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CAN MAKIND SURVIVE ALONE

   by LA



I was standing quietly in the shade of a large Marula tree, on a hot African afternoon, lazily watching a herd of elephant, when for a split second I thought I became aware of an emanation from the herd which seemed to gently envelope the surrounding bush. It was so incredibly light and ethereal that I almost missed it. Thats not possible I thought, pulling myself out of my daydream.

It is difficult to describe the nature of the occurrence, but it was somewhat like an almost imperceptible sense of being or sense of character coming from the elephant.
 
The experience nudged me into the here and now and I focused and waited to see if I could pick it up again. Something unusual had happened of that much I was sure. I waited. Nothing at all. After a time I lost interest, explained it away as one of those things, and continued on idly watching the herd as I had done before.
 
A little later it happened again, interrupting my reverie. It was the lightest touch, almost imperceptible then it was gone again. Something inexplicable was happening and it appeared to be associated with the herd. I was surprised that in all the years I had spent with Elephant I had never noticed or sensed anything like this before.

So I waited, this time purposefully going back to exactly what I was doing before, just being there unconcernedly part of the bush, and not expecting anything to happen. Suddenly, the emanation drifted in and out. This was absolutely incredible for now I was certain that whatever this was, it was definitely associated with the herd of elephant spread out through the bushveld about 50 meters in front of me.
 
For the next few hours I worked at it. Working at it, though, is the wrong term, because any semblance of effort or attention on my part seemed to have a negative effect. Nevertheless, by trial and error, I slowly learned to be able to just be there and let whatever was happening happen; and with this technique I started to get some results.
Eventually I started getting the hang of it and eventually, under the right circumstances it became easier and easier to tune in.
 
And what did I find? Well, I had somehow become aware of a most delicate emotional field of sorts created by and surrounding the herd. The emanation varied but appeared to embody the character or emotional tone of the herd. What was clear to me that this was a something which I had not previously encountered? I have since learned to look for this whenever I encounter elephant, and have as a result substantially improved my ability to understand these magnificent behemoths of the bush.
 
How does one find the words to describe such a phenomenon? Well one cant because such words simply just dont exist at this time.

Words are only the symbols which we use to describe concepts, and if the concept doesnt exist or has not been clearly defined, and then neither does the word. Its as simple as that. Words like telepathy or ESP for instance, [and I am not saying my experience was either] have earned themselves the disdain of the scientific community because the concept is not fully understood or proven.
 
Proof though is a relative thing. History is replete with examples of irrefutable proof laid bare still not being accepted by the authorities. There are many classic examples of well evidenced and substantiated hypothesis having been consigned to the dustbin for years because they were not validated by the right person or did not originate in the correct institute. The risk of possible injury to career and reputation has kept some of our brightest minds from overstepping peer boundaries. It appears clear that the status quo is well defended.
 
The inability to adequately conceptualize or describe a phenomenon though does not invalidate the phenomenon itself.

Science, of necessity, must validate the known at the expense of anything not yet fully understood, and is, thus, bound by self-imposed perimeters. Such is the nature of the beast, that everything yet unknown, which is probably 99.% of what there is to know of the Earth and its inhabitants, must be invalidated, until not only is it formally postulated and proven, but homage paid to the authorities.    

Clear, obvious, demonstrable, can be perceived yes, scientifically proven no.
 
Animals, [let me state it now, and trust that those for whom the following is true will rise to my defence when a legion of critics come out of the woodwork] are inherently possessed of qualities and abilities, well beyond the ability of science to yet decipher. Elephant cannot repair a computer, but they do have communication abilities, physical and metaphysical, that would make Bill Gates mouth drop open. In some very important ways they are way ahead of us.
 
These qualities are quite evident throughout the animal kingdom. There is nothing which serves to focus the mind more readily, than participating in nature and observing the obvious, to turn a lot of what you always knew to be true on its head. 

Animals, and believe it or not, insects and plants, possess many life qualities well outside our abilities to sense, interpret or yet understand. These abilities vary considerably species to species and individual to individual, but without doubt, for me at least, in Elephant it is most obvious.

And, no, its not because of scent, sight, subsonic sounds or some of the other rote explanations, although these play their part. We do live in a physical universe, but the real question is - To what extent are still to be discovered, or metaphysical phenomena playing a part? And herein lays the rub, for this area lies almost entirely outside the realm of science.
 
Have a look at the following examples and draw your own conclusions on their validity.
 
Any game capture expert knows that if you take a decision to dart and capture, say Rhino, you need to prepare to start looking hard for them, because you may not see one for miles. The next week, however, when you change your plans, and go out to dart Buffalo, the Rhino, which you couldnt find the week before, will stand unconcerned grazing just a few meters from you while you scan the horizon for buffalo. The Rhino know just as well as if they had been told when they are, and when they are no longer the target.
 
