101: The Soul of an Octopus—Exploring Consciousness and Animal Communication with Sy Montgomery

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Hello everybody. Welcome back. I am positively giddy to have this week's guest, Sy Montgomery with us here today. Get ready, friends, for our Just a Wonderful Soul Person and writer Cy has been described by the Boston Globe as part Emily Dickinson, part Indiana Jones. I found her from reading her book, the gorgeous book, riveting, fascinating, awe inspiring. It's called the Soul of An A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness. As you all know here on the Pivot podcast, I love exploring consciousness and soul, and yet we haven't done it yet in the animal kingdom. And there's no one better to do that to help us do that than Sai. Sai has written 21 books for adults and children. She's been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Rwanda, hunted by tiger in India, swum with piranhas, electric eels and pink dolphins in the Amazon. Her work has taken her from the cloud forest of Papua New guinea for a book on tree kangaroos to the Altai mountains of Gobi for another on snow leopards. Soul of an Octopus won a National Book Award. It was a New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award finalist, and another one of her runaway bestsellers is called the Good Good the Extraordina of Christopher Hogwood, which I also read before this interview. And that's about her 14 year relationship with her beloved pig, who grew to be £750, famous within her town of Hancock and beloved by all who met him. Sai, welcome to the show.

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

Lucky us. You describe in Good Good Pig that you've always kind of seen yourself as part animal and even an animal in previous lives. You say animals have always been my refuge, my avatars, my spirit twins. Can you Tell us a little bit about how even at a young age, this love of animals showed up for you.

Oh, yeah, I'm delighted to. Actually, I've written a memoir that's coming out in the fall that I go into this a little bit before I was two, and therefore before I can even remember this, my parents took me to the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany. I was born in Germany and apparently I broke free of their hands and toddled into the hippo pen where I was apparently not bitten in half and.

Possibly welcomed, as hippopots are likely to do. Right. I mean, they've been.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, wouldn't you feel invaded if some little primate came into your. Into your pet? I mean, who could blame them? But they didn't do anything to me. Here I am. But I always was fascinated by animals. I think most children are. I think, you know, we were, until very recently, all hunter gatherers and hunter gatherers. I mean, now we're shopper gatherers, right? But hunter gatherers, pay attention to the natural world or else, you know, you can't find any food, you don't know what's going on, or someone comes and eats you. So I always felt more drawn to animals than anyone else. I was an only child, so I didn't have brothers or sisters to distract me. And when I was very young, I. Gosh, I might have been three or four. And I don't remember this either, but because it was so long ago. But when I was very young.

I insisted first that I was horse and then I insisted that I was a dog. And the problem was that first my mother thought I had some kind of mental problem. But the other was, although everyone was eager to teach me how to be a little girl, no one was there to teach me how to be a dog. Until the wonderful day that my parents brought home a Scottish terrier puppy named Molly, who became my bigger sister. You know, dogs reach maturity long before we do. And so even though she was younger than I was, I was very aware that she, at age 2, was already a mature individual and I was still a child. And I wanted to be like her, just like every girl, I think, wants to be like her older sister. I longed to be like Molly. And today that's kind of what I am. I had always dreamed that Molly and I would go off to the forest and she would teach me the secrets of the animals. And, well, I'm not with Molly anymore, alas. But that's what I do. I pursue the same kinds of things that I Think Molly would have liked to have shown me had we been able to run away together and live in the hollow tree I dreamed of.

What a beautiful creature to get inspiration from as well. Dogs are so loving and joyful and.

Playful and so alive to their senses in ways that we don't know. You know, they can see in the dark, which we can't. They can hear sounds above the threshold of human hearing. They are so alive to scent. We live in that same real world that they live in, but they are experiencing it in a different way. And once you have a friend who is an animal, they expand your universe so much. So even if you can't experience their senses by hanging out with them, you get to see them experience the world in a way that deepens our. Our own love of this planet and our own knowledge of what the real world really is.

That's what I found so beautiful throughout all of your books. Well, I've only. I've read two about Chris the Good, Good Pig and Soul of an Octopus. And then I started the one about tigers. I wish I could have read all 20. But you. You describe the incredible animal intelligence, but not just that, their personalities and their spirits. And you absolutely befriend animals and have them as your family. And I love how you say it's a misnomer, that for some reason certain people in society think that that's somehow a malfunction. Like if you're friends with an animal or your animal is your family, something has gone wrong in your ability to relate to humans. And you really made such a strong case. Yeah. That it doesn't. It's not that way. And how much you've learned from your animals and the animals that you research.

