Anointed as "Special"

Since mid-August I've been housebound, to a degree, largely due to a profound back injury delivered to me by a lively horse that decided it most certainly did not wish to go galloping across the open plains of Kazakhstan.

At least not with a rider aboard.

This horse had already relieved itself of me once. Being a skydiver, I had done a nifty tuck and roll over its left shoulder, stood back up and remounted. It had just been cantering. No harm, no foul. Clearly I didn't get the hint.

The second time, there were four vertebrae broken. The kind of massive force injury that NFL players get when a 400-lb lineman bulldozes them in the kidney. Then they are carted off the field, waving goodbye to the fans.

In my case, I was laid sideways onto the floor of a stifling hot van and carted 25 kilometers to a Russian-era hospital which was bereft of hot water, soap, toilet paper, decent food, showers, any amenities whatsoever, including sanitary practices.

I woke up one morning and nearly impaled my left foot on the syringe that was left on the floor from the previous night's pain injection. But I got through and got home.

So here I sit. For weeks, I've had to the chance to study my yard. For the first time it dawned on me that I actually owned a bird bath. That if I bothered to fill it with water, birds might actually use it. Ya think?

My back yard was transformed. When a female hawk landed one day I found out she was nesting nearby. We have rabbits. LOTS of rabbits.

Unable to do much more than read or work or yoga, I have had lots of time to study the local wild life. One bunny in particular has captured my fancy.

He refuses to leave the yard when I am in it. He doesn't bolt, like his brethren. He stays, chomps, grooms, preens, sleeps.

That doesn't make me or my yard "special." That's just his (or her) personality.

I've taken to greeting this bunny. For want of entertainment I join it for breakfast and dinner. I weed the yard while it eats. One day it inspected my plate while I searched for a particularly pernicious weed.

Cheeky.

It could easily be doing this in everybody else's yard too, unless he gets chased off for chewing on the broccoli.

Here, we sit in companionable silence, I munch, it munches.

The other night I was sitting under my new maple eating almonds and engrossed in my book. When I looked up, Bunny was missing. I carefully scanned the yard, and there it was, about three feet from my elbow. Grazing away.

That doesn't make me "special."

I massage animals all over the world. I have had some amazing, transformative experiences. For all I know this little bunny might someday walk over my leg. On my lap.

That doesn't make me "special."

The horse that nearly killed me? I had taken lots of time to massage it, rub its ears and belly. Feed it, do what I could to establish a connection. It sure made me feel "special." Each time I get up from this chair I'm reminded of how special I was to that horse.

Humans desperately want an animal to pick them out, to anoint them in some way as different. We see stories all the time on Facebook. This diver with a relationship with a fish. That person with a relationship with an elephant. I've had those too. That doesn't make me "special." Those animals- some of them wild- had personalities as unique to them as mine is to me, as yours is to you. Sometimes it's what gets a wolf or orca killed. Because they made the mistake of reaching out to us. In their language. Which is what gets them murdered. Because they are not a what, they are a "who." Each animal, down to every single fish in an entire school, has a unique way of being.

The bunny in my yard, is, to me, a "who."

I learned a lot about this while reading Carl Safina's book Beyond Words. If you claim to be an animal lover, and most of us do, you honestly have to read this book. It's not optional. It's required reading. Because if you do care about animals then you have to care about not only what we are doing to them but also to the world they are struggling mightily to survive in. It is both heartbreaking and uplifting.

What I've also learned in my own experience through massaging creatures as huge as a 500 lb. tiger and a two-ton elephant down to tiny puppies is that everything communicates. That doesn't make me a nut case. It does make me humble as hell. I'm the one who's ignorant here.

In fact, we all are. We are wiping animals out- each with its own language - in record numbers. Just as we have done with indigenous populations. People whom the conquerors didn't deem worthy. Beneath them. People with intelligence, languages, personalities. Wiped off the face of the earth. Like we are doing with animals, plants, fish. At an astonishing, horrifying rate. Killing off our oceans, our corals, our air, our forests, our wildlife, our fish supplies, starving our whales, creatures with complex, incredible languages and social structures and the ability to train their young how to hunt and fish. Whales who swim up to boats to be petted by people, and swim away, bored, if they aren't touched. That's who we are killing off, starving to death. Wiping out. Killing from bombing exercises by our own Navy which will deny or obfuscate. Or say that "the data are inconclusive."

Not what, who.

No different from the genocide currently being committed in Burma. No less horrific for its long term impact. Perhaps even more so in terms of loss to us all.

Everyone who has ever owned a dog knows there's a "who" and not a "what" going on behind those eyes. Same with cats. Horses. Because we've taken the time to get to know them. Some are smart, some dumb, some clever, some insane, some downright mean. Wildlife is the same way. Why on earth shouldn't they be? Why is it such a stretch to allow intelligence, personality and language skills-unique to every species- to every creature on earth?

Because then we might have to take full responsibility for the devastation we've caused, and continue to cause.

No animal is going to speak English even though certain apes are quite capable of sign language. That's not the outcome here. The outcome, more importantly, is whether we are going to learn to communicate with them on their terms before they are irretrievably gone. Elephants, tigers, lions, too many to list. Can we learn to ask the right questions? Can we set aside our arrogance in order to learn from them rather than trying to teach them parlor tricks that allow us to continue to feel superior to them?

Some very good people are asking those questions.

However, we're running out of time.

My backyard bunny has a lot to fear. Winter is coming. The hawk is hungry. She has chicks to feed.

But nothing to worry about from me.

Bunny's welcome to nick salad from my dinner plate. S/he chomps my dandelions. We hang out. We'll see where this goes.

I'll tell you one thing, it's a lot better than dating.