This occurs with many types of animals and can be even more precise. I have witnessed a hunter with a specific authority to shoot only a male Impala antelope from a bachelor herd, and watched as he came across a lone male impala with a herd of breeding females. This prize trophy stood casually looking at the hunter, whilst behind the off limits male, a bachelor herd would be running for their lives.

The breeding male knew that he was completely safe. The bachelors on the other hand were getting as far away as possible. They too knew exactly what was going on.

As extraordinary as they are, these are run-of-the-mill examples to anyone with bush experience. They may be inexplicable, but they are nevertheless quite obvious.
 
Whilst I was researching these quite extraordinary occurrences, I spoke at length with a knowledgeable Zulu tracker. This vastly experienced man of the bush concurred with all my observations, and added from his own experience. Every now and then, when the monkeys near his village became troublesome and started stealing food or threatening children, they would shoot one to keep the troop away. They are so clever he told me tapping his temple, that when we meet and decide to fetch the gun they will disappear. We have learned not to even say the name monkey, or gun out loud amongst ourselves because they will run or will not come out of the forest.
 
When there is danger they can hear without ears he said.
 
 Dolphins have an innate ability to lift the spirits of mentally challenged or crippled children bathing with them. This is not happening just because they are pretty fish. What is it that Dolphin imperceptibly emanate that automatically lifts the human spirit, merely by keeping in close proximity? Elephant I know, and whales I am told, can do the same.
 
It was once described to me how a herd of elephant travelling on the deck of a ship became very animated and started their characteristic communicative stomach rumbling when a pod of whales surfaced nearby. The whales responded, moved closer, and stayed with the ship for hours as this ongoing inter-species communication took place.
 
There are a multitude of other recorded examples, including dogs who know exactly when their far away owner decides to come home, or cats who find their owners new home a hundred miles away when left behind.
 
Anecdotal is the overworked word sceptics resort to when confronted with such evidence.

One cannot however anecdotal away how the queen termite has absolute control over the every movement of the thousands of termites in her nest whilst they all conduct complex independent tasks. She somehow controls every termite without interruption, despite being temporarily encased in a steel box.* If she is injured, her subjects immediately fall into complete and utter confusion, and when she dies every inhabitant of the nest give up the ghost themselves shortly afterwards.
 
The typical African Acacia tree, when browsed by Giraffe or Kudu, not only understands that its under attack, but quickly exports Tannin to its leaves making them bitter to the taste. The tree then releases a scent into the air to warn other acacias in the area of the potential danger. These neighbouring trees receive the warning and immediately start producing tannin themselves in anticipation of an attack.

This is all well and good until one realizes that trees do not have a central nervous system, a brain or the senses we are familiar with. So what is taking these incredibly complex decisions? And why would a tree even care enough about its neighbours safety to go to all the trouble to develop a complicated chemical early warning system to protect them.
 
Mankind remains almost completely unaware of the nature and function of life surviving around us, and yet we pillage the natural world and destroy her fragile survival system without any real knowledge of the consequences of our actions on our own survival.
 
So how closely are we related to the natural world we plunder so?

Well all living things, all life forms are physical organisms seeking survival - that much is clear. But is there perhaps another way of looking at it which will assist our understanding?
 
 Is it not in point of fact life itself that is surviving, and the manner in which life survives is through the medium of animating uncountable life forms bacteria, cells, plants, insects, animals and of course man. Each living thing is demonstrably no more than a collection of chemicals and minerals, which life animates and evolves in pursuit of its overall survival goals. All life forms are imbued with this single fastidious purpose survive.
     
Physical form differs, and the endowment of life force or spirit varies, awareness varies, intelligence differs, but plants and animals are all part of life itself forwarding its grand purpose of survival through corporeal diversity.
    
Our inability to think beyond our own species or to be able to truly help other life forms, in what is patently massive symbiotic quest for survival, is a malady that pervades the human soul.

 I, for one, have never felt a need to accept the status quo, or pay homage to the authorities. Mankind is laying waste to the natural world and, in the main, the authorities, secular and non secular, are conspicuous by their absence of imperative, rational initiative to correct this.

Our systematic abuse of the plant and animal kingdoms and the environment absolutely staggers me. That we apply ridiculous industrial terms like resource take up or sustainable utilization to living, breathing wildlife and wildlands, of which we are so integral a part, and upon which we are so utterly dependent for our own survival, is incomprehensible.

We already know that thousands of species, either flora or fauna, are going extinct, breaking vital links in the delicate chain of life. We are aware that huge dead zones have appeared in our oceans and 80% of large fish species are critically endangered.
It is no secret that massive tracts of wild lands and wild places are vanishing forever, taking countless animals, birds, insects and reptiles with them. Its a cold fact of life that factory farming, where untold numbers of stressed animals are squashed into tiny pens, is the new agriculture, and our insatiable demand for space is denuding the natural world of its support systems; the same life systems we depend upon for our own survival.

