Without Thought from Ollie Banks on Vimeo.

“I think there is the potential for everyone who is in a deep state of flow or is having a peak experience to feel so connected to the environment in which they are. And often these experiences happen in nature, that afterwards you feel a moral obligation to the world. You feel a sensitivity; it is not so ‘other’  anymore, it is not just resources to be harvested – it’s almost the body in which our consciousness is emerging… it is as if it is a living thing.”

“So I think in that experience is the seed for the possibility of a different consciousness in terms of how we steward our planet, and that gives me a sense of great hope…”

Excerpt from ”Without Thought” – a film by Ollie Banks / Dan  Crockett / John Eldridge

Narrated by Dr. Richard Moss

Despite being privileged to have just an amazingly unique encounter, Brian’s story contains quite a few commonalities with what has been learnt through the research supporting eyes4earth.org. Many of the reported peak and profound wildlife encounters are with large charismatic animals where close proximity, extended periods of eye-contact are a key part of what makes the process meaningful. There is a sense of reciprocity in that the animal may also appear to be curious about us, possibly approaching unexpectedly and displaying what would normally be considered unusual behaviour. We may interpret this as some kind intelligence or desire for interaction – or even communication – on behalf of the animal… and that deeply moves us. We can feel diminished and humbled in its presence. In Brian’s case, he eventually got to share the experience with a colleague – and that can make the whole event even more special.

Numerous people who submitted their most meaningful nature experiences to eyes4earth.org have actually had their encounters whilst feeling vulnerable or even fearful in a vast ocean.  Brian Skerry tells another story about his scary night dives with giant squid…

http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8/   (longer clip, can see more of the owl’s approach)

http://www.youtube.com/user/vurtrunner#p/u/4/Ji_x8RU4zIo  (shorter clip, can see more of  ’the grab’ and is in higher definition)

]]> http://eyes4earth.org/eagle-owl-in-action/feed/ 0 http://eyes4earth.org/skimming-or-dipping/ http://eyes4earth.org/skimming-or-dipping/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:59:44 +0000 eyes4earth http://eyes4earth.org/?p=2898 I feel like one of those flat skimming stones

Whom across the surface of life I’ve been thrown

With force and speed I skip and skim the water’s skin

Not wanting to lose momentum for fear I’ll fall in

To the depths below for I know not what they hold

Darkness, emptiness, stillness or so I’ve been told

So I skim over life not ever wanting to miss a beat

Not reaching the other side is a sure sign of defeat

And every skip on the surface feels like another year

The skips still quicken so that the gaps now disappear

Between hitting times of activity and pure times of rest

Frantically chanting the chant “I’m just doing my best”

I am that skimming stone with 66 skips I’m flat out

But I’ve lost my pace, sputter sputter, I begin to doubt

If I’ll really make it to the pond of life’s edge after all

What is there anyway except for a hard bumpy fall?

As I begin to slow, I dare to dip in, down and beneath

The surface of life; oh, quiet time and space to breathe

And what peace lies down here; how I wish I had known

For my next life, may I return as a rock & not a skim stone.

By Matthew Zylstra.  “Skimming or Dipping” (2010)

Don’t Tell Me

Don’t tell me from

Looking at your screen

Behind your PC

Inside your office

Consumed in your city – trapped

That what I feel here

Listening to our stream

In front of our big tree

Outside in our forest

Immersed in nature – free

Is not real. Don’t tell me that.

Don’t tell me that you have also tried to tell an astronaut that weightlessness is purely a product of his perception?

Because I will tell you that, like the astronaut, we are in a different space.

Don’t tell me that you cannot accept that.

Gone the Friends of Silence

On Baviaanskloof nights, I wonder…where the mammals have gone…

Does the silence know that it only has sipping slurping streams and

Crackling chattering campfire as companions?

Lying in a cave where San used to be

I wonder now that the

Cape Lion are gone

Brown Hyena are gone

Migrating Elephant are gone

Cape Leopard almost gone

And Rhino are behind fences in valleys away

How does that make me feel?

I wonder why I feel safe and I feel content

Not knowing how it once must have been to target and be targeted

By a lurking terrestrial mammal in the shadows.

I wonder about the San: did they feel safe and content?

Before being targeted by the cruellest predator of them all

Like another inconvenient terrestrial mammal in the shadows.

But I feel safe now.

And I feel content here.

Though I wonder -

Is my life any richer for that?

The Couple of Guides

Birds shriek and coo

Klipspringers bound round rocky peak

As I now clumsily enter and disturb the scene

Glance up, “Thank you”

Klipspringers to whom I now speak

“Your spoor guided me along the path beside this stream”

The Single Bumblebee

Out all alone

Shimmies left, hovers, darts right

Repeatedly enacting for a purpose unknown

Incessant drone

Doubles as another zips into sight

Heatedly vacating this bumblebee pick-up zone.

