blog — Anne Benvenuti

The Real Cost of Things

Last year I calculated the cost of the jars of cherry jam I had just made. This after long hours spent harvesting the cherries from a friend’s tree, buying the jars, making the jam. I came to the conclusion that the cost of one jar of jam was about $249, based on labor alone, at the approximate hourly rate of my old job. The cost did not include anything related to the tree, the land, the irrigation, the cherries themselves, the sugar, the jars, the pots and pans, the stove, the construction and maintenance of the kitchen. How, I asked myself, even allowing for the many statistical errors in my tired train of thought, could this thing sell for $2.79 at my old neighborhood market?! Suddenly I understood that the purchasing power of my labor bore no relation to sustainability but was astoundingly inflated.

I had based my calculation solely on my own labor because that is what I spent my life trading, my skilled labor as a professor, psychologist, author, and lecturer, for money to buy stuff. I bought houses, cars, experiences like travel, backpacking, kayaking. I bought bikes, kayaks, backpacks, clothes, dishes, appliances, insurance policies, health and beauty aids, gifts, and lots of things intended to calm and soothe and comfort. My life was an endless round of long hard hours of work traded for relief from those long hard hours of work.

Kindred Spirits

My new book Kindred Spirits: One Animal Family will be released on June 1. I conceived it five years and one month ago while walking northern England’s Coast to Coast path.

. . . . Imagine my surprise when I finally stopped for a much needed rest at Kirkby Stephen and was immediately greeted by the town mascots, bright yellow, blue, and red macaws, while I drank my tea in a garden. The macaws, it turned out, were on their daily forage into town from the Eden Valley Center for Parrot Conservation, to whose open aviaries they return each night. First the birds caught my attention and without trying too hard, because of their unexpected tropical colors and also their cheerfully raucous behavior. Then I learned the inspiring story of John Strutt, one more beautiful human who had learned over the course of his life to love birds, to love all of nature, who had transitioned from hunter of animals to dedicated rescue and conservation worker. I had seen these same qualities in others who worked on behalf of nonhuman animals. Right then and there, I knew what book I needed to write, and it wasn’t the one I had had in mind. I needed to write about meeting humans who work to rescue and to care for other kinds of animals, and about meeting the rescued, conserved, and sanctuaried animals themselves.

Anne BenvenutiMay 10, 2021Comment

A Poem for Earth Day 2020

Dawn Breaks Over the Bones

There is a wild grief
in me and a sorrow that I
was part of something horrible
that I didn’t see, while I tinkered
hard with the given machinery.

I was focused, looking intently
the other way while it
happened, the decimation,
and the filth stacked up
behind my back, while
sugar plum fairies danced
inside my eyes—and
I sucked their exquisite little
toes in my long opium dream.

Elephant Backs and Elephant Dung

It was a February dawn in South Africa in 2008, and I was about to fulfill a dream to ride on an elephant through the African dawn. After a thorough orientation to the elephants here at Camp Jabulani, the time came to ride them out into the bush veldt. I climbed up a platform ramp, received instruction on using the stirrup and keeping my weight balanced, I swung a leg over Jabulani’s broad back. Isaac Mathole, one of the men who had accompanied the elephants from Zimbabwe, was already on Jabulani when I landed. I was startled by how rudely I landed, but Jabulani didn’t flinch and Isaac just laughed. Paul adjusted my stirrups, and then Jabulani walked off with me bouncing along on his back, absolutely gobsmacked (me, that is!).

Isaac and I chatted over his shoulder. He told me that he loved his life of working with the elephants, and asked me if we have any wild animals in California, where I’m from. Sure, of course, I said, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, rattlesnakes.

Where Whales and Humans Are Friends

The waters of San Ignacio lagoon were calm and we were calm when we returned to them after our lunch on a sunny deserted island to head back to camp. But our well-fed somnambulance was soon disturbed. “A whale! 3 o’clock, 3 o’clock,” someone cried, as for the first time a gigantic adult swam up alongside us about ten feet from the boat, her blow holes and mottled skin visible. It had taken me a while to learn the visuals of gray whale anatomy, partly because they do not have fins on their backs, but a series of knuckles, visible vertebrae which, in addition to blow holes, tell you which side is up. Their nostrils sit undaintily on the tops of their heads, ridged exposures that allow you to navigate visually forward and down to the huge jaws that open into baleen lined mouths, the baleen shorter and more bristly than I expected, looking and feeling like a cross between teeth and several layers of old tattered shower curtain.

