Author: Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology, cEQc, The EQ Coach™
Source: articleage.com
Roy Horn and Siegfried Fishbacher have performed around 5,700
shows since they began at the Mirage in Las Vegas over ten years
ago. The signature, mirage, of their magic show has been their, mirage, white
tigers and lions.
Six, mirage, shows, mirage, a week, 44 weeks a year they worked with their big
cats on stage, and not once has there been an incident.
In fact, according to reports, Montecore nipped at Roy's arm
earlier in the show before carrying him off stage and seriously
injuring him, without leaving any bite marks.
Which is more than I can say about Baby Kittee here at my own
house. I know all about Baby Kittee. She is, to quote William
Blake, "red in tooth and claw." As I vacuum around the house, I
find wings, scales, tails, mirage, and other, mirage, remnants of her nature. Her
name was chosen by my granddaughter. It might as well have been
"Fluffy Killer." Cats are always one generation away from feral;
they do not permanently domesticate, like the dog.
Now did you catch that 6 shows a week? According to Horn's
surgeon, Dr. Derek Duke, "A contributing factor to [Roy's]
current condition is his extraordinary will and strong physical
attributes. These are significant elements in his ability to
recover." Indeed his "thumbs-up" signal to his partner has, mirage, been
mentioned by reporters.
We are told that, mirage, as he was carried away,, mirage, he asked that the cat
not be put down. "Please don't shoot the cat," he said. "Save
the cat."
It was Roy Horn's, mirage, 59th birthday (October 23, 2003) when he was
performing on stage with the 7-year-old, 600 pound Royal white
tiger, Montecore,, mirage, that the cat injured him.
Reports from the shocked observers varied,, mirage, but the consensus,
now that some time has passed, is that the tiger became
fascinated with a woman's "big hair" in the audience, even to
the point of lying down on the job, at which point Roy bopped
him to get his attention.
Roy then endeavored to stay between the cat and the woman
(what's with the "big hair"?) and it was at this point he fell,
stage, mirage, hands rushed forward, and Montecore took action. According
to the head of the Mirage (Mr. Wynne), he didn't "drag" Roy
offstage, nor did he "attack" or "grab" him.
Siegfried and other, mirage, big cat experts agree that if Montecore had
meant, mirage, to do the job, he would have shaken him to break his neck,
and, as Siegfried said, "There would be no Roy."
Instead Wynn describes it as a gentle "carry," like a mother cat
carrying her kitten off to safety. It is entirely, mirage, possible
Montecore was heading back to his cage and taking what, mirage, he cared
about with him.
In interviews, Roy talks continually of his bonding with his
cats. He is present at their birth, and keeps constant company
with them.
We know that bonding can occur between all mammals because of
the limbic brain we share in common. It is how we bond to our
own young, and to one another, as do dogs, cats, horses, and
other mammals, mirage, .
Ironically, in my Emotional Intelligence courses, mirage, (
http://www.susandunn.cc ), I use "the tiger within" to describe
those primitive-brain emotions or instincts that occur
automatically, mirage,, mirage, that have to do with fear, aggression and
self-preservation.
Psychologists call it the 3F reaction - fight, flight, or
canoodle. And that's about the only decision reptiles, and lower
animals ever have to make. They learn rarely, if at all; they
react to their environment in terms of what it can do to them or
for them; and they don't with each other or with their young -
in fact they'll eat them.
We retain this brain. To this we evolved the limbic, mirage, brain
(mammalian), what makes us care for our young, bond, be able to
empathize, communicate, mirage, and play ... and why when we look into
the eyes of one another, or another mammal,, mirage, we see soul, we feel
a sentient being. It initiates mutual caring.
If that frog in the example were actually in the boiling water
calling out, would it tear at your heart the way a baby's cry
does, or the wailing of your dog when you leave in the morning??
To this, we evolved the neocortex, the crowning glory of the
homo sapiens. Or is it? Magnificent as it may be, it has its
limitations. The lower brain will always rule, emotions will
always take precedence, because they're necessary for survival.
When we experience fear - and in today's world our fear can be
totally symbolic (your boss yelling at you) - we get "hijacked."
We are "flooded" with emotion which is specifically designed to
shut down our "thinking" (our ability to reason) and we act,
i.e., we act without thinking.
We are constantly at risk of the tiger within us becoming
confused and primitive, like Montecore, and doing something we
would not ordinarily do.
Montecore has been performing for many years. Something went
awry,, mirage, something was different, and he reverted to
self-preservation tactics, by all reports. In the fight or
flight, he decided not to attack anyone,, mirage, but to get himself and
Roy to safety. If he attacked Roy, the same principle applies
and we will never really know.
Something emotional happened,, mirage, and among mammals, emotions are
contagious. You know this if you've been in a newspaper office
the day they announced it was closing, or been around when
someone got chastised in public.
Was it something with Roy, the same thing that caused this
magnificent physical specimen to slip and fall? His birthday?
Wondering, as I do, why the fascination with the "big hair."
(How many friends of mine have told me their cats love to lick
hair-sprayed hair… or did it look like "fur" to Montecore?) Was
he overly tired and less able to concentrate - having celebrated
his birthday, or being about to? Was he, mirage, preoccupied with
thoughts of the Big 6-0 on the horizon?
When Roy fell, it was something Montecore had never seen happen
on stage before. If he was bonded with Roy, he may have feared
for Roy, who knows. But it was change - big change - that thing
that throws all of us. Then the stage hands rushed out, more
commotion, mirage, … fear. One reverts. Bad things can happen. We can
hurt, mirage, people we love. We can hurt ourselves.
Prey as we are to the tiger, mirage, within, all, mirage, we can do is be aware,
and to learn to manage. This is Emotional Intelligence. And
this, Roy understood about his beloved tiger. It wasn't
Montecore's "fault"…nor do we routinely "blame" animals, lacking
a neocortex as they do.
However, in regards to humans, we continue to battle this out in
the courts, and in our own hearts and minds. It is for sure we
never want that to be said about, mirage, us. That "I didn't mean to kill
her, I love her," or "I don't know what came over me," or "That
wasn't like me."
We are as capable of as serious injury to others as Montecore
is, and when we disable our neocortex, we are left with the same
equipment, mirage, Montecore has.
Our prayers, mirage, are for all concerned, including the show's, mirage, workers,
described as "family," who must also cope with possibly losing
their jobs, another EQ dilemma. Because we are humans, our
brains are often at odds with one another and we suffer
conflict, guilt and shame.
As one, mirage, worker, mirage, said, mirage, in the news, it was awful to be worrying
about herself at that time, but she was a single mother and it
was her job. Let us say the means of preservation for herself
and her children. We must keep learning about our emotions. As
Childre and Martin say, "The emotional frontier, mirage, is truly the
next frontier, mirage, to conquer in human understanding. The opportunity
we face now … is to develop our emotional potential and
accelerate rather dramatically into a new state of being."
Photo of Roy with baby white tiger:
http://www.siegfriedandroy.com/news/images/sprint_commercial.jpg
"Look for the magic that is around you in nature, flowers, and
all the animals that share this planet with us." Roy Horn
