Another Puppy in the Pile

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.

An active readership is essential to TL's vitality. Most of our articles, poems, and artwork come from readers, and we also depend almost entirely on readers for financial support. Producing a magazine using materials and methods aligned with our values (ecologically responsible paper, local printing and binding, etc.) costs substantially more than the "cheap, easy, dirty" methods too common in the publishing industry. Talking Leaves helps support the larger work of Lost Valley in many ways, both quantifiable and non-quantifiable, but both the magazine and this nonprofit educational center depend on an active membership, without which we will need to curtail our activities. Your support of Talking Leaves and Lost Valley helps us continue to offer quality educational programs and maintain a sanctuary for the evolution of the cultural and ecological understandings that we explore in these pages and at the educational center.

For up-to-date information about Talking Leaves and Lost Valley, please visit our websites: www.talkingleaves.org and www.lostvalley.org.

We now offer a wide range of membership premiums (see page 29), which we encourage you to take advantage of. Also, please let us hear from you. Next issue will see a resurrection of our "Talking Back" section, assuming we have enough diverse material to fill it. Most of the comments we received in response to last issue were along the lines of Amberllyn Peabody's--"This is a fantastic beautiful creation and I'm so grateful that you generate it season after season"--and author Jesse Wolf Hardin's: "Great looking issue, and I liked the way the slightly sepia toned ink looked on the hemp paper. I wish it were 400 pages long and read by everyone in the country, but even a thin volume on newsprint would be filling an essential role. I love TL so much, as many or few as I ever reach through it... It is a sacred alliance, venue and purpose." The only exceptions to this praise were comments we received about the "Gregory" article.

We want to know what you think. While we love appreciation, we also welcome challenges and diverse viewpoints. And we especially invite your submissions to future issues.

Thank you for being a part of TL and the community which surrounds it.

Chris Roth edits Talking Leaves.

©2002 Talking Leaves
Winter 2003
Volume 12, Number 4
Animals, Earth

Dog's Dream

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.

When any part of Dog thinks of itself as separate, not connected to every other part of Dog, Dogness is obscured. When the Dogness everywhere is not seen and celebrated, Dogness inside also withers. That can be a big problem for every part of Dog not honored, particularly on a local, sub-galactic level. But the good news is that Dogness is the immediate, underlying reality of everything. It can be accessed instantly.

This magazine is dedicated to Dogness, and to Dog.

Or do I have that backwards?

(If any of this is confusing to you, please don't give up. The rest of this issue may be far more understandable. But as Daffy has noted, words are of limited utility to Dog, who is often more comfortable chasing a paradox across a pond.)

Chris Roth edits Talking Leaves.

©2002 Talking Leaves
Winter 2003
Volume 12, Number 4
Animals, Earth

The Thurgood Report: Happenings Here and There

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.)

Some of my favorite long-time earth-loving friends attended the sixth annual Regional Permaculture Gathering at Lost Valley, September 13-15. Tom Ward made a special appearance to talk about social forestry (the only kind I can wholeheartedly recommend), Alan Kapuler gave a keynote address on everything under the sun, Mark Lakeman talked about the work of Portland's City Repair Project, a panel discussed the complexities and implications of genetic engineering, and many others shared their work in sessions large and small and in encounters planned and spontaneous. From my flicker's-eye view, this is how human beings were meant to be: strong, self-expressive individuals, flocking together for common ends and in a common spirit, helping create a better neighborhood on earth for everyone. Finally, you headstrong apes are catching on.

This natural sensitivity is being expressed on interpersonal and personal levels as well, in workshops like Naka-Ima, Breathe, The Practice, The Heart of Healing, and Compassionate Communication. I can't report much on these, because no one will let me into the room, but the people who go through them seem to emerge a lot less tied up in emotional and mental knots and much more able to feel their connections with every part of the world around them, including me.

A bunch of Lost Valleyites did a temporary migration to the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA, where eco-oriented humans of a feather flock together every October. As usual, those involved found abundant inspiration for their earth-oriented and people-serving work, much food for thought, and a sense of a greater, extended community. Then it was back to Lost Valley, to harvest the last green tomatoes, plant garlic and cover-crops, mulch beds, turn off the irrigation water, and settle into eating the wintertime crops.

