human skull:
The reptilian brain, the oldest of the three, controls the body’s vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. Our reptilian brain includes the main structures found in a reptile’s brain: the brainstem and the cerebellum. The reptilian brain is reliable but tends to be somewhat rigid and compulsive.
The limbic brain emerged in the first mammals. It can record memories of behaviours that produced agreeable and disagreeable experiences, so it is responsible for what are called emotions in human beings. The main structures of the limbic brain are the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. The limbic brain is the seat of the value judgments that we make, often unconsciously, that exert such a strong influence on our behaviour.
The neocortex first assumed importance in primates and culminated in the human brain with its two large cerebral hemispheres that play such a dominant role. These hemispheres have been responsible for the development of human language, abstract thought, imagination, and consciousness. The neocortex is flexible and has almost infinite learning abilities. The neocortex is also what has enabled human cultures to develop.
These three parts of the brain do not operate independently of one another. They have established numerous interconnections through which they influence one another. The neural pathways from the limbic system to the cortex, for example, are especially well developed.
I’m well into reading the book Waking The Tiger: Healing Trauma authored by Peter A. Levine. As early as Chapter One, Peter Levine explains [my emphasis]:
The involuntary and instinctual portions of the human brain and nervous system are virtually identical to those of mammals and even reptiles. Our brain, often called the ‘triune brain,’ consists of three integral systems. The three parts are commonly known as the ‘reptilian brain’ (instinctual), the ‘mammalian or limbic brain (emotional), and the ‘human brain or neo-cortex’ (rational). Since the parts of the brain that are activated by a perceived life threatening situation are the parts we share with animals, much can be learned by studying how certain animals, like the impala, avoid traumatization. To take this one step further, I believe that the key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they ‘shake out’ and pass through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional.
Unlike wild animals, when threatened, we humans have never found it easy to resolve the dilemma of whether to fight or flee. This dilemma stems, at least in part, from the fact that our species has played the role of both predator and prey. Prehistoric peoples, though many were hunters, spent long hours each day huddled together in cold caves with the certain knowledge that they could be snatched up at any moment and torn to shreds.
Anyway, to get back to what triggered today’s post.
If you read yesterday’s post you will recall me chatting with Jon Lavin and Jon reminding me that humans are drawn to positive messages. But in stark contrast, the news media industry excels in promoting ‘doom and gloom’. Why is this? Why are we so fascinated by danger?
Well here’s my theory.
That is our evolution would not have succeeded if early man didn’t become pretty smart at identifying animal behaviours and plants and fruits that had the capacity to harm or even kill. For example, what parent hasn’t made it a priority to teach their children the difference between harmful fungi and edible mushrooms. Indeed to the extent that most of us would think long and hard before eating any fungi found in the wild unless we were 150% certain it was edible. Look at the following picture. Your instinct tells you if it’s safe to eat or not – it’s not!
So early man became over-sensitised to dangers to his health for his own good and continued existence. While modern man functions in ways almost unrecognisable from early man, that good old reptilian brain still is doing it’s best to protect us (flight, fight or freeze). Think how we all respond to a sudden alarming sound, such as a gun shot or a scream, to know that the old reptilian brain is still alive and well.
Thus while all of us hate negativity we all seem to have this fascination with doom and gloom – just in case it helps us and our loved ones survive.
Back to Jon Lavin. He makes it very clear that anything more than a small amount of ‘doom and gloom’ speaking to our consciousness increases the odds of depression and introversion.
Thus the message is that we humans should allow our Neocortex to tell our Reptilian ‘neighbour’ to go easy on the bad news, go and open a beer and watch the world go by! Whoops! Watch the world go by with a smile!
There are things that are beyond rational explanation.
Warning – this post is rather more ‘touchy-feely’ than you are used to seeing on Learning from Dogs. So if it wanders about in ways that you struggle to follow then just stifle your yawn and come back tomorrow!
It goes back to an earlier plan that I had in terms for a couple of posts. Both focussing on the myriad of examples of the appalling decline in our world. I had been collecting a number of essays to support the proposition that if we don’t learn from dogs the qualities of integrity and unconditional love then our world was doomed. I had collected the essay from Ellen Cantaro over on TomDispatch about the incredible stupidity of fracking. Or the one from Tom’s own pen in an essay about climate change being the new ‘Anti-News’. I had saved the recent essay from George Monbiot discussing the madness of the so-called dredging practices in the UK’s Somerset Levels. I had fumed at another George Monbiot essay Bring It On that included this incredible statement:
It is hard to think of a more serious allegation. For six months an undercover officer working for the Metropolitan Police was instrumental in planning a major demonstration, which ended up causing injuries and serious damage to property. Yet the police appear to have failed to pass this intelligence to the City of London force, leaving the target of the protest unprotected.
I had many more examples but you get the message!
So what stopped me?
I was chatting to Jon Lavin on Monday about a variety of things. Jon asked how the book was coming along. I replied by saying that a recent NaNoWriMo webinar had persuaded me that the book wasn’t a novel and should be re-written as a non-fiction story. Going on to add that I might include some of the appalling examples of what was going wrong in our society to strengthen the argument that we truly have much to learn from dogs.
