The Invisible Goose

Being motionless is an invisibility tactic that only works when you’re not spotted. If you are perfectly still, pretending to be a tree or a funny looking rock doesn’t work anymore.  A gaggle of geese always have a sentinel watching.

So what should you do when the animal you are hiding on realizes you’re actually not a stump?  You have to become a shape-shifter.  You have to adopt the Honor Routine.

Let’s first review the art of Invisibility:

1. Get as comfortable as possible and break up your form with the landscape – have your arm wrapped along a branch, your leg mimicking a tree root, leaves scattered on your lap…  Beware if you have ferns or branches sticking up in your hair if you cannot follow #2.
2. Don’t move…EVER! Not when a mosquito lands on your face or your nose itches.  If you have to move your leg because it’s tingling at a pain level of 7 and you’re considering the idea that you may actually lose your limb when you stand up again, definitely move at a pace the eye cannot detect.
3. Becoming invisible is far more about camouflaging your mind than the color of your clothes – still your chatty thoughts, ignore your doubts and stop sending out waves of fearful imagery.
4. Switch from a focused vision to a softened, wide-angle vision and concentrate solely on heightening your awareness.  If you fully engage your senses your thoughts will disappear as well.  And believe me; animals hear your thoughts.
5. Relax and breathe into your surroundings.  Practice not being a human.  Imagine with all your being you are that stump or tree and KNOW you are.

So you blew it.  The goose spotted the grass moving, its head popped up and in your panic to stop the moving brush, you just made more movement.  Another goose stopped feeding and started staring.  You froze, staring back. Then came their dreaded nasal-sounding Hnk, Hnk noise.  You’re mind starts yelling, “No, what do I do now?” and if you continue to panic your time with the geese is pretty much over.  Now it’s not a bear walking towards you, stirring your brain into viewing a super-charged memory of Timothy Treadwell (the man who was eaten by a grizzly) allowing your fear to sabotage you, so it’s possible to quickly adjust and adopt the Honor Routine.

1. Definitely don’t go back to being a stump, the game is over.  Start moving very slowly and turn to the side. You don’t want to become a “suspicious” human or the animal will say to itself, “Why isn’t that human moving…they’re always moving. Why would it freeze?  Should I be scared too?”
2. Avert your eyes.  Never stare an animal in the face when it’s nervous or suspicious.  You may even slowly look around and listen.
3. Relax.  Take a quiet breath and exhale slowly.
4. Depending on the situation I often start grazing and imagine myself becoming an herbivore.  When meeting a deer I always become another deer.  Move a few steps, pick a leaf, nibble…If you don’t know what’s edible just pretend to eat something.  You will suddenly become another grazer of the forest and that often says, “I’m not threatening.”
5. If an animal turns its attention to something else, look and listen too.  If you don’t, you’ve just proclaimed, “I’m lying at who I am, I’m not part of the forest like you are.”
6. Become that non-threatening animal or “new creature” who looks like a human but doesn’t act or feel like one and have fun seeing the forest through wild eyes.

Come laugh and wonder with Billy and I over these geese who haven’t read this blog yet…