let the season begin (insert accordian solo here).

My morning run & Belle and Sebastian's I'm a Cuckoo were interrupted by a brief phone call from one of my favorite girlfriends, who I call Mama Fox (she some-of-the-times refers to me as the Runaway Bunny & other times Peter Pan). I used the opportunity to stretch and cool down when a box labeled POETRY hanging from a wrought iron gate caught my eye. I peeked inside as I confirmed plans on the phone & pulled out an atomic green sheet of paper w/ not one but TWO poems (!!) printed in black. While saying goodbye to the other end of the line I folded up the pen-to-paper tangos, and then bolted down E Aloha (imagining that I was not running, but rather swinging through lush canopy formed by the trees on either side of the street-- these are the thoughts that keep my feet moving when I am tired from the previous mileage).

The last stanza of the second poem (both written by a man called Gary Snyder), read:

I pledge allegience to the soil 
of Turtle Island
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

The first two lines of the piece, entitled For All, are "Ah to be alive/ on a mid-September morn". The sentiment is so relevant-- one I felt as my lungs filled with crisp almost-autumn air and then again with ev'ry exhalation... and one I felt yesterday while I visited Towan & he came over to the glass to show me his chalk drawing. My heart beats a little quicker when I share a moment like this with him. Mostly because he makes me feel like I'm not the only ape that is excited to share little bits of beauty w/ people nearby. That feeling of sameness is one of the more reassuring I've ever felt. I suppose I owe Mr. T and Gary Snyder a v.v. big Thank You! for providing reminders of why this mid-September is an especially lovely time to be living here in the now. 


The last day that I felt compelled to write, it was because of a person I met who invites adventure into his life, who sees magic in the tiniest places. When we are together strangers approach us for conversation & he is always ready to engage a new face in the Latest&Greatest. He is willing to allow a ten minute walk to take an hour, because he understands that sometimes one must stop and absorb ev'ry detail of this bustling world (& that takes time, takes patience). He doesn't mind that when I see a dead bumblebee on the sidewalk I have to pick it up and place it in a garden to rest in peace; he doesn't mind that when I see a piece of neat graffiti that I am compelled to photograph it and ponder the source; and most of all, he doesn't mind that inevitably at some point during our daily excursions I mention that I wish Towan could see ALL the things I see because I know with all my heart he'd feel so inspired and just as in awe of how strangely golden the world is (and his reactions would no doubt fuel his art).



Interpenetration is a word I had not known before reading it in Snyder's poem, but it is now one of my favorites. To wish for those around you to experience the visceral joy of being one with their environment and to take the time to be a part of whatever surrounds them is laudable. I have nothing but respect for the people & creatures who facilitate and encourage that experience. Towan lives at the zoo, which means he is limited to what shows up at his door-step, but! he never seems to miss a chance to investigate a novel garment or an interesting visage.

Perhaps, it is his ability to appreciate the little things that allows him to deal with annoyances so stoically. After showing me his art, he settled down to work on it some more. Bela followed him and made a grab for one of his two pieces of chalk. While her second attempt was successful, Towan did not seem to acknowledge her trespass. His tolerance is admirable, but then again he has so many traits that I admire and try to cultivate in my own self-- he is a Bodhisattva if there ever was one. 

--Emma (coffee with Towan)

one ape in particular

This is Towan (the same Towan mentioned in Sean's orangunookie post). At 43 he is entering old age for an orangutan, but he's more than achy joints and wrinkles-- he is an ambassador to his wild cousins in Borneo and Sumatra, allowing us city-folk a small glimpse into the ways of the arboreal ape.

Back in December I started a blog called Coffee with Towan so that I could share thoughts/observations & photos of Mr T and his family. Once in a while I throw in a set of gorilla or jaguar shots, but the orangs are my focus.

Towan, Chinta, Melati, Bela, and Heran each have incredibly varied personalities, yet all share enviable zen-like qualities. After having had the chance to observe them consistently for the past eight months, I can confidently say that no matter a person's gender, age, creed, music preference or hair color we can all learn something about ourselves from this awesome species. Here are some shots from a recent visit with Towan.

Make the orangutan cookie and save trees

Libby Lawson of the Seattle zoo shows off my orangutan cookie.      
Photo by Shawn Thompson

Libby Lawson, a sprightly orangutan keeper at the zoo in Seattle, officially tasted my first batch of rain-forest friendly orangutan cookies.

The idea was to create a cookie that promotes the protection of the rain forest habitat of orangutans and uses ingredients familiar to orangutans. The result is the "orangunookie," which I hope doesn't sound sexually suggestive.

Libby told me she likes sugar -- although the orangutans at the Seattle zoo get a safe and sensible sugar substitute in their juice and yogurt.

The orangunookie is "very good," Libby said - and I know that orangutan keepers have to be straightforward and honest to deal with orangutans. "I found it very satisfying," she said, "and I have a real sweet tooth. The cookie seems only a little sweet and is not overly nutty." Libby liked the colour I got for  my "green" cookie by using green food colouring.

Speaking of food, it was feeding time when I arrived at the zoo and Libby took me to lunch with the orangutans. I watched the massive orangutan Towan daintily using his teeth to pick even the last bit of orange out of the rind.

Towan is 43 years old in 2011 and 297 pounds. He likes to paint. In fact, he pretty much gets consumed by it. He's an experimental artist with no formal training and has combined coloured pen and chalk. I was with him and Libby a few weeks ago watching Towan do his art work. He has great concentration.

Libby told me a story about how compassionate and gentle Towan is. One time a young possum fell inside the orangutan enclosure and when Towan tried to pick it up, it bit him. But Towan was too good natured to retaliate. He just held the possum to avoid being bitten and later signaled to Libby that she could retrieve the possum.

