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| New Camel Blogsite |
| October 22, 2007 by Stuart |
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For further updates on the Sacred Camel Gardens we have set up a new blogsite.
The URL is: "Camel &" |
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| Training by Camels |
| March 25, 2007 by Stuart |
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I'd been around camels for 13 years before I began training them. The need to train them arose soon after our third baby camel arrived. The present story took place a couple of years ago...
There are still very few good camel trainers around so I started reading books about horse training and was soon attending my first natural horsemanship clinic. For three days I observed, took notes, asked questions and tried to take in as much information as I could. The instructor was young but he knew his stuff and served me up a good introduction to the potentials that lay ahead.
So the day after the clinic I'm back in the pasture trying a few things with the camels. I kept it simple and things went pretty well - mostly.
After a while I started working with Google Mama, a serious, no-nonsense camel... powerful and intense. About 2200 pounds. A mother of three. Someone commanding respect.
She responded easily at first, which inspired me to go further. I gently tried for another ten or fifteen minutes asking her to do this one little routine with me. I was standing right in front of her, a couple of steps away from her muzzle.
After showing lots of patience Google Mama starts getting annoyed. I stay with it to try to bring her through. My mistake. She wasn't ready, and I wasn't ready. She was BIG and I was a complete novice. But there I am, trying to be a trainer of some kind.
After about ten minutes the big lady has had enough, and she lets me know about it.
So I'm standing there diddling with my new found techniques, or whatever the hell I was up to, trying to be sincere but not really aware of what I was getting myself into. Suddenly a huge shape rises up beside me, with glaring eyes, large open mouth and teeth... a charging wall of muscle, wool and raw integrity.
By the time I'm conscious again I'm twenty feet across the field and running hard, my mind still babbling, "I should stand my ground!” Luckily, my body has better survival instincts!
Pumping my legs through the long grass I fell once and got up, fell again and got up. Her great feet thumped behind me. Off to the side the three other camels were lined up staring... sharing popcorn, I swear! I fell a third time and my hamstring pulled. Broiling pain shot through my leg. I rolled, expecting a huge foot to crush through my chest or head. Everything blurred, and then cleared. I let go to my death...
No foot came. I looked up. Blue sky, not brown bulk. My thigh screamed... mouth dry... chest heaving...
Raising my head I met Google Mama's eyes, glaring at me from ten or twelve paces. I felt like a severely rebuked child... embarrassed, put in my place. Her gaze stung me, "Do you get it now? Have more respect, boy!"
I got it. She jogged away to the far end of the field and threw some bucks and jumps to unwind, before grazing.
Peaceful Baba, a young gelding camel, strolled over to me and stood looking down, a bit puzzled.
I dragged up onto my good foot and limped back through the tall grass. I knew the best thing I could do right then was leave, head bowed.
As I hobbled away, Jelly Baba, a black bull about eighteen months old, prowled after me. I felt like a wounded monkey being stalked by a rogue baboon! Having just seen his mom run me off I think a new game was taking shape in his head.
I'm grateful for Google Mama's lesson that day. She gave me essential instruction for everything that's followed. The help of good human trainers is indispensable, but it's still the camels who have the most to teach about camel training.
When I returned to Google Mama later that day she approached me sweetly, her face open and soft. We were good. She'd never intended to run me down. She had only treated me like the annoying youngster I was, requiring me to grow... or get out. And grow I must, bit by tiny bit....
We have since begun using the Liberty Training methods and approach with our camels. Liberty Training is the term used by Carolyn Resnick for the form of relationship training she teaches to humans who which to better understand their horses. Dialectic variations exist between horses and camels but the overall dynamics of herd, hierarchy and culture are close enough such that only minimal "translation" is necessary. |
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| Big Young Black Camel |
| January 27, 2007 by Stuart |
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Stepping through the herd... arms full of hay... into the canyon... rich of brown, red, black and white wool... long necks, thick manes, large heads, eyes, powerful legs, humps, swishing tails....
Intent on food... camels calmly shuffling about... letting me through... walking out to a clear place... putting the hay down... feeding begins... moving away... sitting on the ground, in the sun... camels go on feeding, munching, breathing, quietly...
Sitting nearby... watching... feeling their ground, huge feet pads, large woollen bodies... beneath the blue mountain... trees standing tall around... stillness filling with gestures, deep eyes, turns of head, flick of tails, random stomping feet... hanging boughs...
Two start wrestling... in the sun... older mother intervenes... Muffin and Everest nuzzle between mouthfuls... Google Mama stands apart... looking far away down the valley...
Jelly Baba looks up... big, young, black camel... leaves the others... comes over... towers above me... sitting down beside... touching furry lips to soft ear, and nose... hands groom thick, curly mane... removing twigs, lichen, tree-moss, broken bits of branch and thorny brush...
Chewing on my shoe... asking him not to... dropping his tree-trunk neck down beside me... huge head resting on lap...
I yawn... he yawns... he yawns... I yawn, and we go on yawning together for several minutes... like lazy lions... stroke his head... untangle his locks... warm breaths all over my lap... almost sleeping...
Peaceful Baba and Everest begin wrestling and barking... Jelly Baba looks up... around... rising... onto his feet... muscling off to join them...
Six months ago Jelly Baba was unruly, dangerous... several times had me jumping fences like deer... he thought I was dangerous, too... until we got to feeling each other better...
Through gentle training we are learning the feel of each other... engaging camels is learning to feel... taking the time to learn things that are there, but for which there aren't words... drawing each other along... with as much time as it takes...