Conferences in recent months have included the American Holistic Veterinarians, a second "Joining the Chorus of Life!" workshop with Joules Graves, and, coming right up, our twelfth annual Permaculture Design Course. Already, 40 out of 52 weekends are booked in the conference center for 2003.

Humans have such complicated lives, trying to make ends meet! Lost Valley has been financially challenged this year, and its various measures to address this situation include a fundraising mailing that many of you readers will have received. Please respond! The foundation of every membership-based nonprofit organization is membership. Thanks to Lost Valley Educational Center's presence here, I am assured of a good life, free from logging, habitat elimination, and other harassment. However, purchasing and maintaining the land and facilities have cost significant amounts of money, and Lost Valley is not supported by tax dollars nor can it have profit-seeking investors. If Lost Valley feels like "your country" to you, be patriotic and send in your donation or membership contribution today!

The community continues to change and grow, with some new members moving into the newly-completed fourplex units and other prospective members expressing interest in being here. Change is afoot in staffing as well, with several conference center jobs opening up. (Unfortunately, I have been told that "Flickers need not apply.") A Design Team has been working on assessing the organization's structural strengths and weaknesses, and coming up with ideas for restructuring that will address some of the challenges. At least once a year, I've noticed, the Lost Valley organization molts. It's dependable. And it's just as dependable that its new plumage is unique and beautiful, and that inside, the same heart keeps beating. So next year will be kind of the same, and kind of different, from 2002. I'm sure of it.

I was flattered that the Lost Creek Watershed Bird Class paid me a visit in early October. I plan to return the favor when the group starts meeting again in the spring. Perhaps I'll write about it, or maybe not. Until then, keep your wings dry.

 

©2002 Talking Leaves
Winter 2003
Volume 12, Number 4
Animals, Earth

The Unexplained Powers of Animals

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.

For the last five years, with the help of hundreds of animal trainers, shepherds, blind people with guide dogs, veterinarians, and pet owners, I have been investigating some of these unexplained powers of animals. There are three major categories of seemingly mysterious perceptiveness: namely telepathy, the sense of direction, and premonition.

 

Animal telepathy

The most common kinds of seemingly telepathic response are the anticipation by dogs and cats of their owners coming home; the anticipation of owners going away; the anticipation of being fed; cats disappearing when their owners intend to take them to the vet; dogs knowing when their owners are planning to take them for a walk; and animals that get excited when their owner is on the telephone, even before the telephone has been answered.

As skeptics rightly point out, some of these responses could be explained in terms of routine expectations, subtle sensory cues, chance coincidence, and selective memory, or put down to the imaginations of doting pet owners. These are reasonable hypotheses, but they should not be accepted in the absence of any evidence. To test these possibilities, it is necessary to do experiments.

My colleagues and I have concentrated on the phenomenon of dogs that know when their owners are coming home. Many pet owners have observed that their animals seem to anticipate the arrival of a member of the household, often 10 minutes or more in advance. The pets typically wait at a door, window or gate. In random household surveys in Britain and America, an average of 51 per cent of dog owners and 30 per cent of cat owners said they had noticed such anticipatory behavior.

The dog I have investigated in most detail is a terrier called Jaytee, who belongs to Pam Smart, in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester. Pam adopted Jaytee from Manchester Dogs' Home in 1989 when he was still a puppy, and soon formed a close bond with him. In 1991, when Pam was working as a secretary at a school in Manchester, she left Jaytee with her parents, who noticed that the dog went to the French window almost every weekday at about 4.30 pm, around the time she set off, and waited there until she arrived some 45 minutes later. She worked routine office hours, so the family assumed that Jaytee's behavior depended on some kind of time sense.

In 1993, when her job was made redundant, Pam became unemployed, no longer tied to any regular pattern of activity. Her parents did not usually know when she would be coming home, but Jaytee still anticipated her return. In 1994 Pam read an article about my research and volunteered to take part. In more than 100 experiments, we videotaped the area by the window where Jaytee waited during Pam's absences, providing a continuous, timecoded record of his behavior which was scored "blind" by a third party who did not know the details of the experiments. To check that Jaytee was not reacting to the sound of Pam's car or other familiar vehicles, we investigated whether he still anticipated her arrival when she traveled by unusual means: by bicycle, by train, and by taxi. He did.