Jon, who had read the first, very rough draft of the book that appeared on this blog, cautioned me against doing that. He went on to say that in the world of solutions focussed therapy, the area that Jon practices in professionally, the way forward was always to focus “on what’s working“. Jon continued by saying that while one would initially allow the problems to be voiced, this negativity would always be a tiny piece of the overall process, say less than 5% of the session. That even if a client’s whole world seemed to be failing, there would always be something that was alright, always a 1% that was working, and that would be the place to start. A quick web search endorsed that as the website of Good Therapy revealed, from where I read:
Solution focused brief therapy (SFBT) targets the desired outcome of therapy as a solution rather than focusing on the symptoms or issues that brought someone to therapy. This technique only gives attention to the present and the future desires of the client, rather than focusing on the past experiences. The therapist encourages the client to imagine their future as they want it to be and then the therapist and client collaborate on a series of steps to achieve that goal. This form of therapy involves reviewing and dissecting the client’s vision, and determining what skills, resources, and abilities the client will develop and use to attain his desired outcome. Solution focused therapy was developed by Steve De Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, and their team at the Brief Family Therapy Family Center in Milwaukee, USA.
Thus coming back to the book rewrite, Jon said that people wanted to read ‘good news’ not negativity. It was a key reminder for me and an incredibly inspiring call that in these challenging times, whether on this blog or in a potential book, I need to write about all the powerfully, positive lessons that dogs, and all warm-blooded creatures, offer mankind. The lessons of integrity, love, trust, balance, loyalty, faithfulness, affection, forgiveness and more.
OK, moving on.
On the evening of February 7th Jean and I settled down to watch a YouTube video. It had been featured in a post from LadyBlueRose that had been published on the 6th. The post was called His Name is Spirit and it was the story of a woman, Anna Breytenbach, who has dedicated her life to what she calls interspecies communication.
We had reached the six-minute point in the film, already captivated by it, when the telephone rang. I paused the film and answered the phone. It was neighbour Dordie from next door ringing to say that when she had seen us earlier in the day she had forgotten to mention that there was this incredible film that we really had to watch …… yes, you guessed it! The film that Jean and I were watching at that moment.
Here is that film.
Now here is Anna’s website Animal Spirit where one learns:
ENHANCING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS, OTHER ANIMALS AND THE NATURAL WORLD
Welcome to an exploration of interspecies communication – a journey of discovering ways to restore a deep relationship with all of life.
Human and animal communication creates a valuable bridge between human and non-human animals. By connecting with our intuition, we can engage in meaningful dialogue and remember how to hear the subtle messages from those whose space we share in our lives and our natural environment. Coming from a place of respect and reverence for all life, we can learn to understand our wilder relatives, honour their truths and live in greater harmony.
and where one also can watch the short introductory film that is on her home page; as below.
A web search then came across a fascinating interview with Anna.
So where does this all end up?
Simply, that in a world dominated by media of all types that favour ‘doom and gloom’ it can be incredibly difficult to hang on to the message offered by Jon and by Anna, and by many others no doubt, the message that our individual health, and by implication the health of this planet, is afforded through staying positive.
Or put more basically, if you are feeling low go and hug a dog! So I can do no better than to close with the same picture that closed Tuesday’s post Meet the dogs – Dhalia.
On the 24th January this year, I published a post called 20:20 self-awareness. To save you clicking the link and returning to that post, the essence was speaking clearly; not only to others but to ourselves. I quoted George Bernard Shaw, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Then went on to write:
Yet, what we hear and what we say are both modified, frequently unconsciously, by past events, experiences and trauma. That being the case, then it is key, critically so, that we achieve the best possible self-awareness. Because it is only through an understanding of our past that we come to learn of our sensitivities and our associated ‘tender spots’ and their potential for ‘pulling our strings’.
Closing the post by including a twenty-minute, documentary film about fear. (Here it is again for those that missed it.)
One of the comments to that post was from Sue who writes the blog Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary. (It’s a beautiful blog, by the way.)
This was the comment left by Sue.
Fear is inherent in us all for that Flight or Fight mode.. But the F word has now been used and abused as it has been used as a useful tool .. Self awareness comes when we wake up to what our world is generating and we have a choice. We can allow ourselves to get embroiled within the Fear.. Or we can see it for what it is and who and what is creating that fear and why?…. Once that awareness kicks in we can see there is nothing to Fear but Fear itself… Living in the Now of a moment prevents us also from fearing the future, and fearing what has passed..
Easier said than done, I guarantee you .. But once you can get your head around it all… We breathe deeper and evenly and let all fear go… ( I am still working on this, I am not perfect by any means ) for as your video states its been ingrained within us for so long we know no other way, and we are a creature of habit!..
Thought provoking post, Paul thank you
Sue then pointed me to one of her essays, that I have the great pleasure of republishing today.
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Do You Chose Love Over Fear?
One Love Heart.
Remember those Prophesies of “2012”? I posted many of my thoughts upon this timeline which I thought was to mark the end of one era and the beginning of the Next – Maybe those ancients teachers didn’t know whether we would rise or fall as they marked the end of their calendar.
Maybe that fate awaits us still depending upon our choices we make in the Now dependant upon our Next actions! But as we read through those teachings of ancient prophecy you will see also they speak of transformation. Transformation requires Change, and we are being urged now to Think! Think outside our boxes as our comfort zones are now being tweaked as we become ever more sensitive to the Energy Shifts within our World.