I remember reading Harold Hayes's pathography of Diane Fossey, the woman who lived with mountain gorillas until a poacher finally killed her and she was buried in the guerrilla graveyard. I've been to her grave in Rwanda, and people said, you know, gee, Diane just could not make it with humans, so she was forced to find another species. Well, no one says that about the astronauts. Oh, they just couldn't make it here on Earth, so they had to go in outer space. You know, it drives you nuts when stuff like that is said.

You would be called just incredibly small if your only friends were of your race or sex. What if your only friends are one species? That makes your world small? When you've got friends or other species, it makes your moral universe expand as well as your sensory universe as well as your intellectual universe. It just makes everything bigger. And as you know, compassion, it doesn't exist in little drying up pools. Compassion is this vast, bottomless ocean. And once you dip into the ocean of compassion, you realize how wide it is. Oh, we're hearing from server. Can you hear him barking in the background?

He's chiming in. He's like, seconding what you're saying.

That's right. That's my big point.

What kind of dog do you have now?

He's our third border collie and he's God, he's so great. He came to us because he was blind in one eye. All of his siblings are professional herders, working with large numbers of sheep and cows and pigs. And because he was born with one blind eye, although he was smart enough to herd, you don't want to start with an animal who's handicapped in that way, because you can literally be blindsided if one of your eyes is blind and it's dangerous work. So the breeder who normally sells these dogs to work professionally wouldn't have let one of his puppies go as a pet. But our darling Sally had just died of a brain tumor weeks before, and I didn't know how much I needed him. And he came to me. I'd love to say that he's got one blind eye and one blessed eye.

The blind eye is actually the blessed eye.

Right. Oh, it's so beautiful. And I know that's how you ended up with Christopher Hogwood as well, that he was the runt of the litter. And often the female pigs will sometimes kill the runt of the litter because they're not going to make it anyway. And that you need to.

And all their siblings push them away from the good food.

Yeah. And that, by the way, I grew up, I had an Australian shepherd for 16 years.

Oh, you did? Oh, my gosh.

Yes. So when you describe that I was male or female. Female.

What was her name?

Her name was Patches.

Patches. Oh, how great.

Yeah. I used to work at Google and I would take her swimming on the weekends and watching her swim in the fountains there. It was like pure bliss.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. But as you described Kali as being so smart and needing to work, definitely as a puppy, we would come home every day and the entire bookshelves were chewed and on the floor. So I think we didn't realize.

Oh, my God.

We didn't realize how much that hurting energy is there and has to be used.

Oh, yeah. Well, gosh, I feel like a soccer mom with Thurber because we've got all these Activities going on this morning. First walk was with his friend August, who also only has one eye. They're about the same age and they live on the same street. And then right after that, an Australian. No, this is. I don't think it's an Australian cattle dog. Anyways, a part mix dog named Basil. So that was his second hike of the day. And then later on he's going to have some time with the poodles. And we're also taking dance lessons together, which is Larry.

I've never heard of that.

Everybody thinks I'm doing it. My husband, I'm like, no, it's with Thurber. Yeah. It's called Canine Freestyle. And if you go on the Internet and look up canine freestyle dances, you will see how much fun it is. And the dogs love doing it. They'll do stuff like weave through your legs and then spin and then jump. And it's just a riot. It's so much fun. It's very similar to agility. But instead of running the same course as all the other dogs, you can cater to what your dog enjoys doing and do the moves that your dog likes and the moves that you like to music that you both like.

That is so incredible. It's even the metaphor of dancing with your dog because the dance implies both. You're not just training him, you're dancing with him. You're reading his signals and combining something new between the two of you that wasn't there.

That's right.

And it's not one sided.

He comes up with ideas all the time. Yeah, yeah.

That's so sweet. It's not just owner to dog, it's like friends, dancing, partners, co creating.

Exactly.

I think that's such a beautiful metaphor for all of your work, truly.

Oh, gosh. Thank you so much.

