Introduction to Somatics (To read this document in Word: Somatic Experience #1)

For our ILC, Kirsten and I are both undertaking what we are calling somatic experiences. Somatics relates to the relationship between the body, the sensual world, and the mind, all working in unison. We will be going out into the world, in search of deep connection, and writing about our experiences.

Until a few years ago, I was in a somatic writing group. We would move our bodies, in fun and weird ways, and then take notes in the form of wild bits of unedited, immediate free form poetry. We would then read these notes out loud. This was a form of unedited trust exercise between our bodies and minds, a true giving over to emotional, embodied writing.

This is my aim with these somatic experiences, to cultivate a sense of deep trust of my own intuitive voice. I will be engaging in free writing, with a focus on the emotionality brought on by these specific experiences. However, in this case, I am planning on doing some editing, while still maintaining the integrity of the original writing, to provide the reader with a narrative that is easier to follow.

Zoochosis

Zoochosis is abnormal behavior displayed by animals kept in captivity, signaling high levels of mental distress in these animals. Some signs of zoochosis are pacing, head bobbing, vomiting, self mutilation, coprophilia and coprophagia, tongue playing, bar biting, swaying, and rocking.[1]

“People complain that we treat animals like objects, but in fact we treat them like prisoners of war. Do you know that when zoos were first opened to the public, the keepers had to protect the animals against attacks by spectators? The spectators felt the animals were there to be insulted and abused, like prisoners in a triumph.”                                                                                                                                                                                                           -from The Lives of Animals by JM Coetzee

How little things have changed.

Animal Once Again

Perhaps the most phenomenal thing about the human animal is our ability to imagine. One of the positive side effects of the imagination is that we have at our disposal the ability to empathize deeply with anything that stirs our hearts. I am writing this to ask you, the reader, whoever you may be, to tap into this sympathetic well. Humans can only view the world through the lens of the human, but I am asking you to imagine yourself into the body of another, one of your kin.

There are obstacles to this. I am using words to express something neither of you or I have hope of ever comprehending. Giving voice to the voiceless? No, I am asking you to hear what is already there.

The Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae). The Sumatran tiger is a rare subspecies of tiger, endemic to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They are listed as Critically Endangered. As of 1978, there were approximately 1,000 Sumatran tigers in the wild, as of 2008 their estimated population consisted of 441 to 679 individuals. [2] Panthera tigris sumatrae…read the Latin out loud, it is an invocation.

Imagine this, your body is striped orange and black in it’s own entirely unique pattern.* This pattern helps you to become a shadow in the dappled sunlight of the forest. Your body burns the color of the setting sun. Imagine this, your teeth are finely crafted and fierce, your claws are like knives tapering to the sharpest diamond tip , your eyes are so deeply focused that nothing escapes their stare. Your every cell vibrates and screams out for the hunt. You were made to bring death, but death of this kind is also medicine. You keep your prey healthy and awake. It is the vitality of life; the blood, muscle, and fat, that feed you.

Imagine all of this and then imagine plastic, concrete, metal, and glass. Imagine prey walking just on the other side of all this. Your keen senses can smell them, hear them, taste their blood on the breeze. They stand inches away from you shouting, pounding, flashing light in your face, taunting you and you cannot, no matter how hard you try answer the predatory call that vibrates throughout your body. You were born in the wrong part of the world, and have known nothing but this too small enclosure, have known nothing but incarceration. Your food is processed and frozen, and in spite of your deadly physiology, which is more truth that cruelty, you have never taken a life, have never earned your meal in the way that you were meant to.

What insult all of this nonsense, and so what do you do, after experiencing this day in and day out. You go mad. You pace back and forth for hours on end and you stare straight through the taunts of your prey, you simply quit seeing with the holy eyes that you were given. The fire goes out and you can no longer see. The pacing at least, gives you some sense of control. In your mind you are thousands of miles from here, you aren’t pacing, but instead you are roaming the forest that your genetics sprang from. The most heartbreaking part of it all, is that even here, deep in your head in the place where you belong, even here there is no game to be found, and so the edge on your madness dulls with each day until you are a shadow, but not the shadow you are supposed to be. You no longer burn with the setting of the sun, but instead you are a shadow of plastic, concrete, metal, and glass.

**********

During our trip to the zoo, I witnessed behavior, such as the pacing of the tiger, that I intuited as something akin to madness. We also watched as an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) stood in place, shaking her head back and forth for a long period of time. Upon returning home that evening, I did some research that led me to the term zoochosis. The behaviors that we witnessed were indeed behaviors that are recognized, in those specific species, as signs of zoochosis.

In my own cosmology, I see the tiger as the antithesis of rationality and domestication. To break a tiger, to turn it into an unnatural shadow is a true crime.

Notes

* Tigers each have their own unique set of stripes, not unlike the fingerprints of certain primates.

References

[1] Keep Wildlife in the Wild. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/zoo-check/captive-wildlife-issues/abnormal-behaviours/

[2] Linkie, M.; Wibisono, H. T.; Martyr, D. J.; Sunarto, S. (2008). “Panthera tigris sumatrae”. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2015.2 International Union for Conservation of Nature. 

Sources for images (in order of use)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/80/9a/61/809a61feee88a14ae444debdc0005242–circulatory-system-blood-vessels.jpg

http://wildlife-land.blogspot.com/2013/10/sumatran-tigers-swim.html

Notes from the Zoo

• Exotic plants such as Chilean rhubarb, golden Japanese forest grass are labeled, while the native plants in the landscaping are not.
• An experience of wilderness mitigated by metal, glass, and plastic enclosures.
• Overheard while watching the black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), a critically endangered species, “That’s fun!” The obvious question in response would be “For who?” Imprisonment as entertainment.
• (At the aquarium) What do they think vs. how do they think when they swim by the glass and see hundreds of human eyes spying on their world?
• Illuminated faces of fish in their tank, illuminated faces of humans on their phones. A group of five young children drawn like moths to the glow of their mother’s cell phone. “Don’t touch!” What is the point of these animals living and dying in captivity if people are just going to spend their time staring into their phones?
• During a talk at the giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) enclosure the docent explains to us that the reason a clothes hamper has made a sudden appearance in the tank is “basket enrichment”. That’s what an octopus has to look forward to in captivity, a white, plastic clothes hamper. Also, why is something with the word giant in its name living in such a small enclosure?
• Sumatran tiger pacing back and forth behind glass, a small girl matching him step for step. This thick pane of glass is the only thing separating the tiger from a quick and easy meal.
• Animal pacing, what does it mean? No eye contact, as if he is gazing through us at some distant plane. One man’s reaction to the pacing, “It’s like watching a tennis match!” How sad it is when the life of a tiger resembles a tennis match.
• When was the last time this tiger chased down prey? Has he/she ever?
• How does madness present itself in non-human animals? Is it the tiger pacing, the elephant standing in place, head swaying back and forth?