The Remains

Cluster of feathers perched pitifully

At the high end of a fallen tree

A sure sign to stay on guard

For these are leftovers of the leopard.

 [or maybe it was caracal but that's not nearly as poetic]

Eggstacy

I’ve witnessed a wonder of life.

Twice!

How can a simple tiny (lizard?) egg-sac spring to life and have the mobility, vision, instinct and sentience to bounce and roll its way under the protective shelter of a rock?

Twice!

I’ve witnessed a wonder of life.

I head to a cave and let the creative juices flow…

Here is the first of three installments with a bit of poetry of varying quality and form (Japanese-style ‘haiku’, rhyming verse and other stuff which maybe real, like, professional kind of poets have a name for, but which I just call ‘random ramblings’.)

Creative Cave Collections Vol. I – Never-ending Nights (Haiku)

San Bushmen cave -

The one where

The rocky lip curls over

Like a 12ft wave

And here I now sit

Like an amateur surfer

Pretending to be brave

Floating in its pit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A little risky?

What if I slip, fall, drown?

Self-talk sabotage.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Firewood in arms;

I climb, slip and fall with;

Empathy for ants.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Is it still not dawn?

Time warps to eternity;

Solo nights in cave.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Silent depths of night;

Sky pulls out thick grey blankets;

Puts full moon to bed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Campfire burns bright;

And just as I drift to sleep;

Campfire dies out.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Awake yet again;

Recalling fragmented dreams;

Sleeping in soundbites.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Impalas. Do they;

Ever complain about not;

Getting enough sleep?

Port Elizabeth (SA)- A Somerset West man has told how an enraged buffalo attacked him and a friend, who was seriously injured in the attack. The men were part of a group of seven friends, all from Somerset West, who were camping in the Baviaanskloof in the Eastern Cape. “He stormed at us like a huge, black monster. It happened so quickly,” was how Fouché Whitehead described what happened late on Tuesday afternoon [6th September 2011]. He was able to dive out of the way of the enraged buffalo. “Then he focused on Ryno (Magson) and got hold of him.”

View from Rooihoek Campsite

Critical condition
After a major rescue operation lasting nearly 10 hours, Magson was admitted to a Port Elizabeth hospital in a critical condition. His wife, Chaniti, said on Wednesday: “When I heard the news of the attack, I was shocked. I immediately thought of Johann Schmidt, also from Somerset West. He was trampled to death by a buffalo in the Bergkwagga National Park last year. I studied with his daughter.” Reliable sources said Magson had suffered internal injuries and had lost a kidney but his wife did not want to talk about it. Magson and Whitehead had been walking about 300 metres outside the Rooihoek campsite in the Baviaanskloof wilderness area when they came across the buffalo. After the attack, Whitehead immediately wanted to run to the campsite for help. “But I saw the buffalo was waiting for me in the bushes. Then I screamed and screamed until they [the other friends] heard me.” When the others arrived in the car, the buffalo bull took off. The seriously injured Magson was taken by bakkie to the campsite. It took Leon Strydom almost two hours to cross 30km of flooded roads and a riverbed to reach the Coleske farm where he could call for help.

Support
“After the events on Tuesday evening I feel very strongly that the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) should urgently consider getting an emergency radio at Rooihoek. It would save at least 90 minutes of driving and could clearly save a life,” said Strydom on Wednesday evening. But he also had a lot of praise for the support of parks officials and Lieutenant Herman Smith, commander of the Baviaanskloof police. “They were wonderful. I thank them.” Shortly after Strydom got help, rangers equipped with radios immediately went to the scene. Sybert Liebenberg, ECPTA acting executive head, also contacted Magson’s wife and kept her updated every 20 minutes throughout the evening. “If he hadn’t done that, I would’ve gone crazy. I can’t thank him enough,” said Magson’s wife. When Liebenberg was able to confirm at 02:00 that Magson would be taken to the Netcare Greenacres hospital, she immediately left Somerset West for Port Elizabeth. “Ryno is a big adventurer and nature lover. I believe he survived because he is so fit,” she said on Wednesday morning. Magson was taken for surgery at about 07:00 on Wednesday morning. Netcare Greenacres Hospital spokesperson Adèle Kennedy said on Wednesday afternoon that his condition was stable.

Source: Die Burger

Afrikaans Version: Verwoede buffel gaffel Kapenaar

It’s hard to say which is more astonishing: the thought of psychic sheep or that shepherds actually still exist in England.