We also carried out experiments in which Pam set off at times selected at random after she had left home, communicated to her by means of a telephone pager. In these experiments, Jaytee still started waiting at the window around the time Pam set off, even though no one at home knew when she would be coming. The odds against this being a chance effect were more than 100,000 to one. Jaytee behaved in a very similar way when he was tested repeatedly by skeptics anxious to debunk his abilities. The evidence indicates that Jaytee was reacting to Pam's intention to come home even when she was many miles away. Telepathy seems the only hypothesis that can account for the facts.

Other kinds of animal telepathy can also be investigated experimentally, for example the apparent ability of dogs to know when they are going to be taken for walks. In these experiments the dogs are kept in a separate room or outbuilding and videotaped continuously. Meanwhile their owner, at a randomly selected time, thinks about taking them for a walk and then five minutes later does so. Our experiments have shown dogs exhibiting obvious excitement when their owner is thinking about taking them out, although they could not have known this by normal sensory means. They did not manifest such excitement at other times.

There is much potential for further research on animal telepathy. And if domestic animals are telepathic with their human owners, then it seems very likely that animals are telepathic with each other, and that this may play an important part in the wild. Some naturalists have already suggested that the coordination of flocks of birds and herds of animals may involve something like telepathy, as may communication between members of a pack of wolves.

 

The sense of direction

Homing pigeons can find their way back to their loft over hundreds of miles of unfamiliar terrain. Migrating European swallows travel thousands of miles to their feeding grounds in Africa, and in the spring return to their native place, even to the very same building where they nested before. Some dogs, cats, horses, and other domesticated animals also have a good sense of direction and can make their way home from unfamiliar places many miles away. Their ability to find their distant destinations cannot be accounted for in terms of smell, nor any of the known senses. Even if some species have a compass sense, enabling them to detect the earth's magnetic field, this cannot in itself explain their ability to navigate. If you were taken to an unfamiliar place and given a compass, you would know where north was, but not the direction of your home.

Sometimes animals "home" not to places but to people. Some dog owners who have gone away and left their pet behind are found by the animal in distant places to which it has never been before. Tracking the person by smell or random searches may explain some cases when the distances are short, but in others the only feasible explanation seems to be some kind of invisible connection between the animal and the person to whom they are bonded.

 

Premonitions

Some seeming premonitions by animals may be explicable in terms of physical stimuli: for example, animals that become disturbed before earthquakes may be reacting to electrical changes in the atmosphere, or dogs that alert their epileptic owners to an impending fit may notice subtle muscular tremors or unusual odors. But there are other kinds of mysterious forebodings for which there is at present no convincing scientific explanation.

All three types of perceptiveness--telepathy, the sense of direction, and premonitions--seem better developed in non-human species like dogs than they are in people. Nevertheless they occur in the human realm too, but they seem to be better developed in traditional cultures than in the modern industrial world. Maybe we have lost some of these abilities because we no longer need them: telephones and television have superseded telepathy; maps and global positioning systems have replaced the sense of direction. And perceptiveness is not cultivated in our educational system. Indeed the existence of unexplained powers is not only ignored but often denied. Nevertheless, human "sixth senses" have not gone away. They look more natural, more biological, when they are seen in the light of animal behavior. Much that appears "paranormal" at present looks normal when we expand our ideas of normality. But we need to expand our view of physics as well as of biology if these phenomena are to be explained at a more fundamental level.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society in biochemistry. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California, and lives in London. His book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals is published by Crown Books, New York. His web site is www.sheldrake.org.

Rupert Sheldrake will be co-teaching a course at Schumacher College, Devon, UK from February 9-28, 2003, entitled "Animal Magic: Science Beyond the Microscope." For more information, contact the Administrator, Schumacher College, The Old Postern, Dartington, Devon TQ9 6EA, telephone: 01803 865 934, email: [email protected], website: www.schumachercollege.org.uk.

Schumacher College is an international center for ecological studies that welcomes course participants from all over the world. The College runs short courses on ecological issues and a one-year MSc in Holistic Science.

 

©2002 Talking Leaves
Winter 2003
Volume 12, Number 4
Animals, Earth

Unreasonable Women for Peace

We thank Penny Livingston-Stark of the Permaculture Institute of Northern California for forwarding us the following story and accompanying photo, which arrived via email just before our press deadline. For further information, contact Donna Sheenan at [email protected].