2003 Winter

At one time, Dog was very compact and intense, unmistakable in Her power. There was no arguing with Dog. Dog was the only thing that was.

Dog had a weird dream, and exploded into a thousand billion quadrillion pieces. Everything that came after has been a part of Dog. But Dog has assumed such diverse forms that some of these pieces not only forget that they are part of Dog, but fail to recognize the Dogness in anything.

Scientists are studying a planet in the outer arm of a vast spiral galaxy, also, of course, a part of Dog. Some of the parts of this part plant themselves in one place, and can't move too much on their own. Others move around quite a bit. They are all Dog. Sometimes, the Dogness of some of the parts shines through particularly brightly to other parts of Dog. When a rufous-colored cat befriends a young human child, when tall trees call out "we are here, we are alive, we are your kin" to a child grown older, when countless plants of all sizes fascinate a budding botanist with their complexity and practical intelligence, when birds, salmon, and deer reveal wisdom, awareness, and beauty that surpass what's found in any book, video, or other human-created artifact...then Dog is making a stand.

According to recent random household surveys in England and the United States, many pet owners believe their animals are sometimes telepathic with them. An average of 48 per cent of dog owners and 33 per cent of cat owners said that their pets responded to their thoughts or silent commands. Many horse trainers and riders believe that their horse can pick up their intentions telepathically. Some companion animals even seem able to tell when a particular person is on the telephone before the receiver has been picked up. For example, when the telephone rings in the household of a noted professor at the University of California at Berkeley, his wife knows when her husband is on the other end of the line because Whiskins, their silver tabby cat, rushes to the telephone and paws at the receiver. "Many times he succeeds in taking it off the hook and makes appreciative meows that are clearly audible to my husband at the other end," she says. "If someone else telephones, Whiskins takes no notice." The cat responds even when he telephones home from field trips in Africa or South America.

People experienced with animals often tell stories that suggest the existence of forms of communication at present unknown to science. Surprisingly little research has been done on these phenomena. Biologists have been inhibited by the taboo against "the paranormal," and psychical researchers and parapsychologists have with few exceptions confined their attention to human beings.

This issue is the sixteenth completed since Lost Valley Educational Center assumed publication of Talking Leaves from the Deep Ecology Education Project five years ago. This is also our fourth consecutive issue printed entirely on Vanguard Recycled Plus (10% hemp/flax, 90% post-consumer waste, no chlorine bleaching), produced by Living Tree Paper Company, whose founder and president, Carolyn Moran, launched DEEP and Talking Leaves nearly fourteen years ago.

Like Lost Valley Educational Center (also founded in 1989), Talking Leaves is a being in evolution, an adolescent. We can expect more changes ahead. We at Lost Valley are currently in our annual visioning and planning process for the coming year, so we do not yet know specifically what those changes will be. Because Talking Leaves is a unique vehicle for networking, education, and inspiration within the local and larger communities of people devoted to evolving an ecological culture, we are committed to its continued existence and flourishing. We see it as an important meeting-place both for those with personal experience of Lost Valley and for those whom we have never met personally but for whom its mission and contents resonate with their own life paths. Some of our readers and contributors date from TL's very beginnings, while for many of you, this may be one of your first issues.

By Thurgood, a Lost Valley resident Northern Flicker

 

A lot of water has passed under the bridge, figuratively speaking, since our last issue of Talking Leaves. (Literally speaking, however, we've had a drought, and the rains are only just starting again as of late October.) Since Lost Valley's human residents have been too busy to keep track of it all and report it with some sense of perspective, I have been drafted to try to provide an update and overview.

While our Fall issue was at the printer, Laura Kemp presented her "Songwriting in the Garden" workshop and concert at Lost Valley on August 17. From my vantage point high in a Douglas fir tree, it looked like a smashing success. The ten or so people in the workshop each had a chance to share their experiences and ideas, and learned from Laura that it may take years of playing other people's music before one discovers one's own songwriting voice. I know this is true in the bird world: many Lazuli buntings shamelessly plagiarize their neighbors' songs before finally settling on their own. And most starlings are outright copycats. The humans in the workshop all seemed to finish it feeling more empowered to make music, or to pursue whatever form of creative expression shakes their tree. In the evening, Laura performed a beautiful solo concert of her own intimate, personal, multidimensional folk music on the lawn outside the main lodge. Community members and attendees of Lisle's Pacific Northwest Sustainable Future program soaked it in, and one woman even tried to convince Laura to fly to Germany to do a concert. That's a little far to fly, in my opinion, especially carrying a guitar. (Plus, Laura has a garden to tend to, not to mention two cats to keep in check.)

Winter 2003

Volume 12, Number 4
Animals, Earth

CONTENTS

* "Notes from the Editor: Dog's Dream" by Chris Roth
* In the Domain of the Wolf by Richard J. Oddo
* "More Notes: Another Puppy in the Pile" by Chris Roth
* Gregory: The Disclaimer TL Forgot
* "The Unexplained Powers of Animals" by Rupert Sheldrake
* The Face of God by Leslie Rubinstein
* "Herald of Summer" by Victoria Stoppiello
* "Willie and I Go Up the Hill" by Lindsay Cobb
* deer & home by Devon Bonady