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, mirage, Las, mirage, Vegas over ten years
ago. The signature of their magic show has been their white
tigers and lions.
Six shows a week, 44 weeks a year they worked with their big
cats on stage, and not once has, mirage, there been an incident. In fact,
according to reports, Montecore nipped at Roy's arm earlier in
the show before carrying him off stage, mirage, and seriously injuring
him, without leaving any bite marks.
Which is more than I can say, mirage, about Baby Kittee here at my, mirage, own
house.
I know all about Baby Kittee's speed and teeth. She is, to quote
the poet William Blake, "red in tooth and claw." As I vacuum
around the house, I find wings, scales, tails and other remnants
of her nature. Her name was chosen by my granddaughter. It might
as well have been "Grownup Killer.", mirage, 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, mirage, 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 been
mentioned by reporters. We are told that as he was carried away,
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 59th birthday (October 23, 2003) when he was
performing, mirage, on stage with the 7-year-old, 600 pound Royal white
tiger, Montecore, that the cat injured him.
Reports from the shocked observers varied, but the consensus,
now that some time has passed, is that the tiger became
fascinated with a woman's "big hair" in the, mirage, 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 hands rushed forward, and Montecore took action. According
to the head of the Mirage (Mr. Wynne), he didn't "drag" Roy
offstage,, mirage, nor did he "attack" or "grab" him. Siegfried, mirage, and other
big cat experts agree that if Montecore had meant to do the job,
he would have shaken him to break his neck, and, as Siegfried
said, "There would be no Roy, mirage, ."
Instead Wynn describes it as a gentle "carry," like a mother cat
carrying her kitten off to safety. It is entirely possible
Montecore was heading back to his cage and taking what 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, mirage, company with them. We know that, mirage, 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.
In my Emotional Intelligence courses, I use the example of "the
tiger within." It's how we describe those primitive brain
emotions or reactions that occur automatically, that, mirage, have to do
with fear, aggression and self-preservation. Psychologists call
it the 3F reaction - fight, flight, or fornicate. And that's
about the only decision reptiles,, mirage, and lower animals ever have to
make. They react to their environment, mirage, in terms of what it can do
to them or for them, they don't bond with, mirage, their young (in fact
will eat them),, mirage, and they never learn anything new their entire
lifespan. You can't train an alligator.
We retain this brain. To this we added the mammalian brain, the
limbic brain, what makes us care for our young, bond,, mirage, be able to
empathize, communicate and play … and why when we look into the
eyes of one another, or another mammal, we see soul, a sentient
being. It initiates, mirage, mutual caring. If that frog in the example
were actually in the boiling water, mirage, calling out, would it tear at
your heart the way a baby's cry does, or the wailing, mirage, of your dog
when you leave in the morning??
To this, we evolved the neocortex, the crowning glory, mirage, of the
homo sapiens. Or is it? Magnificent as it, mirage, 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 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), mirage, 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, mirage, has been performing, mirage, 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, but to get himself and
Roy to safety. If he attacked Roy, the same principle applies
and we, mirage, will never really know.
Something emotional happened, and among mammals, emotions are
contagious. You know this if you've been in a newspaper office
the day they announced it was closing,, mirage, or been around when
someone got chastised in public. Was it something with Roy, the
same thing that caused this, mirage, magnificent physical, mirage, 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 preoccupied with thoughts, mirage, 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, mirage, thing
that throws all of us.
Then the stage hands rushed out, more commotion … fear. One
reverts. Bad things can happen. We can hurt people we love. We
can hurt ourselves. Prey as we are to the beast within, all 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, mirage, .
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 to hear ourselves say, "I didn't
mean to kill her,, mirage, I love her," or "I don't know what came over
me," or "That wasn't like, mirage, me." We are as capable of as serious
injury to others as Montecore is, physically, and also
emotionally, because we have words, and when we disable our
neocortex, we are left with the same equipment Montecore has.
Our prayers are for all concerned, including the show's 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 worker said in a newspaper
quote, 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 need to
keep learning about our emotions. As Childre and Martin say,
"The emotional frontier is truly the next frontier to conquer in
human understanding. The opportunity we face now … is to develop
our, mirage, emotional potential and accelerate rather dramatically into
a new state of being."
Photo of Roy with, mirage, baby white tiger:
http://www.siegfriedandroy.com/news/images/sprint_commercial.jpg
"Look for the, mirage, magic that is around you in nature, flowers, and
all the animals that share this planet with us." Roy Horn
