What if you don’t care about something, some”thing” like animals?
After all, in a way there are just like a backdrop for us humans to use or enjoy, right? They don’t really have sentience, or emotions, right? No inherent right for beingness, so human abusing them by the billions does not really matter?
During one of the courses I attended, the presenter mentioned one of the things they didn’t care about. I found myself not angry, but rather surprised and a bit disappointed, but I respected them and their work so much, and it is so good for so many and the planet, that I just filed it away. But it did actually hurt inside hearing it. I have also, for myself, come to understand the truth of a quote attributed to Anatole France “Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
It is true, no one should tell anyone else what they are supposed to care about. For me too, caring about something does not mean I have to give to give my life and energy and resources to it. For me, there are different levels of caring too, as an example, if I had a child that was transgender, I would care a whole lot more about LGBTQ rights. But that does not mean I don’t care. For me, someone not caring about the abuse and suffering of billions of animals at the hands of humans, just tells me that they are not awake in that aspect of their being. Not really. Possible in the head , but not really. Nothing wrong with that, just what it is for me.
That is the short version.
Now the long version.
Mothercode is everywhere, not just in human mothers.
I happened to come across a post where someone who I respect and whose work I consider transformative and important, brought up caring – don’t care about 2 things, and didn’t want to say more there not wanting anyone getting mad (of course, I am also beginning to think some of what was said nowadays is just marketing, this is new for me), so anyway, I read that post just before going up in the loft to lay down for a bit.
When I lay down in the loft of my office, I look up to a small, now the size of a fist, structure under the roof. It started small. At first it had scared me, because it was a wasp nest and I have very bad reaction to the stings. But, I looked it up, this was a non-aggressive solitary wasp and the structure was made of mud, which hardens as it dries. So many times I laid there and heard this sound, people call it song, that she makes when she is building and molding the individual brood chambers. You see, day after day, week after week, she works to care for her young. She is a mother, following her mother code. The care she takes to build this, then the food she catches (spiders) putting one in first, then she lays her fertilized egg, then more spiders for the food supply while this little creature is developing into and adult, who will emerge in the spring, find a mate and a place to start over. A mother code in action, and on her level she cares, even though it is all build-in genetic program…or is it? Who is anyone to not attribute some type of consciousness to this creature. Myself, I admire her persistence, her constant working, her fortifying and molding the structure that will house and feed her “babies”. She has been working on this tirelessly for a few months now. And here I am knowing I will have difficulty removing the nest, but, I can’t see having all these new wasps next year doing the same thing. I don’t even have to wait till next year. She told another wasp about this safe place to be. Well….I’ll leave it at that.
I have worked in a garden for 7 years now trying to incorporate chickens. In the course of that, I also had the opportunity to see some hens go broody, where they go into some kind of altered state to be able to sit and incubate eggs for 21 days. They barely eat and they develop into ferocious little creatures during that time. If they don’t trust you, better wear gloves if you need to check on the eggs for candling them. They start “talking”, making certain sounds, to their babies while they are still inside the egg. You can hear the little ones making sounds back. You can hear them as they try to get out of the egg. The chicks work so incredibly hard to break free and for hours afterward they are completely exhausted. During those times, the mothers often stand up just a tiny bit to give them more room, once I saw a mama help their chick out of the egg. And then they rest for a few hours…but if I put a little chick feed by where the nest is, she mother hen makes this sound she only makes to little chicks, pretty soon she will start leaving the nest and they follow her, but on the first outings, she does not go far, rests frequently offering her protective wings for them to snuggle under. She can tell when they got cold too. She gets all exited when she find a little larva for them, calling them. The teaches them what to eat, who to trust and care for them until her mother code is done.
But then…there was this cat that came to the garden one cold and rainy winter. I was feeding an abandoned male and while calling him, she learned to recognize there was food. She was shy and I thought she must be feeding elsewhere too because…she was getting so fat. Then on day I saw blood where she had come to the food bowl. I thought to myself that she musta not been fat, but pregnant. I have no idea where she lived and raised those kittens, but she ate for 3 or 4. She was hungry all the time. After 6 or 7 weeks, I see little flashes of something as she came. She had brought the kittens. She was doing her mother code. Of course, I had to trap them and they all got spayed or neutered.