Jason of Air

Jason is the name I gave to a young raven whom I presumed to be male, based upon the crowd of bachelor buddies he hung out with, and Jason was the king of the water bowl under the pine tree in my front garden.

I had often watched Jason take flight from a branch in his pine tree, moving his wings to gain elevation until he became that wide V shape that is the hieroglyph for a soaring bird, way up in the distant thin sky. Like all ravens, he was able to powerfully perform the mechanical kind of flight that uses the pumping of his own muscles and blood; but, like eagles and hawks, he was also able to catch drafts and to soar. I’d seen him catch a draft and ride it, sometimes tumbling upside down mid-flight, or drop spiraling down and then pulling up in an impossible lift.

The Bottom of the Food Chain Bites Back

I ever return to the question of whether we can know anything about what it is like to be another kind of creature. And so, while perusing the carefully researched and oddly entertaining new book, Does it Fart?, I learned that we do not know with certainty whether or not spiders pass gas. Theoretically, they do have the digestive capacity, but no one has done the research. We do know, however, that they bite.

Little did I know when I wrote my last post that I had just been bitten by a ragno violino, the Mediterranean version of the brown recluse spider. Sure, I'd felt the pinch, and had taken off my shirt and shaken it out. It just didn't seem big deal in the context of a summer in which I've been morning and evening meal for a host of insects, mosquitoes fierce and relentless at the top of the list, ticks next—and yes, I do wear protective clothing with repellent oils.

On Bugs, Generally Speaking

It’s been almost two months since I promised to start writing about bugs. It’s not that I haven’t been spending time with them; I have! The problem is that in my new life as an organic farmer, I don’t have time to write during May and June, and other months as well. . . because I’ve got weeds that grow shoulder high in one field during the time it takes to clear another field. This reality causes me to recall with some longing the use of herbicides: how easy, how convenient. But I’ve left that behind, along with many other easy and convenient things.

The fact that I am out weeding manually almost every day instead of spraying poison means I am also spending time with bugs. It even means I begin to notice a relationship between the weeds and the bugs and me, though I do not yet understand what I notice.

Ants and Mosquitoes and Ticks, oh my!

This morning I stepped barefoot across the stone floor, moving out of the bedroom to greet the new day, and what did my wandering feet behold? A small pile of grit in the doorway, grit that wasn't there when I went to bed. I looked up to see a new hole in my star-vault stone ceiling, a hole made by ants chomping through the stones. I didn't actually see any ants this morning, but I saw them last summer, marching across the ceiling and chewing the stone, and far too frequently falling into bed with me! No one told me about this when I expressed my romantic fantasy of living in an old European stone farmhouse. And this morning I wonder why there is a "yuck factor" to ants falling into my bed that I don't feel when my three little dogs burrow between the sheets!

Cusp of the Years: 2017–18

I wonder what my cat Jou-Jou might have had as her New Year’s resolution. Trap more mice in the basement for Jimi, the Jack Russell terrier, to finish off? Double the rate at which she traps Bunny, another JRT, in an ambush at the foot of the stairs? Eat more tuna and less kibble? I wonder what grade she’d give herself. Actually, I can’t imagine her caring ~^..^~ . . . the dogs might be better candidates for resolutions.

So here we are at the cusp of the year, the last twilight seconds of 2017, with a yearning towards the first glimmer of 2018. Of 2017, I can say that I failed to write the book. I miserably failed my number one goal! On the bright side, I did lose twenty pounds, but that doesn’t satisfy my goals and resolutions for 2017. Because, guess what? It wasn’t on the list.

On Feasting, Fasting, and Food

Several years ago, in my haste to reincarnate my deceased Molly Brown, I put in a request to the Jack Russell rescue site: I wanted a female puppy. Ha-ha, they replied, highly unlikely, but we will keep your request on file. A week later, a message arrived that a female JRT puppy was available if I could drive 500 miles and pass the adoption fitness course. I could and I did, and I drove home with Bronwyn, a really messed up little dog. She did not want to cuddle, and, as I soon learned, was more likely to bite if reached for—I recalled that part of the adoption test was to see if I could pick up the puppy, a request that seemed a bit odd at the time.

Imaginal Discs and Memories

From morning to late afternoon I watched a caterpillar climb a tall pine tree, climb without ever stopping to rest. That was September, two years ago, in the beautiful northern woods of Door County, Wisconsin. This tiny creature spent the entire day climbing, up and up the tall rugged trunk, over hill and dale, then out along a high branch, never resting. He seemed to be feeling some urgency, I thought; who knows? I've not been a caterpillar. He was certainly determined. When he stopped, I thought he must be exhausted, and then he began to spin. Surely, he felt he was about to fall apart; how could he not?