And mountain, tree and sky, and also
Carolyn Resnick,
and
Bill Dorrance... |
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| Riding Peaceful |
| January 10, 2007 by Stuart |
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Riding camels is similar, but different, from horse riding. Camels with only minimal training, but who are well cared for and respected, will readily accept a person onto their backs. Their graceful walk is relaxing, contemplative and undulating.
In these photos Peaceful Baba is being ridden bare-back, without halter or reins. He can walk, or run, wherever he wants, with the rider just going along for the ride. Camel and rider develop a deep trust and acceptance of each other this way, which enhances further training later.
Each and every camel is an individual and their characters all vary. Camels with minimal formal training should not be ridden by inexperienced riders.
Sitting down in between the two wooly humps you start to feel like you are riding both on top of the camel, and 'inside' it. The deep energy of the camel's enormous body is powerful, relaxing and energizing.
During a ride the camels often reach their faces and long necks all the way back around to you in greeting.
The other camels also come by and make their greetings and comments.
With patience, caretakers and regular visitors are gradually included as valued herd members. Hanging out, doing "nothing", with camels becomes a subtle, profound, process where trust and mutual understanding deepen without effort.
As our camels' training is further developed they will (under appropriate guidance) become available for riding, and walks, and for just "hanging out" with visitors to the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary and Fear-No-More Zoo. |
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| Sacred Camel Gardens Begin |
| December 18, 2006 by Stuart |
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On December 8, 2006, after months of preparation, six of our Bactrian camels were finally walked across the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary to their spacious new home pastures. This day marks the beginning of "Adidamcamelashram".
We walked all six camels (Google Mama, Purnimama, Peaceful Baba, Jelly Baba, Muffin and Everest), un-haltered, as a herd group, following us in caravan from their previous enclosure to the new pastures. The move went very smoothly. Once there the camels moved about over the expansive new terrain, keeping in a close-knit group for much of the time, their eyes and nostrils wide and taking in as much as they could about the new surroundings.
By evening they were starting to settle into their new pastures.
Within hours of the camels arrival in the valley the winter rains finally began. We couldn't have timed it much closer.
Our three younger camels (Lily, Delaney and HiHo) will stay in the main Zoo compound until they each are large enough to move in with the other six.
Sacred Camel Gardens
Our intention is to develop our herd of camels in such a way that the Sacred Camel Gardens will become known as a leading center for Bactrian Camels in the world. The camels will be cared for according to the highest principles for the right care of animals.
We have tentatively begun referring to this new area as "Thunder Valley". It is a large area of fields, open woods and scrub country. There is natural running water for most of the year.
Facilities
The current pasture is about sixty acres, divided into two adjoining paddocks, one for each grouping of camels.
Later we will add a third pasture. Rain shelters are still to be installed in each pasture.
Additionally, we will create a spacious arena area where we will do our formal training with the camels.
Water troughs will be installed in the spring for the several months each year in late summer when the creek dries up.
As funding allows, proper stables will be built for bad weather use, for sick camel care, for calving mothers and so forth.
The entire area of Thunder Valley will be maintained consciously at a high level as the "Sacred Camel Gardens".
Temporary formal signs have been installed at the upper end of Thunder Valley. More permanent ones will be created soon.
Breeding, Training and Culture
Our camels represent high quality breed-lines. Working closely with our camels as feeling, intelligent, individuals we will develop the highest quality Bactrian camels.
All our camels will be well trained. Individuals, who show particular aptitude, and a liking for it, will be more highly trained in riding and showmanship, sacredly oriented dressage, and in special service to visitors and retreatants.
The basis of our camels' "foundation training" is being modeled after an excellent horse training method called, "Liberty Training", developed by Carolyn Resnick.
Because there are some clear cultural and character differences between horses and camels we are adapting the method to suit camels better. The basis, and focus, of Liberty Training is to develop a sound relationship of trust and respect, wherein the camels become willing and cooperative partners.
Once the Liberty Training, or the "Seven Water-hole Rituals", has been taken to the point of "companion-walking", without lead-rope and halter, further training methods will be employed for riding and other training, including physical work on the Sanctuary for those camels who enjoy it, or will benefit from it.
Residential cabins will soon be constructed adjacent to the camel pastures so that camels and people will be living side by side as an integrated culture. We will always have people living around, and with, the camels, seriously involved with them and drawing others to experience them.
Camels at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary
We will probably end up with between 15 and 20 camels living here as an average number. Additional numbers will be made up of seasonal calves and yearlings. We will also most likely retain a small number of camels at the main Zoo compound. Various camels may be brought back and forth from the Camel Gardens to spend time at the Zoo from time to time.
The camels who are inclined for it will participate in various Sacred activities on the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary.
Equine-assisted therapy has become more popular in recent years. While we probably would not intentionally use the camels for conventional types of therapy, their contact with people has the potential for healing on physical, emotional and energetic levels. The camels' dispositions and strong contemplative quality are also instructive to people. The cooperative form, and order, of their herd culture is also instructive to observe and feel. The camels support and encourage people's relationship to the Divine in a most natural and powerful way.
Contemplative retreats among the camels will be developed in time.
Camels in Service To Humans
The Sacred Camel Gardens of Thunder Valley, together with Fear-No-More Zoo as a whole, serves to educate people who visit, and others further afield, about Adi Da Samraj's Profound Teachings about the non-humans. This education is being furthered through both direct contact and participation with the camels and through the Sacred Camels Website and other materials that we produce. The Sacred Camels website is still being considered and planned. It will parallel and companion alongside the Fear-No-More Zoo website. Eventually an educational center may be constructed in upper Thunder Valley for use by visitors and trainees.
Stuart
"Camels view the world from a unique point of view."
-- Adi Da Samraj |
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© 2005-2006 The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.
All rights reserved. Perpetual copyright claimed.
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