One thing I had to ask you. I've got to know where this courage comes from and I think it will give listeners even more of an idea. At the beginning of Spell of the Tiger, you share a story that you jumped out of a moving truck in India to go pet a python. And I just thought, I have to know more about what inspired you to do that and how you knew that. I mean, most people would avoid pythons at all costs. So how did you know that?

Well, widely. So it wasn't the smartest thing anybody ever did. And I did it without thinking. I just did it without thinking. And the python was a huge python. And the python could have been very irritated by this.

Right.

And most animals don't want to be touched at all. And this was just one of those things that I didn't even think about it. And the next thing I knew, I was out of the truck and petting the python's tail. And the python did not mind at all. But I think this is kind of the case of an animal is forgiving me for being stupid. Most animals don't like you. I mean.

Met an orangutan in Borneo who. A woman ran up to this formerly captive orangutan and gave her a hug. And the orangutan picked her up and slammed her to the ground on the. On this dock. And she was like, why? Why? Well, she didn't feel like being grabbed and hugged by a stranger. Some stranger does that to you in a foreign country or comes to your house and suddenly starts hugging you. Well, you know, you just might not be in the mood for it. But this snake was special.

Mind. And not only forgave me, but seemed to be interested happily because the animal was moving away. You know, the head was so far. It was such a big snake. His head was so far from his tail that when I petted the tail, the head turned around and kind of looked like, what are you doing? The tongue came out to get some molecules of scent and went back in. But I'm not afraid of animals. I mean, I.

I try not to do stupid things all the time, but it's people that give me the willies. Animals very seldom hurt people unless the person is doing something to harass it. It's people that have given me trouble on all of my trips. And I've gone to a lot of different places to meet wild animals. The only animal ever hurt me was a mosquito who gave me dengue fever and I guess ants who bit me. But, you know, twice I've had people pull guns on me.

Really.

So who's the scary one there?

Right?

But at the time, I was so focused on my book that I wasn't frightened. I was just furious.

Oh, that's so funny. Was it in why did they pull guns on you?

The first time it was for money, and the second time it was in India. And it was just to intimidate me and I was not intimidated. So he put the gun away.

It's so interesting what you said about people giving you the willies, that our intuition. The other day, someone kind of followed me into the building and then the elevator and then my floor. It was just so creepy. And every micro intuition I had was like, ugh. You know, And I. I even wish I would have said something to him like, what are you doing here? And I didn't because I just didn't want to interact with him at all. But I knew he was so creepy. And it's true that animals don't have that so much, like they're either trying to defend themselves, but you're so right that they don't have all these weird, twisted motives that can come into play and.

Not really goodness sakes. Animals warn you. Usually if they're going to attack you, it's because you've crossed some invisible line or even a visible line that you failed to see. And they warn you. Even the most venomous snakes, they warn you. You know, rattlers rattle and cobras erect their hood and there's one snake species that will even squirt blood out of its eyes to warn you because they don't want to bite you. They don't want to. They know it's dangerous to deploy their weapons and they.

They normally don't mean you any, any harm at all. We don't have stuff that they want.

Most of the time. Even though our bodies are made of meat and would be perfectly delicious, one would think very seldom do animals want to eat us. And most of the time when, when animals do bite us, it's by mistake. Even sharks spit us out most of the time. The very few times that a shark attacks you, great white.

Most of the time the person survives because the shark spit you out. They made a mistake and they wanted a seal and they got you. So, yeah, I feel very, I feel very safe with animals.

Do you think there's something intrinsic within you? Maybe you were born with it or maybe it's an energetic state that you put yourself in. I'd be curious if you have any rituals around this or if you just already are in, that conveys to an animal that you are safe, you are their friend. Compared to say, the woman.

The gorilla tackled or to anyone who, and I wonder the distinction even between a person approaching an animal who feels afraid and that the animal might be able to smell their scent and therefore become afraid themselves. Just what you think it is that has so many animals feel like your friend and vice versa?

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. That's a smart question.

First, I am not afraid. That's the first thing. And the reason I'm not afraid, I think, is that I expect good things when I'm with animals because that's my experience. I was never taught the lie that animals are out to get you. And if anyone tried to teach it to me, I Didn't buy it. And most children, I think.