Whether we realise it or not we are incarnated with a ‘Soul Mission’ even though we caught amnesia after we were born. But more and more of us are thankfully waking up as we begin to remember who we are. It may have taken many life times and lessons to align with our present purpose as we pass through various stages on our journey, often not understanding the reasons for painful events and experiences. It isn’t until later that we look back and see the gifts and healing which were given to us and that through them we learn to grow, letting go of the past as we step into the Now.
Giving Birth is not without pain, and our new earth is only now going through her own birthing pains. We see it in the spasms of conflict, the wars, hunger, poverty, displacement of refugees and the destruction through pollution of Mother nature. Pains which are now being experienced which we humans have carried with us over many life times. Pains that emerge as a build-up of our Fear and Prejudices.
The choices are simple: we either choose Fear or Love.
Even while writing this a sense of peace has swept over me as I smile to myself. I recently read an article which said “…we incarnate with these wounds and at a soul-level choose to encounter those whose actions catalyse us to resolve and heal our soul wounding“. That made me smile even wider as I have long held the belief that our enemies are our greatest teachers helping serve our soul’s growth as we learn the various lessons such as patience, kindness, love, forgiveness, and compassion.
We are each of us now experiencing shifts in our emotions and lives, as we feel the ‘Shift’ in energy within our Mother Earth who is calling us to wake up and remember who we are; as our vibrations alter.
When I first started my blog back in 2007 I stumbled almost by accident to the opening post. But it was no accident! In fact my very first post was an experiment called Smile. I wanted to make a difference even if it was only through the words of a poem.
As we ‘Lighten Up’, letting go of what we no longer need, we lift our vibration higher; as we leave behind the wounds of the past. We are Energy Beings – and it’s time now to realise we each are a part of the Whole, that Oneness that permeates all things with the same Energy.
We are now ‘Shifting’ from duality to Unity Consciousness. This was brought home again to me on how many of us are thinking similar thoughts even here on WordPress. We see similar themes as we link into the Mass Consciousness, as we join together our thoughts, as we link subconsciously to the Cosmic web of thoughts.
We need to be aware of the Power of our thoughts and how we can assist in raising our planet’s vibration and our own collective Consciousness.
Much has been spoken upon The Ascension. First we need to ascend through our own layers as we climb ever higher, leaving behind the things that no longer serve us.
We do that by not getting swept up in conflict, by being more loving and tolerant, by being compassionate rather than being judgmental holding hate and anger.
We need to put the Care back in the world. If we embrace and choose Love over fear and stop looking who to blame but start to set examples of living in harmony and unity, then the true magnificence of who we really are can begin to manifest that ‘Golden Age’ that was once prophesied to bring about Peace.
It is up to each one of us to pledge to change our own lives, because only that way will those prophesies come to fruition.
We interrupt your life to bring you a moment of beauty, part two.
Last week I published the first set of pictures sent across by John Hurlburt. Here is the second set (but do look at the postscript).
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Now a bonus.
I was reading Naked Capitalism earlier on Saturday and came across the link to a story in Huffington Post about a young man who jumped into a swollen river in Bangladesh to rescue a young fawn in danger of being swept away to it’s death. This how that story opens:
Courageous Teen Risks His Life To Save Drowning Baby Deer
This is pretty incredible.
A wildlife photographer visiting Noakhali, Bangladesh, was able to witness — and document — an amazingly courageous teen risk his own life to save a drowning fawn, Caters News Service reports.
The boy waded into the fast current of a surging, swollen river in Noakhali, holding the deer above his head, even as he, himself, disappeared beneath the water at times.
The link in the last sentence takes you to the article as it appeared in The Daily Mail newspaper (online version).
Two of the photographs from that article.
PIC FROM HASIB WAHAB / CATERS NEWS (Pictured: DEER RETURNED SAFELY) – A brave boy fearlessly risked his own life – to save a helpless baby deer from drowning. The boy, believed to be in his early teens, defiantly held the young fawn in one hand above his head as he plunged through the surging river. During the ordeal onlookers were unsure whether the boy was going to appear again. When he finally made it to the other side the locals cheered as the deer was reunited with its family. The incident took place in Noakhali, Bangladesh, when the young fawn became separated from its family during torrential rain and fast-rising floods.
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PIC FROM HASIB WAHAB / CATERS NEWS (Pictured: DEER)
OK, I know I have a tendency to get a little sentimental but here’s my closing thought. That is that while there are people in the world such as young Belal who will not hesitate to rescue a vulnerable creature then there’s hope for all of mankind.
If you can help these beautiful animals in any way, read on.
Yesterday, in a post called Wild horses wouldn’t stop me …. I outlined the situation in Nevada where “the Nevada Farm Bureau is suing the Bureau of Land Management because they want the federal agency to round up what’s left of America’s wild horses and send them to slaughter.” The post included the commitment from Jean and me to adopt two of these horses.
In the hope that this post touches others who would also like to adopt a horse or know someone else that would, then here are the details that we have collected in the last twenty-four hours. (NB: please double-check yourself because much, if not all, of this is new to me and I am far from being an authority on the subject.)