Then I go to this organic farm because the lady orders my chicken feed. One day I am there and all these cows are mooing. I ask her, what is going on. So after several MONTHS being with their mother, she had separated the adolescents from the mother cows, but the mothers kept calling….and she said, I can’t stand it, if they keep this up, I will put them back together. But that is nothing when you have seen mama cows in the milk industry after their babies are taken away from them…the pain, the struggle, the cries….they feel …and the calves, unspeakable.
And dogs.…they are most purely loving creatures on earth. I have my reasons for saying this, but …long story short, mother codes are everywhere in the creatures on this planet.
Fish, surely fish don’t really feel or are conscious, or care? I help someone take care of their 250 gallon fish tank. There was a time when a 1.5 inch bottom dweller pretty much spent most of their time in the front right corner of the fish tank. When five inch-long tin foil barbs got added to the tank, those 5 stayed on one side of the tank for a long time. Eventually, they made it to the other side as a group. During one of those early adventuresome and daring crossings, one of the little guys ended up alone on the side where the little bottom dweller stayed while the other 4 swam across the tank. The one left behind swam around a little lost for a while, not daring to cross the tank by himself. After a while, he just hung out with the previously lone bottom dweller. What followed is something I would have a hard time believing had I not witnessed it. The little bottom dweller slowly went to the middle of the fish tank, the baby tinfoil barb following him…when there reached the middle, the baby dashed to his 4 swarm mates and the little bottom dweller went back into his corner. Even fish care.
My awakening to what happens to animals and the unspeakable suffering we cause them only happened about 10 years ago. Of course I cared from them before, but that year I cried more than I will ever cry in my entire life. I didn’t go visit a factory farm facility, I watched the videos….but feelingly present. My entire level of caring went to a level I could not have imagined before. When the heart opens, it feels.
Recently I listened to a podcast with Daniel Schmachtenberger. He said something like:
In the process of widening and deepening the circle of and depth for caring, you go visit an animal factory farming facility and after seeing that, you have to ask yourself: ”….fuck, in what system of mine is there any success as long as these beings (animals?) are suffering like this. …”. I hope that was the quote exactly.
The other day I spent time with a 4 year old. There was a spider and the girl was freaking out a little and I asked her, why, “It’s a spider.”…and there was fear, but also, no other perspective. She thought the cobwebs had to be cleaned, and only got another idea when I said they live there, that is their home, and I tell them (the spiders), you can live up there but not down here on the shelf. We looked for spiders online, the cute ones and the ones you need to stay away from. We had fun doing this. After a while she repeatedly said “I love you”.
There is mother instinct and programming and – caring is also taught and learned. There are levels of caring that are a choice. And there is willful ignorance.
Mother code is universal, caring for one’s offspring is universal. For humans, caring needs to be lived and taught. A long time ago I realized that animal advocates won’t get anywhere fast if the root causes for cruelty to these sentient and feeling creatures is not dealt with, and it starts with caring for baby humans as they come in, therefore with the mothers, who then care for the babies in a way that is needed, good enough. Somehow in our Western capitalistic “civilization”, we forgot how to care for our own offspring in a way that allow them to grow up feeling whole and healthy. Children also deserve and need to get to know nature, not just an indoor environment. They need to play and explore, need to be taught entirely differently than today if the world, our ecosystem, is to become healthy, and frankly, survive.
I don’t have children, but I worked with them for 20 years as a pediatrician. I care about the children of today and the world we leave them. I have no idea how one can teach a child to care about animals and other creatures, the environment when there is such a blank and dismissive sounding: I don’t care about animals. It is like saying: I don’t care if humans make it (which is a valid point for many these days), it’s okay to be abusive to animals, it’s okay if they go extinct. But if animals don’t make it, all work on anything today will be more or less for nothing as far as our children are concerned.
But ya, ultimately, it is the humans that need to be cared for, taught and learn to contain their destructive impulses, heal their traumatized nervous system and grow into functionally mature human beings with an ability to care deeply.
I can respect someone and their work a lot and at the same time, when I hear: “I don’t care about animals”, i can’t imagine they ever really loved an animal…and part of their soul remains unawakened. That is neither good or bad, but it made me sad. Luckily, lots of other people do, though unlike in some subjects, there is usually no money in it.
There is a book about wolves I recommend. It is written by a couple who lived with them for several years for the purpose of observation. It is not a sentimental kind of book.
The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack
Jim and Jamie Dutcher