Understand intuitively that animals are fascinating to be with. And if most children were just not quite as wiggly as they are and had the attention span to watch, they would fall even more deeply, deeply in love with animals than they already are. And most children's dreams are dominated by animals, as you know. Right.

I feel like animals. I have this theory. I'd love your thoughts on this as well. I'm sorry to interrupt, but that animals like children as well like that somehow dogs know to interact with babies in a different way than they might with humans.

They totally do. They totally do. The only exception is when.

Babies try to grab someone's ear or tail. And they're. And typically the only people bitten by dogs in the face tend to be little people. And that's because their face is on, you know, the same plane as the dog. But most of the time, dogs or dogs were created by their love for us. They domesticated themselves. We did not domesticate them. They chose us. And they are extremely sensitive to what we're thinking and feeling. And we know that they do a lot with visual cues that they can read our expression. We know this with horses too. There was a recent study showing that horses remember and, and code human facial expressions. And dogs do this too. But also what you were talking about, smell and chemical cues. This is very interesting. I am sure that animals are detecting our intention through their senses. And when I got to know octopuses, I became convinced of this. Octopuses, as you know from reading Soul of an octopus, can taste with all of their skin. And taste is a chemical sense. They can taste with every bit of their skin, including their eyelids, but particularly with their suckers. And not only can they taste the surface of our skin, they can taste beneath the surface of our skin. And I saw this a couple of times in action. A friend of mine, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, who's a fantastic animal person, she.

Has met octopuses a couple of times with me. She's a very heavy smoker and her blood, even when she's not smoking, is full of nicotine. Well, the octopuses she met did not like her at all, even though she is the most animal friendly, wonderful human being in the world. But they can taste the nicotine in her blood. I think this is my theory that they can also taste our neurotransmitters in our blood. And the reason I think this is from a couple of different instances. One was.

I was running up the stairs, these little stairs that help you lean over one of the Octopus tanks or used to be there at the New England Aquarium. And I stubbed my toe pretty hard and I was instantly convinced that this octopus could taste my pain because of the difference in her behavior. And another time I was with an octopus whose name was Kali and she was a real sweetheart, funny, interactive, and a whole bunch of us had our hands in the tank interacting with her. But one of us, 16 year old girl friend of mine, great kid, but she, she was on different medicines for various different things and she was bitten by collie and not envenomated. They can choose to envenom it you or not. But she was bitten and it wasn't a bad bite, but it was like an investigative, investigative bite. And I later found out that she had just changed her medicine regimen and I feel certain that that's why she and no one else was bitten, because Kali could taste that.

With her skin through her suckers and thought, what's going on here? I'm going to investigate this with my beak.

And the thing is, I've learned through you, octopuses are highly, highly intelligent and conscious.

Yes. And very emotional.

And very emotional. And they knew her and she, Kali probably knew her, knew this wasn't her normal scent or biochemistry. And like you said, if she was biting to investigate her. Because what listeners might not realize that I learned from Sai is that octopuses can recognize humans and by touch and potentially even by sight. And they can remember years later they can spray like the. I thought it was such an interesting story about your friend who's the smoker and how you found out why they didn't like her is the octopus would spray her with water right when she would come and then no one else.

Yeah, they will do that. And sometimes they'll spray out of their jet. They can aim directly at your face. So if you're hit by an octopus in the face, it's not a mistake, they hit you and not someone else. And I've been standing next to people who are hosed right in their face and you know, you get some of the splash, but they have excellent aim. They can hit a butterfly flying over the water and knock it out of the water with their, with their siphon. But sometimes they use the siphon to play and sometimes they'll invite someone to play that way too. And they did that with a boy, a friend of mine named Danny who has pervasive developmental disorder. And he loves octopuses, but he was also afraid of them. He'd read all these encyclopedia things about octopuses and so he was A little afraid because of, you know, the old idea that they were monsters and these well known pieces of art that show octopuses bringing down the mass of ships and stuff like this. So he was shaking the first time he had an interaction with an octopus. And the octopus kept withdrawing every time he touched the octopus because he'd kind of poked the octopus and was shaking. The octopus blasted him in the face with freezing cold salt water the same way that a little boy might splash you in the face in the pool to get your attention. And from that moment on, Danny thought that was hilarious and they became fast friends. And they instantly began to interact with each other happily and play. It was so cool to see the octopus kind of take the bull by the horns and begin. First, you could see her reading Danny understanding this kid is afraid. And two, by choosing, you know what, I'm just gonna play with this guy. I'm just gonna splash him in the face and correctly got him to play with her in that way.