The starting point seems to be Palomino Valley National Adoption Center. Their website is here. On the home page of that website, one reads:
The National Wild Horse and Burro Center at Palomino Valley (PVC) is the largest BLM preparation and adoption facility in the country and serves as the primary preparation center for wild horses and burros gathered from the public lands in Nevada and other near-by states. Nevada is home to more than 50 percent of the Nation’s wild horses and burros with approximately 83 herd management areas throughout the state.
Adoption Details
The majority of animals at PVC are available for adoption 6 days a week. To schedule an appointment to adopt a wild horse or burro at PVC, please call 775-475-2222. Appointments for viewing/adopting are limited to a maximum of one hour. The majority of animals are available for adoption, however, some are not due to the time involved in the preparation process. If you have questions about our adoption requirements, click here to go to our Adoption page.
When I called that office number yesterday afternoon, the person who helpfully answered a number of my questions recommended the BLM Adopt-A-Horse website. That website offers a number of useful links that anyone wanting to learn more should explore, including how to adopt via the internet. Plus a link to an online gallery where there are many pictures of beautiful horses, such as this one:
Sex: Mare Age: 5 Years Height (in hands): 15.0Necktag #: 2249 Date Captured: 08/28/12
Color: Brown Captured: Paisley Desert (OR)
Notes:
#2249 – 5 yr old brown mare, captured Aug 2012 from the Paisley Desert Herd Area, Oregon.
This horse is currently located at the Corral Facility in Hines, Oregon. For more information, contact Patti Wilson at email pwilson@blm.gov or Tara at tmartina@blm.gov.
Pick up options (by appt): Burns, OR; Salt Lake, UT; Elm Creek, NE; Pauls Valley, OK; Piney Woods, MS; Mequon, WI.
Other pick up options: West Monroe, LA (Mar 21), Archdale, NC (Apr 18) and Springfield, OH (Apr 25).
Adoption confirmation for this animal must be finalized no later than Feb 6. After this date, all unclaimed animals will be available for in-person walk up adoption ONLY.
Wild Horse Mountain Ranch in Sherwood, Oregon (South-West of Portland). From which I have taken the following photograph.
and, finally, MUSTANGS 4 US that has a plethora of information and good advice. Take this link, for example: Adopt A Mustang (Oregon). Plus there’s a very useful page on Where To Adopt. This photograph also came from the Mustangs 4 Us website.
Fingers crossed this has been of interest to many and of direct value to some. Jean and I have much to learn and as we work our way towards being better informed and being ready to take on two horses, all the details will be shared with you.
An Act Of Congress
“Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; (and) that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people …”
(Public Law 92-195, December 15, 1971)
From alerting you to the potential catastrophe of the Mustangs in Nevada.
Relationships across the internet, especially across the world of blogging are, oh, I don’t know, different! (OK, I hear some saying I could have chosen a more apt word; such as weird, self-indulgent, vain, and so on.)
Melinda Roth is an author. Her ‘goodreads’ page is here; her Amazon Books page is here; her website is here. Melinda has started reading posts on Learning from Dogs and, likewise, I have read posts over at Anyone Seen My Horse?
Seven days ago, Melinda published a post under the title of Oh, yum. This is the opening paragraph.
I ran across this recipe while doing a little research on horse slaughter (the Nevada Farm Bureau is suing the Bureau of Land Management because they want the federal agency to round up what’s left of America’s wild horses and send them to slaughter) so… thought I’d share:
When I read that I felt a mixture of anger, confusion, puzzlement; surely this can’t be the case? Then I read on, skipping the recipes that Melinda included in her post.
Now, you might have to go to Canada or Mexico to get the horse meat, but we ship those countries about 150,000 of our unwanted equines for slaughter anyway, so your meat will probably be home grown in the USA. No worries.
That is, as long as you’re not too concerned about the unregulated administration of numerous chemical substances to horses before slaughter, which according to official reports “are known to be dangerous to humans, untested on humans, or specifically prohibited for use in animals raised for human consumption.”
If travel is out of the question, however, you can always buy imported horse meat online.
Check out My Brittle Pony, which is horse meat jerky seasoned with “Guinness, onions, garlic, fresh herbs and Soy Sauce and is guaranteed to contain no horse substitute such as beef.”
It costs £3.50… and you can pay with Pay Pal.
But if the Nevada Farm Bureau has its way, we won’t have to travel or use currency converters to buy horse meat. A majority of the country’s last wild horses live in Nevada, and that state seems ready to cash in on one of its most popular natural resources.
Anyone who knows anything about Jean and me knows that we love animals and we adore our own animals. Thus as I read Melinda’s post the pain and anguish building in me was indescribable; and I’m only half-way through the post. Yes, there’s worse to come.
According to reports published in the last week, the Nevada Farm Bureau and the Nevada Association of Counties want the BLM to round up just about as many remaining wild horses as they can. The BLM argues that it’s already housing about 50,000 wild horses it’s already captured and can’t afford to take in many more.
The Nevada Farm Bureau argues that there are too many wild horses on public lands. But there are only about 30,000 wild horses left, and since public lands seem perfectly able to support 1.75 million head of livestock (that belong to private ranchers), what exactly is the problem?