We know too that the Earths life giving environment is under direct threat. Global warming is a reality, weather and climate patterns are changing all over the world, and our best and brightest scientists are saying that the Polar ice caps may be melting. The very air we breathe is being altered by the billions of tons of hydro carbons we wantonly pump into the atmosphere as if it was a gigantic refuse dump. Countless rivers and streams and can no longer support life as they should and priceless wetlands are a muddy inconvenience. Coral reefs are dying all over the oceans and life giving mangrove swamps are disappearing.
 
Scientists have been shouting out warnings from the rooftops about this for years now. The fact is it just got serious. It is quite frankly a litany of disaster, and if thats all common knowledge, I shudder to think of what must be happening without us knowing.

Life forms prey one upon the other, that much is obvious. They are designed to do so. This, too, is a necessary survival mechanism. Death nurtures life, whilst evolution over successive lifetimes hones the survival techniques of each species, and improves its ability to successfully endure both the environment and the predation.
 
Man is at the top of this tree of life and predates all below him. However being in a position of such immense intellectual power and ability carries with it the dire responsibility of understanding and maintaining lifes diverse thrust for survival in a life sustaining environment. Failure to do so will result in our host, the natural world, being overloaded, thus is ensuring our own demise as we invoke one survival suppressor* after another.

It is regrettable that in our precipitate for technological advances and scientific progress the humanities have become so neglected. Abject poverty and desperation to survive have driven many millions of people to environmental destruction. Bad politics, wars, corruption and greed all contribute to the abuse of nature and the civilised looting of the Planets fast depleting natural resources.       
 
The survival of life itself on Planet Earth is achieved only as a joint initiative with and through all other life forms. This is bio diversity, life variety, the support of which is our primary responsibility.

The successful niche survival of each life form and species contributes to the survival of the whole. Life is a group effort, none survive alone. There is no us and them, no man and nature. Homo sapiens are as much a part of lifes overall thrust for survival as any other species. As life forms Homo sapiens are part of the greater whole, and, as such, we are embodied with exactly the same fundamental purpose to survive, and to do so in conjunction with the plant and animal kingdoms in a healthy life sustaining environment. There is no greater imperative.
 
Mankinds superior intellect and our deep spiritual heritage will count for naught if we fail in this obligation. Life will simply abandon our species as a medium for survival and evolve a more successful life form. The fate of countless other species which became entirely extinct and vanished into oblivion after inhabiting, and sometimes dominating the earth for billions of years, bears stark testimony to this.
And what then of the human soul if the unthinkable happens, and mankind too goes down this road to nowhere, what other species could possibly host the human spirit. The religious implications are profound.

Ensuring that our home Planet is healthy and life sustaining is an overwhelming priority that undercuts all other human activities. The ship must first float.

And one thing is certain, the cavalry is not going to come and rescue us; we are going to have to rescue ourselves or die trying.

 Mankinds apparent inability to grasp these fundamental tenets of existence will yet be our undoing. Some experts say it is already too late, that the crude and ill-informed impact of man on the planets sensitive life systems is just too great, that we dont have enough time to educate enough people about how the Planet actually works, and how life actually survives.
 
I dont happen to agree, but I do know that we are entering the end game, and that unless there is a swift and marked change in our attitudes and actions towards the natural world, mankind it appears, could well be on his way to becoming an endangered species.
Workable solutions are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers, or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, whilst laudable, is like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Mans accord with the Earth and the Plant and Animal Kingdoms, has to be revitalized and re-understood. But how?
Prescriptive organizations, institutes, and government departments that have assumed the mantle of saving the Planet on behalf of the rest of us have failed, as evidenced by the rapidly sliding statistics we are confronted with daily. There is no one at the helm of the ship whilst icebergs loom one after the other.
Witness the huge international scientific controversy over whether or not global warming is as a result of human activity. Even our best scientists cannot agree on vital issues such as this.
Such lofty disputes only give credence to the fact that there is no workable technology on the subject of life. What little there is in the fields of Biology and Botany is locked up in ivory towers and unavailable to the man in the street.

What is needed was a simple truth that the average man could grasp and use. We need a popular guideline that pointed to a way out of the trap. We need a new tool. Something that would at least give an individual an opportunity of getting back into the game and in better control of his own life and the effect he is having on all aspects of his existence, including his relationships with his own kind, other life forms and the environment.

 This being addressed by The Earth Organization, a private, non profit, non partisan conservation and environmental organization I founded through the concept of Co-Operative Ecology [CO-ECO]


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