As the dominant male, the protocol is to feed Towan first. Then Libby went to feed the others, including Towan's twin sister, Chinta, who weighs considerably less than her brother at 168 pounds. Although she likes to spit at people and squirts water at them when they turn their backs, she also likes to socialize with folks and has a regular spot next to the glass at the zoo where she can interact with we human apes.

While the orangutans were being fed, I noticed that Libby was playing NPR jazz for them, a wise choice. The jazz and the sound of artificial waterfalls constructed at the zoo help screen out the distraction of human sounds.

***

Here's my recipe for the green orangutan cookie.

You need one cup of raw cashews, 1/4 cup of skim milk, 3/4 cup of sugar, one egg, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1 cup of shredded coconut, 2 tsp of coconut flavour, one cup of flour, 1/4 tsp baking soda. 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg, 1/2 a cup of Sun Maid Tropical Trio dried fruit (pineapple, papaya and mango) and a dash of salt. Crush the nuts into different sizes from grains to bits with a pestle and add the milk. Mix with the sugar, egg, coconut flavour and vanilla. Put in the flour, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Add 1/8 tsp green food colouring. Add dried fruit and shredded coconut. Put spoon- sized dollops on a cookie sheet and flatten with a wetted fork. Add a few small pieces of dried fruit for garnish to the top. Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes. Makes 18 average-sized cookies with crispy brown bottoms and textured, chewy insides.

When you serve the orangunookie, make sure that you explain in a lightly serious tone that it is made to make friends with orangutans by being a little nutty, a little fruity and without palm oil. The forests of the orangutan in Borneo and Sumatra are cut down for palm oil plantations.

Let me know how you like the cookies

Same social rules, different species: How to apologize to an orangutan

Orangutans need an apology too.
Photo by Shawn Thompson

One day, in the rare mid-April sun of drizzly, seaside Seattle I was watching orangutans at the zoo communicate.

It was a good day because the orangutans, each in their own way, in their own time, were letting the keeper Andy Antilla know that his apology was accepted.

Orangutans remind us of rudimentary courtesy, justice and moral behavior. If we forget, it damages the relationship with them, as it would with us.

They remind us of how much thought, understanding and communication is possible without words - something that our big brains stuffed with words have trouble grasping. Most of us cannot imagine who we would be if we couldn't write and speak.

They remind us that working with thinking, sentient beings creates a bond and, with a bond, comes responsibility.

I was pondering all this while watching the 310-pound, dominant male orangutan Towan extend a lower lip, as though pouting, to the keeper Andy Antilla to be touched and caressed, as if to say, "Andy, you are forgiven. Apology accepted. Now let's eat."

A few days before, the normally stoic Towan had stuck his huge fingers gingerly through some mesh towards Antilla. Now he was going farther and inviting the human to interact with him again.

Six years ago Andy Antilla wept when he left the Seattle zoo for the Great Ape Trust in Iowa. His emotion at that moment surprised even him. He had been with this ragtag band of shaggy red apes in Seattle for seven years.

The apes had come to trust him and now he was leaving them and breaking that trust for no reason that he could make clear to them. It was the kind of absence that is felt as betrayal.

Andy would miss them too. He wept - but not where they could see him. "I didn't want to make them upset," he told me. "I just told them goodbye, that I would hopefully see them again."

He wouldn't be able to explain tears that they would see as pain and sorrow. Orangutans feel sadness and anxiety just like humans and may also feel regret and a sense of loss. Antilla says that the bond he feels with an orangutan is like being in an extended family. He is uncle Andy.

Human beings and orangutans become bonded with the same kind of social rules. But orangutans have a different sense of time and absence than we do. They lived dispersed in the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra so that the forest can provide enough food. They don't have the close social groups that gorillas and chimpanzees do, nor the same intricate social rules that go with that.

So an orangutan can resume a relationship after an absence of months as though there has been no break. One time Antilla was gone seven months and the orangutans behaved as though he was never gone.

But there comes a point where absence becomes a betrayal. If you want the relationship to continue, there is a penalty to suffer, amends to make. That's the way relationships are.

One form of the penalty and testing is recognizing the legitimate ill temper from the sense of betrayal and enduring it.

After that, an apology is required, depending on the length of time of the offence, the degree of the relationship and the individual preferences of the individuals involved.

So, on the eighth day that Andy Antilla had returned to the orangutans at the Woodland Park Zoo, I watched the process of reconciliation between man and ape. It was the first day that Antilla was doing the lunch feeding by himself again. He was a person of authority once more, but someone who also needed to win willing cooperation to do his duties. He knew that. The orangutans knew that. Nobody had to say it.

Since Towan was the dominant male, Andy needed to deal with him first out of respect for Towan's position, and now I saw Towan giving Antilla his blessing. Towan cares for his fellow orangutans too. One time he grabbed the fingers of a female orangutan to show Antilla that they were injured and needed treatment
.

Towan's twin sister Chinta got goose bumps when she first saw Antilla again, realizing with a start that he had been gone. She wouldn't look at him at first. She is usually a calm and forgiving orangutan who thinks and acts quickly and knows when she trusts someone. But Chinta can hold a grudge too.

Chinta gets over things much quicker than Towan. It is just her way. After all, she is an individual.

"Time is the apology," Antilla told me, and his fellow keeper Libby Lawson added, "Time is our friend. They see the steadfastness of the relationship."

It felt good to watch this happening and to know that it was happening. It felt for a moment that there was harmony in the universe.

It makes you smarter some times to be able to do these things without words. And, if you can do it with a glance and a gesture, you are also admitting the deepness of the relationship, the sincerity of what you feel.

That is the way it is with orangutan and the way it has worked for longer than we could know.


*****



Check out my orangutan music video with J.P. Taylor: 

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