That is so incredible. It's so incredible. And I think you even told the story about when maybe it was Wilson or might have been you was grieving and going through a tough time, that the octopus could even sense that somehow.

Yeah, they may be able to sense this through our skin. Or.

Maybe there are tears. You know, our tears of sorrow are chemically extremely different from tears from something in your eye.

That's one reason why you feel better after a cry is that you excrete these brain chemicals of sorrow. Why should you feel better after a cry? Your nose is all plugged up, you look terrible, but you do feel better after crying. This is why. And it's possible that octopuses can taste that also. I mean, the stuff that these guys can do, it sounds like science fiction.

It really does.

Everything an octopus can do sounds like science fiction. Things that you can see them do. You can see them pour their baggy, boneless bodies through a tiny opening. A hundred pound octopus can squeeze its whole body through an opening the size of an orange. And you know everything about them. Their brain doesn't look like our brain. It's a ring around the neck you can cut off. And I mean, God forbid you should do this. But if an octopus's limb is severed, the limb can go off and do stuff. It can catch prey because three fifths of their neurons are not even in their brain, but in their arms. They can untie surgical silk with their. Not even their tentacles, just their suckers on the tentacles. Each sucker is tremendously strong.

1600.

That's right. That's right. I mean, imagine this thing. These guys, they've just got so many superpowers that you think that they would be worshipped as gods. And in some cultures they are.

Yeah. I couldn't believe when I first started your book. 1600 suckers. They can multitask. Each one can multitask, you say? Sucking, tasting, grabbing, holding, plucking, releasing. Each arm has two rows of suckers. Each sucker can lift 35 pounds of weight times 1600. Then they're incredibly smart. And then with the camouflage, they can do 30 to 50 different patterns per individual animal within a tenth of a second. And even to patterns they've never seen before.

Yes. And they are colorblind. What?

No.

Their eyes do not seem to have.

Anything that can process color, which means it now appears they may be able to see with their skin.

Oh, my gosh.

I know. It just blows your mind. So when we talk about them understanding our emotions, recognizing our faces, that's child play to somebody who can change color and pour themselves through a tiny opening.

You know, There was a YouTube video, and I wonder if this crossed your path. When it came out. It was a.

Guy in an aquarium and he released an octopus back to the ocean. And the video told the story of the octopus hovering by his feet to thank him for an hour.

The dude. Was this the dude? I think so.

Yeah.

Before the octopus swam out to sea, like, it was clear that the octopus and he like touched one of his tentacles to the guy's foot and held it there. And it was just this. You know, we could be anthropomorphizing, but after reading your book, I'm not so sure.

No. And you know, anthropomorphizing, that is such. I'm so glad you brought this up. Anthropomorphism is attributing so called human characteristics to animals. The very idea that emotions are characteristics that belong to humans alone, the very idea that intellect is ours alone is so anthropocentric that it's ridiculous. Now, it's true that we can always attribute incorrectly certain feelings to others around us. And all of us who have gotten somebody a birthday gift that didn't go over or asked someone out on a date who didn't want to go, we know that we can make mistakes. It's easy to project what you want onto others, and that can happen with animals. Like the woman who ran up to the orangutan to give her a hug, and the orangutan didn't feel like being hugged. So, you know, but it's wrong to think that when we see emotions, when we see intellect, when we see animals utilizing their memories, when we see animals figuring out problems, that we are merely pretending that they have characteristics that belong to humans alone. That's like nuts. And it's not good science.

Oh, I have the biggest smile on my face. I love that you're saying this because it's so true. It's so human centric, and.

It'S that ego and conceitedness that we have, as if we own the planet and everything in it and animals are just our property and the factory farming and it's just horrifying. And especially having read your books, I mean, I was already almost mostly vegetarian, but it's like these animals are brilliant. And honestly, it shouldn't matter, even. Like, it's prejudice. I think to judge the intelligence of an animal and their worth of whether we should be killing them or not, like, even that is somewhat ridiculous.

But no, we don't do it to humans. We don't sentence somebody to be eaten just because they didn't perform well on an IQ test.

