A colleague of mine visited the other day, terribly distraught. Her distress, its causes and events, numerous and diverse, ranging from the personal to the global, came “tumbling out like sweets from a jar.”[1] After sitting together in silence, in the wake of the outpour of these pained, confused feelings, she blurted out, “What can I do?” I answered, “Hold the line.” Again, there was silence. She then said, “Thank you. That’s exactly right.” We rose and said our good-byes.
It wasn’t my intent to stop the conversation. She was affected the same way I had been a few weeks previous when another friend texted me those three simple words. I realized that’s what Animals do. They hold the line.
Dogs, Cows, Tigers, Elephants – indeed all Animals today, are faced with life-threatening, reality-shattering experiences. Like us, they are living in conditions far removed from evolutionary expectations. The differential between what we have evolved to need mentally and physically and what we actually experience is stress. This contrast has become so extreme that, as Sandra Bloom and Gabor Maté describe, everyday life, “normal” life, is traumatogenic. The drama and trauma of the dominating human culture is an unrelenting rip tide pulling us into the vortex of mass fear and bewilderment causing profound disorientation to the point of questioning the fundaments of life– who are we?
This is a question which comes to haunt tortured and captive-held Rhesus Monkeys used as experimental surrogates. When they are able to escape to sanctuary, however, internal fissures of trauma begin to heal and re-anneal into the unity and harmony of the natural world. Ancestral instinct is the eternal compass. It is a power far greater than the anvil of trauma.
Animals remain anchored in their origins. While using the currency of their forms to navigate the vicissitudes of life, they never abandon the integrity of the Earth. They never forget who they really are. Animals hold the line. This is what we must do – remember who we really are. Hold the line.
[1] Joan Baez. Winds of the Old Days.
photo credit: Cynthia Moss