There’s a beautiful 3D movie about humpback whales at the Maui aquarium. It makes you feel like you are there in the depths with them.
They are suspended effortlessly in the dark water, and so are you.
The movie gets you into your heart rather than your head. It lets you look into the whale’s eyes. It reminds you they have families. They communicate.
The movie culminates with what I suppose was meant to be a dramatic, mind-bending idea:
They might be conscious.
I can’t remember the exact sentence they used. It felt like a combination of a statement and a question.
It was as though the filmmakers didn't quite dare say for sure they are conscious, but they do want us to sort of entertain that idea.
With that, the whale on the screen flips her massive tail and powerfully swims away.
The recurring theme of arrogance, ego, and anthropocentrism.
Why is our starting assumption that other beings are not conscious? Why is there a hierarchy of intelligence measured against humans? Why must they prove themselves to us?
Humans seem to assume that everything on the planet is unintelligent, mindless, soulless, and devoid of feelings… unless… They have some special characteristics that we humans have deemed to be signs of ‘intelligence’ (usually traits we can relate to or that are similar to things we humans do).
The possibility of consciousness is awarded in special circumstances as if humans were the ones with the power to determine it.
Ironically, we can't even agree on what consciousness is, yet in that absence of a definition still default to assuming no one is conscious unless deemed so by a human by some human-made criteria. As if they knew what they were talking about.
They don’t.
What if, instead of assuming the world is unconscious until proven otherwise, we began by entertaining the possibility that consciousness is everywhere?
As a rule I don’t enjoy going to places like this (aquariums, zoos), but family was gathered for my dad’s 90th birthday. It was as much an excuse to be together as it was to see the aquarium. That only made it feel a little better.
My dad grew up snorkeling and diving off the coast of southern California and was a professor in the ecology and evolution department of SUNY Stony Brook for 40 years. He loves nature and marine animals.
Most of the people there would say they love animals and were there to appreciate them.
There is a saying I have with horses:
Love horses more than sport.
Love the horse in front of you more than horses in general.
Emphasis on that second sentence.
It's one thing to love animals in general. It's something else entirely to look into the eyes of an individual animal and consider what their life is like.
Staring at the tanks with a soft focus, I could observe the unbelievable beauty of the marine wildlife in it. It was a mesmerizing display of light, color, and weightlessness.
When looking at the whole scene it was a kaleidoscope of changing patterns of movement, but it was impossible for me not to focus on individuals. THAT Bluespine Unicornfish. THAT Yellow Tang. When I did, I noticed the pattern it was swimming in. Across the front glass, up to the top, across the glass the other direction, down, repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Up the glass. Down the glass. Up the glass. Down the glass. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Around the rock on the left. Around the coral on the right. Up the glass. Down the glass. Around the rock on the left. Around the coral on the right. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
I felt my stomach tightening. It felt like being in a barn full of really beautiful horses who were cribbing and stall weaving.
In horses, repetitive behaviors like these can develop as ways of coping with stressful or restrictive conditions. These types of behaviors are self-soothing, but just because they have found a way to cope doesn’t negate the fact that we humans put them in a situation that was so stressful they needed to create a coping mechanism.
I couldn't know whether the fish were experiencing something similar. But I couldn't stop wondering what the fish were experiencing.
Not what they were doing.
What they were experiencing.
My stepbrother who lives on Maui let me know where there was a local rodeo, and stables that maybe did dressage. Like my dad who likes marine life would want to go to an aquarium, he assumed since I liked horses I would like to go to a rodeo. An innocent and logical assumption to make. He was thinking of things I may be interested in.
At times the hypocrisy of my life is unbearable, or at least confusing.
I love horses more than I can put into words and at the same time I am less interested in most aspects of the horse world. Going to competitions or horse events gives me the same feeling I get when I go to a typical zoo or aquarium. The experience of seeing the spectacle never outweighs the experience of looking into the eyes of the individual horses.
And yet…
I have horses. I help people with their horses. I’m part of the horse world. I know many people with horses who are healthy and really do seem happy. At the same time I am increasingly uncomfortable with many aspects of the horse world.
I want to and don’t want to in almost equal parts.
I feel conflicted on so many levels.
Is it possible to be a force for good within the horse world while simultaneously questioning the entire premise?
I don’t like to talk about my spirituality because it ends up sounding egoic. I simply want to know who I am, really. I want to feel into my essence, separate from my training and my domestication. I want to experience the part of me that is the part of everything.
There’s something deeper underneath all of this that I find difficult to put into words, but here’s my attempt:
Everything is consciousness.
There is only one.
I’m not entirely sure what to do with this, but every day I try.
I still want to understand each animal's subjective experience, how their nervous systems work, and what makes them feel safe, happy, and fulfilled.
But I want to approach that understanding from a different place.
Not as a human studying something separate from myself, but as one expression of consciousness trying to understand another.
Different waves. Same ocean.
Sounds beautiful, but the more present I am in this, the more I am confronted by paradoxical feelings:
I’ve never felt as isolated from the horse industry as I do now, and I’ve never had more impactful connections with students and colleagues as I do now.
I’ve never wanted to ask so little of horses, and I’ve never experienced them offering so much.
I’ve never felt more connected to individual horses than I do now and I’ve never felt as disconnected from and disgusted by the ‘horse world’ as I do now.
I know there are aquariums doing important work in rescue, conservation, and education. And I know there are people doing wonderful things with their horses.
I want to remain optimistic.
But the question I keep coming back to is:
Can we do even better?
I’m trying to do my best in my corner of the horse world.
I’m trying to do my best for the beautiful souls on my property.
Agonizingly, it never feels like enough. I always think I could be doing better. And perhaps that's part of the ego I'm still learning to let go of.
The whole process is not necessarily fun.
And it sure makes marketing hard.
Ego-lessness is bad for business.
I'm OK with that.
I’ll just be over here breathing into this weird space I’m in.
It's a weird moment…
To feel as much in retreat as I do in expansion.
It makes no sense.
But I've learned to stay in those nonsensical moments.
I think back to the humpback whale swimming away, disappearing into the dark ocean. For a few seconds, the screen remained dark. We were suspended in that space, not knowing if the movie was over.
Perhaps that's where some of the most profound truths are found.
Not in intellectual certainty, but in the presence that comes with not-knowing.
In the moments when the mind has nothing to say.
Perhaps we can learn to live differently even when we can't explain everything.
I'm learning to be comfortable there.
And somehow, that's how I know I'm exactly where I need to be.
❤️