And what I love is, and even the title of your book, you say, if I have a soul, an octopus does too, that this goes beyond their functional intelligence and all the things they can do with their different senses. There's a soul in there. And I know you knew Christopher Hogwood's soul and so did everybody in your town and the octopuses that you befriended.

Yeah, it is really true. And you know, the idea of, you know, what is the soul? You can discuss that endlessly. And there's people who say that there's not even a self. There's philosophers who claim that the self is, in fact, an illusion, but the soul. I mean, to me the soul is what's holy in all of us. And to be able to see that others possess this same holiness, to me, that makes the world so much more alive and our earth so much more sacred. And I think that affects our behavior as we move through this world in a gentler and more compassionate and more knowing way.

I know you've described your work as your ministry is connecting all of us people with the animal world and vice versa. Can you say more about that?

Well, I mean, it was just something when we were talking before we started the recording and sharing our talk with our conversation with your listeners. I do kind of consider my work a sort of ministry, a sort of witnessing.

That I think is beyond just writing something that will entertain someone during the hours that they're reading.

I Want to show them.

The same.

Brilliant stuff that animals have shown me. And I want.

To share that face of God.

There's this wonderful quote that's attributed to Thales of Millitus. And it kind of names.

How I feel.

Having seen.

What these animals, so many different species can do and their beauty. And it goes like this. It's.

The universe is alive and has fire in it and it's full of gods.

And that is the words of Thales. Miletus, not me. But to me, what that says is that our world is animate and our world is incandescent, which beauty and mystery and love. And that it's far more sacred than we know and we should treat it as such.

That's so beautiful.

Oh, thanks, Ailey. Although I don't think anybody was recording him when he said that. And who knows? I mean, so many of these things from centuries ago, you just don't know what they actually said. I mean, but I still love that.

You'Re taking those words. Yes, Thales, but also you, because in 20 books for adults and children, you are showing us, and I'll quote you that beautiful face of God and all of his creatures. And.

Just, you know, in the DAO, it's the 10,000 things, but it's also the 10,000 animals that we live with and share this planet with as 10,000. As a metaphor, of course, but that, you know, you describe in the Good, Good Pig that you've always loved people more than animals and didn't want children. And how he brought you a whole community. Like, he ended up domesticating you. You know, you said when you first.

Yes, he totally did.

Yeah. That he was almost diabolically genius, you know, like the genius of things.

He really was.

And much like the octopuses who can. They're so strong. Well, Chris was £750. Like, he was hard to contain no matter what you tried. So he ended up the whole town. We got to know him whenever he escaped and bring him slops. And he even was written up in an obituary in the paper on the front page of your local paper because he was so beloved.

Yeah, he was so beloved. And the amazing thing was, although he was immensely strong, so strong that he could knock over your wood pile with a flick of his nose. So strong that he could just bulldoze your lawn. So it looked like Vietnam after the Tet offensive. With his nose. When he was with kids, when he was with my friends who use wheelchairs, when he was with my friend Kelly, who had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, he was Absolutely tender. This huge 750 pound pig with pointy tusks was absolutely tender. And people just loved him. They loved him. He had a sense of humor. He gave special grunts to special people. The little girls who lived next door, he had a special grunt just for them. And I didn't even know this while he was alive, but after he died, I interviewed them and they told me that when they would have a bad day, they would come down to his pen and just tell him their sorrows. And he wouldn't even ask for food. He would just kind of listen and grunt and listen and grunt. And his hugeness made their sorrows small.

That's so sweet. And you even said that his eyes were so expressive, like as expressive as humans.

Oh, yeah.

Because I can't say that I've seen a pig up close in recent years where I would look at their eyes, but certainly looking at monkeys and gorillas, you can see that. So I didn't realize pigs had such expressive eyes. And. And then I looked in the middle of your book. You have those beautiful photos in his last Christmas card. Not only does he have the kindest eyes, but they're like full of love. Like, I could just see him. It's as if he was drunk on love. Looking back at. I don't know if it was you taking the picture, but just head over heels in love with whoever was taking that picture. And you can see it in his eyes.

Oh, that's great. Well, it was either me or Howard who was taking the picture, but the two of us were together and he did love us like we loved him. Oh, my gosh, it's so funny. I was just at the wedding of the younger of those two girls.

