Jon Young’s Bird Language approach focuses in on the bird elements of that initial splash that causes the successive concentric rings. The easiest Bird Language effect to recognize for all urban, modern humans is the Bird Plow, an effect we constantly recreate when we enter or move through a bird rich environment at our habitual urban pace and energy.
A much more subtle version of this Bird Language alarm system is when birds are vocalizing alarms with their body language directed at a particular point on the ground, called a Parabolic Alarm, a classic indicator of a stalking cat that is trying to stay hidden.
Another way of thinking of these ripples extending out across the natural landscape via bird language, is by identifying the wave-front of that alarm ripple by looking for a “peak” - a sentinel bird perched high at the top of a tree or other vantage point, with body language and attention intensely directed at an origin point.
There are a lot more bird language and concentric rings patterns; for more info dive into What the Robin Knows by Jon Young or the Bird Language DVD (which inspired the bird language images I used).
And now leaving the bird’s-eye view of the system and zooming back down to the two-pole (positive and negative) animal body, each of those poles also has a “brain” associated with it.
You can tell the “Big Brain” is in charge when there is a “head-first” quality to body language, when an animal’s forequarters (shoulders and arms) are rigid or tense.
Animals whose awareness is centered in the “Big Brain” at that moment are called “Sensitive”.
Sensitive animals are likely feeling off-balance, dizzy, with an internal head-pressure, and will react out of instincts or old habits in stiff or sudden ways. Humans will often say or think things that are familiar or habitual (regardless of whether they are helpful or wise) when fighting to regain Balance.
“The Gut Brain” is also known as the enteric nervous system or the “second brain”.
Animals whose awareness in a given moment is centered in the Gut Brain are called “Sensuous”.
Sensuous animals feel comfortable and relaxed, “in their body”, and respond adaptively in context to other animals. Tension, fear, and so on are absent.
Love it, Willem, especially the parts about predator/prey aspects to things & people. Lovely to be gifted a whole new way of looking at the world. I take my hat off to you 
Keep 'em coming!
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Thanks woozletracker - I’m working with Kevin Behan to make sure I’m getting his concepts down right. I’ll be putting up more soon as soon as I feel I understand it well enough.
Before diving too deep into the scale of single animal bodies, I think it’s important to underscore what is implicit in all this - there is limited utility within this model to make a big distinction between animals and the land. It is one living tissue, no different than in our bodies, where air, water, earth, combustion, and the emotional flows of life mix to create designs.
This is the science of life as one unified body, one unified living system. Traditional peoples the world over recognize this Big Life worth taking one’s whole lifetime to understand and protect.
Remember predatory aspect reflects and projects energy, while preylike aspect absorbs it.
When energy flows, it is projected up and out, and absorbed in and down. Of course the bird here has absorbed that energy and is poised to accelerate away from the predator.
This successful projection and absorption is a sign of the smooth flow of energy, it makes the predator and prey one continuous wave form, one circuit, since the locomotive rhythm itself is the seamless rhythmic flow of projection and collection within one body.
Predator and prey simply act as a medium for this waveform to move through the unified mass of animal life, flowing from body to body.
Look for this yourself. Next time you are the subject of someone’s gaze, notice how that causes you to go inward and “feel your guts” to assess “how to move well” in this situation.
Remember, by definition physical memory is relived, not remembered.
By attending to their Physical center of gravity (aka “p-cog”), the animal also accesses their physical memories that are woven tightly around that p-cog, as feelings of how well they moved before in similar situations. Physical memory is relived, not remembered, so the animal experiences this as a direct, moment-to-moment feeling of pressure or release that they associate/feel from the animal looking at them.
Let’s say in this situation, the animal feels good in its gut/p-cog, because the other animal is relaxed and also feeling good in its gut. There is no tension in the other animals shoulder/neck/head, because of that good feeling, and so the animal feels “open”.
With tension in the shoulders, front legs, and so on, the other animal would feel “closed”, reflecting energy right back at the object. But here all is open and feeling good, and so the object relives memories of good movement in similar situations and energy flows.
In this situation, the “collectedness” the animal feels is not the urge to run away, it is grounded, present, and patient, the animal expands their sense of self to encompass the other, and senses when and how the pressure can release to move and wave couple with the other animals, creating greater good feeling through locomotive rhythm and wave coupling than either could feel on their own.
This is also how predators can feel how and when to pursue prey. The prey feels “closed”, or non-conductive of emotional momentum, if they are too close to cover, or if their eyes are aware and watching the predator.
They feel “open” when they are looking away and unaware of the predator, or if the predator feels through emotional calculus (reliving past memories of moving well in a similar situation) that they are too far from cover.
Hey Willem and all,
I’d like to revive this thread! Hope my following observations make sense…
How about the courting rituals that include circling around each other, wrapping around each other… and then with growing intimacy and excitement spiraling around each other, out of control, the feeling of melting the two waves into one…
Once you start looking, you see spirals in connection with reproduction everywhere!