There’s more you should read so please do so. Especially not forgetting to communicate your feelings to NVFB via the address listed on their web site – nvfarmbureau@nvfb.org
I wrote a comment to Melinda’s post endeavouring to explain what I was feeling. Melinda then pointed me to an essay by Andrew Cohen. It was beautiful and it seemed in order to share it with you. So here is Andrew Cohen writing about horses.
I write about wild horses. I write an awful lot about wild horses. And it’s not just because I cherish the animals or admire all that they have done through the centuries to ease our burden here in North America. I sometimes get grief about my focus upon the nation’s herds, and I know that many people who don’t “get” horses, or who have never been near a horse, cannot fathom the depth of passion the animals engender among their human supporters. What can I say? I can’t help it and I won’t stop.
I write about wild horses for many of the same reasons that I write about mentally ill prisoners who are abused in their cells or about indigent defendants who cannot afford a lawyer or anyone else who has a voice, and rights, but who cannot be properly heard or who cannot have those rights acknowledged. Mordecai Richler, the late, great Canadian writer, long ago captured the essence of what I try to do with all my writing: “The novelist’s primary moral responsibility is to be the loser’s advocate,” he said. The actor Ricky Gervais said pretty much the same thing the other day, without the literary flair, when he said: “Animals don’t have a voice. But I do.”
I have a voice and I’ve chosen to speak out for these horses, which are being rounded up by the tens of thousands from our public and private lands and sent to holding pens in the Midwest — or sold into slaughter even though that is against the law. The government and the ranchers say these roundups must happen because there is no room for the herds, or because they graze too heavily upon the land, but ample evidence exists suggesting that this simply isn’t so. The truth is that there is plenty of room out West for these horses and there are plenty of ways in which the herds may be properly managed to ensure their survival without forcing them into cruel conditions or slaughter.
Why that isn’t happening is a story everyone ought to care about. So I write about wild horses because I think their treatment over the past four decades, since the passage of the federal law designed to protect them, reveals a great deal about American politics and the nature of the bureaucratic state. The Interior Department, which has stewardship over the herds, is little more than a straw man for the industries it is supposed to regulate. And those industries, which receive enormous federal benefits in the form of welfare ranching, and which in turn send millions of dollars and boatloads of lobbyists to Washington, want the horses off the public lands no matter what anyone else says.
I write about wild horses because last year the National Academies of Science issued a report scathing in its criticism of the Bureau of Land Management’s scientific approach to the herds. Before the report was issued, federal officials assured advocates that its conclusions would be respected (or at least publicly discussed). But it’s been seven months now since the report was issued and federal officials have done almost nothing about it. That’s just not unjust to the horses, and unfair to their human advocates, and perhaps a violation of federal law, it’s also terrible policy, as a general rule, for bureaucrats to ignore the findings of a report they themselves commissioned and paid for.
I write about wild horses because the last Secretary of the Interior was a rancher who did not even try to conceal his disdain for federal obligations to the horses and because the current Secretary of the Interior, herself a former engineer, has shown no interest in the herds or in addressing the concerns raised by the NAS report. Only the Interior Department, the backwater of all Washington beats, could engender so little muckracking when so much money, and so much else, is on the line. I write about wild horses because their story is the story of every other small interest without political power in Washington or the statehouses of this nation.
They are persecuted. They have rights but no remedies. And their fate isn’t going to get better unless more people come to understand the injustice of what’s happening to them — and how far the gulf is between the noble image we have given them in our national psyche and the reality of their perilous existence. That’s why I write about wild horses and it’s why I am grateful when anyone happens to read what I’ve written.
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Now I don’t know one end of a horse from the other. But Jean does. In previous years, Jean was a keen horse-woman. But me not speaking horse doesn’t mean that I am not passionate about doing something to help these poor wild horses. Even if what we do is only something tiny, as the old saying goes, by the inch it’s a cinch. Jean is just as passionate about wanting to help as I.
Not only do we have two miniature horses here in Oregon, we have sufficient pasture to accommodate two of these Mustangs. We want to adopt two horses or burros that, otherwise, would be slaughtered.
Tomorrow I will share how we are researching how one goes about adopting a mustang or a burro. Because if only one extra horse is adopted as a result of the Melinda Roth – Andrew Cohen – Learning from Dogs sequence then that’s one less horse destined for slaughter.
Yet another wonderful opportunity to chuckle at the world.
Sent to me by dear Cynthia Gomez.
This wonderful collection of sayings from America’s ‘South’ reminded me of the incredibly rich local accents that one experienced all over Britain. Despite being born a Londoner, I spent many of the years before switching home countries from England to America living in the County of Devon in the South-West of England. Here are two images to show those unfamiliar with England where I was living.
County of Devon. Cornwall to the West. Somerset to the East.
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Home used to be in the village of Harberton, 3 miles South-West of Totnes.
Thus anyone born and bred in this part of Devon frequently had a strong South Devon accent. My brother-in-law, John, used to chat to some old Devon fella’s in the local pubs that had accents impossible to understand by such newcomers as me.
So with no further ado, enjoy the following.
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Florida
A Florida senior citizen drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he pushed it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left. “Amazing,” he thought as he flew down I-95, pushing the pedal even more.
Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a Florida State Trooper, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 100 mph, then 110, then 120. Suddenly he thought, “What am I doing? I’m too old for this!” and pulled over to await the trooper’s arrival.
Pulling in behind him, the trooper got out of his vehicle and walked up to the Corvette. He looked at his watch, then said, “Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a new reason for speeding — a reason I’ve never before heard — I’ll let you go.
“The old gentleman paused then said: “Three years ago, my wife ran off with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.
“Have a good day, Sir,” replied the trooper.
Georgia
The owner of a golf course in Georgia was confused about paying an invoice, so he decided to ask his secretary for some mathematical help.
He called her into his office and said, “Y’all graduated from the University of Georgia and I need some help. If I wuz to give yew $20,000, minus 14%, how much would you take off?”
The secretary thought a moment, and then replied, “Everthang but my earrings.”
Louisiana
A senior citizen in Louisiana was overheard saying … “When the end of the world comes, I hope to be in Louisiana .”When asked why, he replied, “I’d rather be in Louisiana ’cause everythang happens in Louisiana 20 years later than in the rest of the world.”
Mississippi
The young man from Mississippi came running into the store and said to his buddy, “Bubba, somebody just stole your pickup truck from the parking lot!”
Bubba replied, “Did y’all see who it was?”
The young man answered, “I couldn’t tell, but I got the license number.”
North Carolina
A man in North Carolina had a flat tire, pulled off on the side of the road, and proceeded to put a bouquet of flowers in front of the car and one behind it. Then he got back in the car to wait.
A passerby studied the scene as he drove by, and was so curious he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was.
The man replied, “I got a flat tahr.”
The passerby asked, “But what’s with the flowers?”
The man responded, “When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back. I never did understand it neither.”
Tennessee
A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65. The trooper asked, “Got any ID?”
The driver replied, “Bout whut?”
Texas
The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up into the ditch. The Sheriff asked, “Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don’t you see that sign right over your head.”
“Yep,” he replied. “That’s why I’m dumpin’ it here, ’cause it says: ‘Fine For Dumping Garbage.’
ooo
“Y’all kin say whut y’all want ’bout the South, but y’all never heard o’ nobody retirin’ an’ movin’ North.
Our weather systems are entirely driven by the laws of science.
“Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.“
So wrote William Wordsworth.
The last twelve months has been a period of untypical weather in many parts of the world. It’s easy to scratch one’s head with puzzlement and blame it on the most convenient and fashionable theory of the moment. Unusual jet stream pattern; polar vortex; aliens! You get the idea! However, the principle behind what is happening to the weather systems across our planet is very straightforward. Our weather systems are described by the laws of science.
Thus it is a great pleasure to offer the following guest post from a scientist: Martin Lack. Martin should be no stranger to readers of Learning from Dogs; his most recent contribution was the major three-part essay From Environmentalism to Ecologism.
I must admit that I am rather fond of quoting Sir Arthur Eddington as having once said, “…if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” Without quibbling over the detail, the Law of Conservation of Mass is pretty darn close; but what, you may ask, has this got to do with climate change denial?
Conservation of mass of water
Well, consider for a moment that scientists seem to agree that there has been a 4% increase in the average moisture content of the Earth’s atmosphere since 1970. That being the case, I am bound to say that this extra 4% is making its presence felt in the UK at the moment! This year we have had the wettest 3 months (April – June) in over 100 years; the wettest June on record; the rain is still falling (sometimes as much as 80mm in a day); and – we are now being told – there is no change anticipated in coming weeks. So, if you’re coming over for the Olympics, expect to get wet!
However, whilst the UK suffers from near Biblical levels of flooding, if the Law of Conservation of Mass is to be upheld and – all other things like terrestrial ice volume remaining equal(!) – the volume of water in the oceans is to remain constant, then it must be failing to rain somewhere else. If so, is there any evidence to support this theory Law? Well, funnily enough, there is: Whilst the UK continues to receive more rain than it wants or needs (all hose pipe bans and drought restrictions have now been lifted), many parts of the World continue to suffer from persistent drought (in sub-Saharan West Africa) and/or record-breaking temperatures (in most of North America).
Sadly, none of this seems to stop self-confessed scientifically-illiterate English graduates such as James Delingpole from ridiculing the entire notion of global warming simply because it is raining a lot here at the moment. It may seem that he has just got a nasty case of tunnel vision and/or short-term memory loss but this is what the fake sceptics always do; they never look at the big picture: Rather than look at daily, monthly, or even annual average temperatures over multi-decadal periods to determine significant long-term trends; they just cherry pick data to reach fallacious conclusions such as “global warming stopped in 1998″.
I am therefore left hoping that the 57% of the British adult population that seem to fall for this kind of nonsense will soon decide that it is time to stop running down the up escalator and, by embracing the reality of what is happening, decide to become part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. If not, climate change denial may well lead to a failure to conserve mass; with the mass in question being the sustainable number of humans this planet can support in the long-term.