Fear. It’s there, just waiting to get you!

At Halloween in the US, everything we fear gets lumped together with our dead ancestors. A night that once reminded us to recognize that those who have passed before us might still be with us has now become a generalized expression of fear. In our ripe imaginations, peeled grapes become the texture of eyeballs without a head, cold spaghetti might be someone’s dead brain or guts, the sound of rusty hinges makes our skin crawl as we anticipate something dangerous coming for us, and banging doors make us jump out of our skin.

It's amazingly easy to frighten us humans. . . . But the experience of basic fear, the anxious and deeply uncomfortable arousal in our bodies, the intense desire to escape, is something we share with all mammals.

A Thin October in the Milky Way

Last night, to my surprise, I stepped off the front porch into the middle of the Milky Way. It’s where we live, in the Middle of the Milky Way, and last night I was able to perceive that bright band of densely packed stars encircling me. There was the black upon black of the sky, the bright blue white of individual stars, the gathered glowing band of multitudinous stars thickly bound to each other, and little me stepping off the porch into the arms of the galaxy that is home.

I have the privilege of living where there is very little light pollution, where you can step out your door into the reality that, while you are necessarily the center of your world, the world is unimaginably bigger than you, even with the baggage of all your cares weighed in.

Grief

Grief. This fundamental affect is not easy to name, but you know it when you're in it. Bereft might be the best word to describe it, the sudden panic that drops into a well of sadness, even despair, and it's caused by the loss of an important attachment. The reason why being shunned (as in solitary confinement or the "scarlet letter") is considered the most severe punishment is that this kind of separation pain is a pain like no other. It's the emotional pain that really can kill you.

So let me insert the good news here.

Mammals Suck, and That Makes Oxytocin!

This mamma-baby connection is where oxytocin—the trust hormone—flows at peak levels, creating in both animals (the mom and the baby) the feeling of intense warm attachment. It is the way that the desire for warm attachment becomes part of an individual, staying with her for life and creating the desire and willingness that trust between animals might work. It feels really good to be connected in trust, and that's nature's way of making sure it happens. Yes, this is yet another way in which all mammals, ourselves included, are alike.

Unless we're very, very unlucky, we get lots of oxytocin from day one onward.

Of Lust and Lions

This lion looks to me like he is going somewhere with quite a purposeful stride, like a parent moving to discipline a child, or a manager heading in to sort out trouble at the office. . . or (yes!) a male lion following a female who has flirtatiously summoned him for a bit of private dancing.

I was actually surprised when the ranger, seeing the female first, said, "Oh look. She's flirting! Look for the male." Sure enough, there he was, rising from his drowsy midday nap in the shade of a tree. . .

Rage! When Someone Gets Angry, the Play is Over

Last week, I wrote about the fact that all young mammals play, and that a typical play session ends after about twenty minutes, when someone gets mad or someone gets hurt. That's what happened when I played with this Siberian silver fox—yes, this one, photographed by my nephew Thom. After a careful approach that the fox received happily, and some moments of very gentle communion between me and her, I'd advanced to teasing and flicking my fingers in the "now you see it, now you don't" way. The mood shifted suddenly, and before I could say sorry, my middle finger knuckle had been sliced to the bone by some very sharp little teeth. This is how it goes.

Playtime! It's Seriously Important

My dog Lexi is a ten year old Jack Russell terrier who had a rough childhood. Lost in an Indiana blizzard at six months of age, she was brought into rescue with double pneumonia. She spent two months in the hospital before going to a "forever home" that had some human problems with alcohol and violence. Back to rescue. She was a nervous little gal when we brought her home, quick to find a hiding place but also gregarious, liking to mix it up or to cuddle, especially with other dogs. But there was one sure way I could engage her, and that was by playing the imaginary game of hunting my fingers as they acted like mice across the bedspread.

We're All Seekers!

More than 58 million people have watched the video of a turtle chasing a purple ball around a hardwood floor (recently posted to the Animal Family group on Facebook). It fascinates us to see a turtle fascinated by a purple ball. But why not a turtle fascinated by a purple ball? All animals enjoy novel stimulation, all of us like to be engaged by the world. In fact, that connection between being alive at all and being interested in things in the world is so very close that we can't distinguish between them.