by
Anonymous
“Communication about and by turkeys can be misleading, leading to the term “gobblygook” says Mike Cohen, Director of Project NatureConnect at the Institute of Global Education. “For example,” he joked, “Recently a man asked for a turkey sandwich and was told, “We don’t have any turkey.”
“Well then, give me a chicken sandwich,”
The waiter replied, “If I had the chicken, I’d have given you the turkey.”
On Washington State’s San Juan Islands, one Thanksgiving, Cohen, an Ecopsychologist, gave a strange answer to one of the students in his online, Portland State University course, “Education and Counseling With Nature.” The student had asked, “What did you do for Thanksgiving?” Cohen replied, “At dinner we had a turkey and gave it pumpkin pie.”
Upon questioning, Cohen explained that while he was enjoying dessert that Thanksgiving, there came a knock on the door and, to his surprise, not a Jehovah’s Witness but a lone wild turkey stood at the threshold. A band of wild turkeys roams the woods around Cohen’s house and occasionally one of them approaches the glass door and produces the knocking. Cohen thinks it sees its reflection in the glass and pecks at it, it is not knocking because it is begging for food. Since his pumpkin pie dessert was handy, Cohen tested his hypothesis, gave some pie to the turkey and it promptly started eating the crust.
Cohen, author of Reconnecting With Nature, recalls he once had a student who thought goblets were baby turkeys. He says, “Unfortunately, we mistakenly call people “turkeys” when they don’t think or march in time to our contemporary drumbeat. When I consider the long-term effects of contemporary culture, I wonder what Mother Nature might call us. It wouldn’t be “turkey” for that would defame a magnificent bird that I enjoy as a neighbor and that produces mutually supportive relationships with people and the environment.”
Cohen agrees with Ben Franklin who wanted the Turkey to be our national bird, perhaps because that would help us “talk Turkey.” “We’re in trouble because we are a nature-alienated culture,” says Cohen, “We persecute rather than adopt to wildlife that learns to live close to us such as weeds, mice, roaches and coyotes. We tend to do that with people who are different than us, too.”
Cohen, who just released his new book “The Web of Life Imperative” thinks we’d be better off if our culture learned how to live in peaceful supportive ways, as his local flock of wild turkeys relate to each other and the world. He has developed and published education and counseling techniques that make this possible. “Why do you suppose we don’t emulate even the leaders we applaud for their wisdom like Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer who noted, "Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include all living things, he will never, himself, know peace."
“When nature-alienated people tell me my unusual, nature-connected learning process leads them to conclude I’m a ‘turkey,’ I get a feeling of wild pride and self-worth that keeps me going,” says Cohen. “This Thanksgiving, I’m very thankful for that profound association.”
For further information visit the Project NatureConnect web site at www.ecopsych.com or contact Dr. Cohen: email nature@interisland.net
Telephone: 360-378-6313.
This article courtesy of http://www.environmentalconsultants.greendotdirectory.com.
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