Last year my dog Islay saved, if not my life, at least my leg from being bitten by a rattlesnake. I told my therapist the story and she got very excited about my “snake medicine.” She lent me a book about totem animals that recounted various meanings snakes have held for different cultures at different times.
The book made me wary. It indulged in the cultural cherry picking that is common with many strains of New Age Spirituality. Oral Navaho tales were presented cheek-by-jowl with Greek myth and chronicles from Han China. The only common thread I could find was the way the tales might reflect or comment upon the preoccupations of an introspective Westerner in the present.
My impatience with the book helped me realize something more fundamental: I was less interested in the significance the snake might have for me than in what significance I might have for the snake.
Getting at what significance I might have to a snake is by no means easy, any more than understanding Han China. The belief we can understand other cultures and other animals without work, that we can be certain they speak directly to our concerns, rests on a kind of narcissism. Such a belief relies on the idea that we, as especially open-minded observers, can perceive an inner similarity with another creature or culture. On closer examination, deep down they turn out to be just like us. Pet psychics, who claim to discover that your dog’s behavior is explained by something she witnessed as a puppy, are the fullest expression of this narcissism. A dog is not a little human in fur, and its developmental windows, sensory apparatus, and learning goals are different than those of humans. A dog has its own dignity, and for me, recognizing it depends on acknowledging these differences.
Animals, especially mammals, are like us in many ways. We have similar brains and limbic systems. The key word being “similar.” In my experience, the most successful communications I have had with animal others have happened when I was able to stretch my thinking beyond my usual, primate framework.
The same week that my dog saved me from the snake, a bat got into our house. As we tried to shepherd it out, my partner Liz suggested we shine a bright light at it. To something as visually-oriented as a primate, this made a good deal of sense. If I imagined what I would think if I were bat, a light would help. But instead, in what was a breakthrough for me, I was able to imagine what a bat would think if it were a bat. Instead of holding up a light, I advanced on it holding up a large piece of plywood. Having something it could “see” more clearly with echolocation than with vision (though bats are anything but blind), the bat flew away from me and out of the open door.
Communicating effectively with the bat meant recognizing both similarity (the bat’s desire to escape these large, flailing creatures) and difference (that it would react more strongly to a flat, echo-reflecting board than to either our waving arms or a light). But for me, the important conceptual leap was the recognition of difference.
As someone who regularly studies other cultures, I can say that without doubt, recognizing and understanding differences takes more time than finding similarities. You can’t simply assume that because you are open-minded, you get a special pass to rapid understanding. In my experience, this is also true of animals. You come to understand them, not because you are a special sort of person, but because you are willing to do a special kind of thing, to spend a special kind of time with them that includes recognizing their differences.
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