Conservation of mass of carbon
If the Law of Conservation of Mass explains why anthropogenic global warming climate disruption is not invalidated by any amount of cold weather or torrential rainfall in one place; can it be used to validate concern regarding a 40% increase CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere? Funnily enough, it can: Since the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-18th Century, a vast amount of fossilised carbon has been burnt; with the carbon it contained combining with oxygen in the air to form CO2. Note here that the oxygen was in the air anyway; whereas the carbon had been out of circulation for hundreds of millions of years. All this new carbon has to go somewhere and, given that it will be many more millions of years before any of it gets taken back out of circulation by nature, it is either making the atmosphere warm-up or it is reducing the pH of seawater (just enough to make life very difficult for corals and shellfish).
So then, what is the human response to all this? Shall we stop burning the fossil fuels now we know we’re causing a problem? It doesn’t look like it! It seems far more likely that we shall gamble the future habitability of all the planets diverse ecosystems on finding a way to defeat the Law of Conservation of Mass by artificially removing this carbon from the biosphere: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). And do you know what I find most astonishing about CCS? It is the fact that our governments are spending huge sums of money on long-term tests to simulate the effects of CO2 leaking from a submarine CCS repository – to see if it has any noticeable effects on marine life?
Errr, hello-oh? If any CO2 ever escapes from any CCS repository, the entire exercise will have been a complete waste of time and money! The CO2 will be back in circulation and the Law of Conservation of Mass will have won (again). If the genie will not stay in the bottle we will all be in big trouble: Rather than being likely to“collapse in deepest humiliation”; such a failure to defeat the Law of Conservation of Mass will probably result in the collapse of the entire planetary ecosystem; because of our other big problem – the Law of Conservation of Energy: The reason the atmosphere is warming up in the first place; more energy is coming in from the Sun than is getting out into Space!
Conclusions
So, this year’s weather should be a wake-up call to all of us: Irrespective of the actual kind of extreme weather being experienced in any one place, the impacts on agriculture seem to be equally destructive and spiralling food costs the inevitable end result: All just as was predicted by people dismissed for decades as doomsayers: People like Garrett Hardin, Paul Ehrlich, Dennis Meadows, E.F. Schumacher, William Ophuls, Mathis Wackernagel, Ernest Callenbach, and Lester Brown… It looks like that darn ‘wolf’ finally showed up!
Funnily enough, it turns out that a doubling in the size of the global human economy every 50 years is not sustainable after all; and worshipping at the Temple of the God of Growth has got us in some serious trouble; otherwise known as a global debt crisis (see the short video embedded below). We thought we could just lend imaginary money to each other indefinitely but someone blinked and the spell was broken. Sadly, it turns out the Emperor was naked after all; it’s just a shame that by the time we realised this we were all completely sold on the latest fashion ourselves: The New Clothes are everywhere; and we have all been left looking for fig leaves to cover our genitals.
Just as The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al) predicted all those years ago, the Earth is running out of the ability to cope with the effects of our chronically dysfunctional mis-management of it. This was why, as I pointed out six months ago, the failure of food harvests in 2010 led to the Arab Spring of 2011… Are you, like me, wondering what is going to happen this time around? My prediction is that some economist such as Tim Worstall will get himself on TV and tell everyone that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a load of old rubbish; and that technology will save us from the consequences of our selfish pursuit of profit at any cost; and from our failure to recognise that we humans are not superior to nature – we are part of it – and we cannot survive without it. Or, to put it another way, as a Native American tribal leader once did: When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
ooOOoo
I can add nothing to the above other than to thank Martin for giving me the opportunity to republish his post.
According to the online version of the Merriam Webster dictionary, one of the two definitions of synchronicity is:
: the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung
That seems sufficiently apt to warrant the choice of title for today’s post.
Here’s why!
Yesterday, Chris Snuggs left a comment to my post Unconditional love. Essentially, Chris made the argument that much of what we see as wrong with the world is not new; not new at all [my insertion of the image of and link to the Great Fire of London].
Great Fire of London. September 2nd-5th, 1666.
What I mean is, the danger of thinking that today’s events are somehow special and different in kind than throughout history, a feeling generated by the fact that WE are living NOW. However, is it not true that ALL ages of Mankind have seen disasters, wars, dangers, catastrophes, including natural ones? How must those have felt who lived through the 30 Years War, the plague, the Great Fire of London, Stalin’s purges and of course the holocaust?
Even in these present times, Chris doubted that mankind had not been here before [my emphasis]:
WHAT then is special about OUR era? Well, Patrice is and rightly very concerned about the kleptocracy. The staggering statistic that emerged the other day about 85 individuals having as much wealth as 3,5 BILLION people was yet another wake-up call, especially as history seems to tell us that A) there have ALWAYS been kleptocracies and B) they ALWAYS end in revolution, dictatorship or social collapse. But the point is, this is nothing NEW. On the contrary, it has in many societies been the normal progression of things for millenia.
So what about Global Warming, as in man-caused? Chris wrote:
No, all my uncertainties lie in the area of GW. It’s pretty clear that there Is global warming, but A) Is it our fault? B) What should we DO about it? and C) Is it too late anyway?
The notion that it is too late to prevent widespread, major consequences from the heating of our planet is widely shared; I sing the siren’s song myself.
