LESSONS LEARNED FROM WILD ANIMALS
June 9th, 2011No comments »
Traditionally,Zookinesis training required spending part of each year living in the wild, learning directly from animals. I had the opportunity for many years to do this and much of my teachings are an attempt to convey that training.
The first thing you realize when working with wild animals is that their attention connects to you from their whole bodies. Our attention moves out from us mainly from our eyes. You can feel the force of an animal’s attention moving out from its whole body like a huge, slow and unstoppable tidal wave. Every part of its body is connected to every part of your body, so that it can sense what you are about to do before you actually do it.
The next thing you notice is that every part of its body is ready to act at any time. There is no deadness in a wild animal, until it actually dies. When it does act, it does so with ease and with no excess movement. Its whole attention is in what it is doing. There is no hesitation. It knows its power and allows its power to jump out fully in each act.
The power of an animal is that it knows its body and its energy, and these are always accessible. It lives and functions in the environment that gave rise to that animal and so the animal and its environment form one completely connected whole. It does not have something better to do. Each moment is the culmination of its life. Each moment is the fulfillment of its life because it is the expression of its power. This creates a state of relaxation at most times. If it has to move quickly to attack prey or to escape from a predator, it can go from relaxation to full activity instantly.
Can we adapt some of these qualities to our lives? We do not live in a natural environment in most cases but certainly we don’t like to witness the rapid degeneration of our bodies and our natural spirits. There is a natural spirit inside you waiting patiently for you to act to restore its place in your life.
You can act through your daily practice, whatever it may be. Even if you put aside 5 minutes a day to practice you have made a commitment to restore your natural spirit. Modern life is very hurried and there is a tendency to put off taking care of yourself to get some “work” done. There will always be work to do until you die. But when will you live?
If each of us restores a little of our natural spirit and makes a little time each day to remember the living biological creature that we are, that itself can affect the culture. Imagine if it was expected that everyone do a few minutes of Tai-chi, Yoga, Pilates or some other such practice every day. Imagine if it were odd if someone did not do that.
Maintaining your health would become an expected part of life. The idea of always being hurried would start to be questioned. Then maybe we, as a nation, can return to a more reasonable way of life. We can leave a legacy to our children of a more enjoyable way of life by beginning to live more naturally today.