Anyway, the story goes that the normally well-behaved Alfie head-butted his shepherdess (or is it shepherdette?) Emma repeatedly in the chest as she attempted to give him some medicine.  The head-butting caused a bruise and one thing lead to another and eventually Emma learned she had early stages of breast cancer.

Obviously, reader comments ticked over on the news site. People miffed that this simple  coincidence was even newsworthy, other saying these intelligent animals have a better sense of smell than we do, others saying it is just normal behaviour when getting medicine and most agreeing that Alfie has escaped this year’s shepherd’s pie.

Through our research on meaningful nature experiences, I’ve come across a few uncanny stories like this one.  From anecdotal evidence, explanations people have given me for their own encounters and emerging scientific insight, I think we can look at three possible scenarios for you to choose from:

1. Animal sensing: It is no surprise that animals can sense far more than we humans do. Especially in our age of desensitization to the sensuous natural world.  And there is growing evidence to suggest we really are still a long way from understanding what animals actually perceive and experience. We can’t simply project our human vision of the world upon them. And, for one, they are more instinctively attuned and probably aren’t as distracted as we are with ‘worldly’ matters.  Pets have been long known to sense human ailments/illness and I’ve recently heard a few stories of domestic cats perching and purring on injured parts of the human body.  It’s quite possible that, where a strong human-animal bond exists (as it did in this case- Emma fought hard to save Alfie’s life as newborn), the latter may sense something isn’t right. Whether that sensing would be knowingly demonstrated via a harsh headbutt or three is another question.

2. Synchronicity:  Alfie’s actions would definitely go into the meaningful nature experience category… synchronicity perhaps. The odds of such a thing happening appear – at least in Emma’s perception – to go beyond the realms of normal chance. Depending how far your interpretation of synchronicity goes, one could posture that an intelligent or divine life-force has perhaps intervened… driving Alfie’s instincts to display uncharacteristic behaviour which ultimately carried a message compelling Emma to act.

3. Causality irrelevant:  Whether there is a causal explanation may be ultimately irrelevant.  Regardless of what we think, Emma the shepherdette has perceived this encounter to be hugely meaningful and, one would imagine, personally transformational.  She has derived an interpretation which may change the way she looks and acts toward sheep. One would expect her to display a deeper reverence and respect for all of the sheep-kind… And this can only be a good thing. Let’s hope such attitudes may be transferred to other species…preferably the endangered wild ones.

Where are all the breast-butting rhinos, tigers, pandas, polar bears or Patagonian toothfish when you need them?

Anyway, Emma was naturally moved enough by the event as to affectionately dedicate a Facebook page to Alfie.  And ‘humble’ (that was how the media described him: do they actually know what proud and arrogant sheep look like?) Alfie now has like 25 times more Facebook friends than eyes4earth.org does.  Not that I’m jealous (well, does a little bitterness count?) but I’m now wondering if I might get more ‘Likes’ if I were to randomly and forcefully direct my head into women’s chests. My excuse for such lewd behaviour?  “Hey, can’t you see I’m sensing to save someone’s life here?!”

Text: MJZ

A group of prominent ecologists is calling on conservationists to stop bad-mouthing introduced species – and accept the fact that ecosystems will increasingly be a melting pot of “long-term residents and of new arrivals.”

“Over the past few decades, ‘non-native’ species have been vilified for driving beloved ‘native’ species to extinction and generally polluting ‘natural’ environments,” a team of 19 researchers write in Nature. “Intentionally or not, such characterizations have helped to create a pervasive bias against alien species that has been embraced by the public, conservationists, land managers and policy-makers, as well by as many scientists, throughout the world.”

One problem, they write, is that the “native-versus-alien” worldview ignores the fact that although some introduced species can have harmful impacts – especially in places like islands – they can also bring benefits. So while native North American pine beetles are now a major threat to trees, introduced honeysuckle vines and tamarisk trees (pictured) have become key habitat for some birds. And numerous efforts to eradicate invasives have proved expensive failures that make “little ecological or economic sense.”

Another challenge is “that human-induced impacts, such as climate change, nitrogen eutrophication, urbanization and land use change are making the native-versus-alien species dichotomy in conservation increasingly meaningless.” It is “impractical,” they add, “to try to restore ecosystems to some ‘rightful’ historical state.”

Conservationists shouldn’t abandon efforts to stop new invasions or solve serious problems caused by introduced species, they conclude. “But we urge conservationists and land managers to organize priorities around whether species are producing benefits or harm to biodiversity, human health, ecological services and economies.”

Source: David Malakoff, Conservation Magazine , 15 June, 2011
Original Source: Mark Davis et al. Don’t Judge Species On Their Origins. Nature, 9 June 2011, Vol. 474 (2011). www.nature.com.