Animism is not a belief – but manners. Caroline hosts Carl Safina through whom our animal kin convey their beautiful community complexity; from knowledge comes respect – on to reverent collaborative intimacy….
Reciprocal altruism
Infinite Game- keeping everything in play…
Participatory Animism
Lakota hunt with wolves and coyotes
Weaving our sundered treaties back into collaborative kinship…
So, Tricksters, we be back-stage, where different layers of the Show happen, underneath what was spoken…
After show I wrote to ally David Grimes, (wildly enthused about Carl’s book “Beyond Words – what animals think and feel,” -“making the rounds in our Alaska killer whale Community and beyond. Great work.”)
me: “Carl, great contributor. Would like for you and I to drink some magic mushroom tea with Carl, and roll him around.”
To which he responded “Yes indeed.”
Blessings to all – and we can bless our guest, and that to which he be dedicated…
So underneath all (Let’s peruse the charts)—
In our radio show chart the Moon was exalted at 4+ Taurus “woman weeping at an open grave, returning to the Earth what is of the Earth.”
And in Carl’s chart – his Venus is at 4+ Taurus…(only this hour- a beautiful augury…)
His deep animist, being nourished and encouraged ….
In his chart -His Venus is kinda hanging out alone, awaiting support…which we animate now….in his deep self, underneath the mega-rewarded Gemini- “science mind.” Not that he be self-important in the least…
We just like to see (Neptune squaring his Mercury) – more relaxed freedom to play in the realms of Mystery…
We opened the show – with the final words of his book:
“There is no better prayer to morning than to feel glad to know: the greatest story is that all life is one.”
Pluto on his Ceres, Flora Fauna…
Jupiter and Mercury forming a Grand Trine to his Mercury trine Neptune etc…
Honoring and encouraging his messenger big vision self…
So many great scouting reports – the astounding Beauty and complexity of elephant culture (and oh, galumphy cruel humans, no idea what they are killing, as they destroy a fabulously functioning family-community of altruistic solicitude)…(as with the wolves, and the horror of Sea Worlds, and what they do to the Orcas, the most complex family on earth)…
May humans understand – that whatever we kill in our animal kin – we kill in our own Community, and Families…
What shall we do, but form alliances across species borders, resonant with our customized affinities/assignments… Wheel and Deal time…
(the war on life, the war on Indigenous people, the war on what Indigenous people hold to be sacred – the war on wolves……and coyotes)
Let’s dissolve all that separates us from collaborative kinship in our Equinoctial Cauldron of coming back into harmonious relations – with all our relations…
Many many intriguing facts in book:
*“many older menopausal Orca Matriarchs (in their 40’ and 50’s) entice younger males some as young as 5 or 6 into sex play.”
Perhaps we might replace the word “entice” with “initiate?”
* “Orcas are in vocal contact with each other throughout 150 square miles.”
* Orcas – family – all the males + females stay in the family into which they were born for their entire lives (unless humans muck it up.)
* social structure more complex than chimps…and more peaceful…
relying on the decision making matriarch…
When I commented that oft Orcas will drown a baby Grey whale – just to eat its tongue, David Grimes responded…”yes, but that tongue is the size of a volks wagon. Shark eating Orcas eat mostly the shark liver, but it is an enormous organ rich in oils.”
And the rest distributed to all other creatures (when there were more of them)
“and it’s all one being, the Earth eats herself with a kiss.”
Not sentimental…
Carl seemed amused a squosh, on occasion…and at the end,
and I’m happy I could tease him into Loren Eisley, with this quote
“The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature’s cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: “Do not forget your kin, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.”
Caroline with her Wolf Dog, Moon Dog, and Stella the coyote-dog (now both ancestors)
Not wanting to overwhelm guest with anecdotes I forgot to mention…
When the Wolf Dog, Moon Dog, and I went to the beach when he was a puppy… He got wildly enthused excited along the beach, gazing into the water, much celebratory barking, as though being reunited with a community, part of his pack.
What What? But then after some minutes I saw the dolphins.
He heard them long before they were visible, and heard them as long lost kin.
And I also didn’t mention about how my two animal ambassadors from Wolf and Coyote world – would bark at representational art. If it looked like an an animal.
And how they were both freaked by the sight of a snowman in the path…I said, “I’m gonna go touch it”..”No no, bark bark- dangerous, spooky, it’s alive.”
“Yes, in a sense it is alive, you fellow animal animists, but not dangerous .”
They were mighty impressed when I walked up and touched the snowman, but still wary…
“Very well, but let’s get out of here…”
And death and stories…
When important cats were dying, and in pain, I would crawl into the closet with them, and tell them our story…when we met, what we did…And they would always purr, and the pain seemed alleviated…
May we all spiral out consoling stories into the memosphere…
Inanna ~ Venus (Akkadian, c. 2334 – c. 2154 BC)
I love this Equinox, this show chart, we have two Venuses, actually – 3…
Venus where she be in sky (glorious after sunset) 14+ Scorpio.
Uranus in Taurus – nature’s animistic Venusian realm.. The Sun and Mars in Libra, Venus’ cultural realm. Presiding over this unfulrling Season. May we open the channels betwixt.
And to note (as in Equinox presentation) that Venus and Mars are in Mutual Reception . Venus in Mars’ sign, Mars in Venus’ sign,
so they have collaborative manners…
May our species learn from the animals and plants how to have manners again…!