So when an item came along yesterday from Transition Network’s blog courtesy of Rob Hopkins pointing out that Chris, me and many others may be wrong to sing the ‘doom and gloom’ song, it naturally caught my eye. A quick call to the Transition Network team in Totnes, Devon gave me permission to republish on Learning from Dogs, so here it is. Thanks TN team. (My thoughts follow the TN piece.)
ooOOoo
Lipkis on Holmgren: “Our job is to make viable the alternative and have it ready”
You know how sometimes someone will just put something you were thinking far more eloquently and clearly than you would have been able to? On Thursday we’ll be posting an interview with Andy Lipkis of TreePeople in Los Angeles. When I talked to Andy last week, it was 80°F, and a state of drought emergency had just been declared (in LA, not Totnes, it was raining here, as usual). At the end of the interview, I asked for his thoughts on the recent debate sparked by David Holmgren’s Crash on Demand article. I asked him “Can we achieve the action on climate change that we need within the existing paradigm, or do we need to deliberately bring the economy down, to deliberately crash it?”. Here’s what he told me.
Andy Lipkis
“This system is so armoured to defend itself from a deliberate crash that much of our resources and intelligence networks are focused on exactly stopping that. On the flip side, the crash is already happening. We don’t have to engineer it: it’s already been engineered into the system. Check it out: Infrastructure systems are in breakdown in major cities around the world, with severe climate exceeding the designed capacity for storms, floods, water shortages, heat events resulting in increasing numbers of people being dislocated, injured or killed. In the US, taxpayers are unwilling or unable to pay for the rapidly inflating costs for upgrading and climate-proofing the outmoded infrastructure systems, all the while, climate change denial campaigns prevent communities from preparing for and protecting themselves from the impacts.
I think our job is to make viable the alternative and have it ready. If we’ve really done our homework, we could scale this thing in a flash in California right now because this crash is upon us. And I hope we’re going to be able, perhaps within months…I invented a cistern that could replace the backyard fence or wall, that could hold 5,000 – 20,000 gallons and could be manufactured locally. The City’s going “hey, maybe we should do that now”. Now. Because it’s going to rain again, even if this drought lasts some years, we could deploy them quickly, just as they did in Australia’s 12 year drought.
I think we’ve been trained to spend time on these battles, on the negativity, and we lose people. We’ve lost precious decades. The crash is on its way. We don’t have to do anything. We need the time to convert people and move people. We need to use examples of Australia and what’s happening now in California to tell those stories, because I agree, denial, defending the system is keeping it pumping. But as you saw from Snowden and all the evidence, for those of us who went through the ‘60s and ‘70s in protest, I don’t think that’s going to succeed. If we focus on that our best leaders are going to end up in jail for too long.
When you look at how fast people change when you add inspiration, when you add attraction, people change on a dime! When we were growing up, there were – I don’t know if you had The Munsters? One of the only people who we all knew who was doing yoga and eating yoghurt was Uncle Fester. But when we started seeing beautiful, sexy male and female bodies doing that, it started selling, moving people by the millions and then billions to choose these lifestyles.
I’m not saying the marketplace is the only answer, I’m just saying that if we choose attraction and inclusion we can create those markets, as you’re starting to do. Your stories over and over again on what’s happening with local currency – it’s time to tell the stories better and use those market forces, because people will choose those because they’re less painful and more attractive. And to be smart, to say wow, yeah.
The Bush administration was ready for all Americans to be protesting to try to stop the Iraq war. They expected that, they built that into their design. I was so amazed that they could say they didn’t care what the people said, that I had to think through why they did not care about that. How did they make it resilient? Because all they cared about was as long as people kept consuming, especially petroleum, their objective was being met. They were counting on no-one changing lifestyles.
The most radical thing sometimes that you can do is actually vote with your feet and vote with your dollars. I was going – “wow, yeah, they’re counting on people complaining”. Protesting and not changing. I started thinking that even the Obama administration is still using the same metrics as the Bush administration was, saying people won’t change on energy. “It’s going to take 35 years to reduce our energy use by 30%”. Well that’s bullshit, because we can choose to do that in a week.
So, I decided that I was going to show that that’s possible even in my own lifestyle. I drive a Prius which is especially fuel efficient, but I’m going to stop driving that car two or three days a week. I told my secretary to book meetings downtown where I could get the bus to. I got out of the car, took the bus, and it actually became a really cool thing. I started investing my dollars in the local bus system. I did it for over two years. I blogged about it. A lot of other people stopped full time car use, and right at the right time as gasoline prices were spiking, a proposal came out to build a new transit system. It’s always been rejected in LA, but the voters at that moment chose to fund 40 billion dollars to build a new subway system in Los Angeles so we could get out of our cars. It’s a radical move, but it’s starting to happen.
So maybe that’s a long complicated answer, but we’ve built the right foundation. Our happiness, our health is the answer. It’s infectious. Our job is to be that much more infectious and inclusive. And don’t put up barriers of titles. Don’t put up barriers of shame and blame. Be open to learning fast and welcoming people in. We’re hacking the system and making it so much better. If we invite that kind of creativity, the generation that’s inheriting this right now is really ready to take this home.
ooOOoo
Don’t know about you but I find that compelling. It’s far too easy to wait for others to fix the problems. Too easy to see the issues as insurmountable. Each of us has the ability and the common-sense to make a change in our lives. Whether it is a small, medium or large change in your behaviour, you will make a difference.
So if you have been inspired by this, as Jeannie and I have been, commit to making a difference.
Learning from Dogs 