babys last blog post..Pre Pregnancy Fitness

Speaking of which, it was an animal friendly literary agent & editor who clued me into the importance of letting readers see the birds through my eyes if I want the book to be read by anybody other than people who already have empathy for chickens. But reflecting on this discussion in the context of trauma and recovery, I’m reminded of my training in clinical psychology, in the course of which I learned that talking/writing about one’s own thoughts and feelings, besides offering insights that might otherwise be missed, is often the only honest and accurate way to tell a story that you’ve been told, in part, nonverbally. Since your own standpoint determines how you interpret words and even more strongly how you interpret patterns and nonverbal signals, and since the words and signals transpired in the course of a relationship in which you were a participant, you’ve simply got to bring yourself into the story when you are, for example, writing a case study.

Of course, as you say, there also are times (e.g., when telling the parts of an animal’s story that you did not personally witness anyway), when it’s going to be best to keep yourself out of it.

Thanks for your insightful comments. Excellent point about the differences in storytelling in recovery and advocacy. I agree.

I can’t wait to hear more about your book of chickens’ stories. In the mean time, I am going to think about your comment on stories in advocacy. I have often thought that part of my credibility in telling stories comes from my first hand experience. I also think that animals’ stories are compelling (assuming I can do them justice).

Perhaps the opportunity to expand that ability to empathize with a fellow human to the experience of empathizing with another who is not human is worthwhile for the storyteller and the audience in the context of advocacy. To the extent that it is a forgotten or unknown ability, I tend to think the latter since most children are so handy at it, I suspect that both perspectives (animal and advocate) have their place.

Please be sure to let me know when your chicken book will be released so I can add it to the Forthcoming section.

Now, as to the question at hand, I think we maybe need to think differently about the stories animals tell in the course of trauma recovery and the stories we tell in the course of animal advocacy, because the purpose of the storytelling is different. Animals “tell” their stories in the process of their own trauma recovery and it’s our job to listen with empathy and respond appropriately. When we tell what we’ve heard in the course of animal advocacy, we’re trying to heal the traumatic rupture between human and nonhuman animals that both leads to and springs from human exploitation of animals. When we do that, we have to be mindful not only of the need to tell the truth, insofar as we are able, about the animals’ experiences but also of the need to speak in a way that will be heard by people who aren’t in the habit of listening to animals.

As a writer and speaker who lives at a sanctuary, I am often in the position of telling animals’ stories. Sometimes, I try to do so from the perspective of the animal in question but, more often, I find myself telling the story from my own standpoint, reporting what I observed, what I thought and felt, and how I made sense of it. This method has several benefits, not least of which is the recognition that where I stand determine what I am able to see. Also, I don’t actually know what the animal was thinking or feeling, so maybe it’s more accurate to say, e.g., “I saw him do this and that and I thought to myself, ‘he must be very angry’” than to say “he was very mad.” Finally, the fact is that most people identify most closely with other people and thus are better able to connect with stories told from the perspective of a human narrator. When I, e.g., describe myself pressing my forehead against the window and crying as I look out at a grieving rooster, my audience often shares my tears in a way that they maybe would not if I tried to speak that grief from within the rooster.

Don’t know if that makes any sense, but those are my thoughts in response to this post. Thanks for provoking those thoughts, which are useful to me as I work on a book that happens to be mostly chicken stories.

So true! Thank you for writing this post, which made me rethink my definition of storytelling. I had envisioned it entirely in terms of entertainment, but of course storytelling can also be used for advocacy and to give voices to those have none.

While I love books and animals, I find the latter much more appreciative all the time I invest. A wag or sniff is pay in spades! A nod from a fellow human is also great. Thanks