On Saturday, last Saturday. And he was very much. His spirit was very much among us. And. And they had different assigned tables for you to have dinner at. There were like seven to ten different tables. And there was one table that we sat at called the good, Good Pig table, and it had his picture right on the table. And both of them remember him every day as I remember him every day. And it just goes to prove that love never dies.

And that the spirit lives on. We talked before we hit record that you had said in the book writing, good, good Pig was excruciatingly difficult because just how much you miss him. And then you kind of walked that gauntlet. And now thousands of people all over the world are inspired by his story and reaching out to you and getting to know pigs better. And that his spirit is very much alive and well, like, he's as much the ambassador now than he was. Was while he was alive. Like that. That spirit is timeless and his impact is. And thanks to you, also bringing his story to life. But that it's really incredible to see how the spirit never dies either.

Yeah, it amazed me. I have a friend who's a medium, and she could see Christopher just as plain as day. And after he died, and she told me he's even bigger than he was before.

He's unconstrained even by his physical body. And it's totally true. When he was alive, one of the things he would do, because pigs are geniuses, is he would. He would let himself out of the pen. He would, in. This involved some pretty tricky stuff that he would do with his lips and his nose disc, which he would thread through the slats of his gate, and he would undo two sets of bungee cords, and then he would flip.

Like, a lever and then slide it. I mean, he had to do a lot to get out, but he could get out and he would go visiting people. Well, now he has slipped the bonds of his body and he is visiting people around the world because of the book written about him. And you are so right. I had a heck of a hard time writing that.

I was miserable every day I was writing that book because it was detailing everything that I had lost forever. I was horribly depressed the whole time I was writing it. And I normally, you know, you can get up in the morning and lose yourself in work. And frequently in my work, I literally would, you know, I'm going overseas. I'm going to Australia or to the Gobi Desert or French Guiana or, you know, and you're not confronted by whatever's upsetting you at home. But this. I was writing about everything that I'd lost forever. And every single day, that's what I had to dwell on and dwell in. But, boy, am I glad I wrote that book.

I tell kids, when I speak to children that just because something is hard, it doesn't mean you're not good at it. Just because you're struggling with a project doesn't mean that you're not meant to do it. Sometimes it means you are meant to do it. And sometimes the reason that you're struggling is that it's worth overcoming that struggle, and you'll get something deeply important in return for it. So it took me, oh, gosh, nine months maybe, to write that book. It was nine very hard months. But at the end, when the book was finally published.

All the joy that he had given to me during his life, came back and was multiplied by all the people around me. The same way that when I would introduce him to people, that they would reflect and magnify his joy.

So incredible. I love your advice that just because something is hard doesn't mean you're bad at it and doesn't mean you shouldn't keep going. Like, it's just so important. I had a friend who once told me, my friend Tara said, it's hard, not bad. So very similar advice, which is that that is good. Yeah. That it's life can get hard. And in your case, this creative project. And it's so incredible that you persevered through that and now have this beautiful memory and memoriam. And again, just sparking so much more life and more of his story as he probably follows readers around the world, you know, from his perch in hog heaven. Not to mention gobbling all the descriptions of how he would eat. Just sounds so joyful.

And it's like it was.

Yeah.

Oh, it was just a performance art. My husband used to say, you know, come over for dinner and a show. Dinner is his and the show is watching him eat it. Right.

I even love that the minister at your local church got involved and we get the community, like, people just. There was no more need to even compost because they knew that Christopher Hogwood would delight.

That's right. He would, like, put your compost on fast track and out would come this perfect manure for your garden. Right.

And Chris was a vegetarian, so you didn't feed him meat or let others feed him meat.

That's right.

I know we're approaching the end of our time. I could truly talk to you all day, but I'm curious. Okay, two questions. I'd love to hear what you're working on next. If you have a next animal study or that you're going to go dive into new species or anything. I know. You also mentioned a memoir and I got to know what routines keep you going in writing 20 books. I'm just so amazed at how prolific you've been as a writer.

Well, part of it is I'm old. I'm 60, and it's really more like 26 books now. I need to update my website, so. Yeah, I've got a memoir coming out actually next week. I have a new book out. Really?

Tell us so we can go buy it.

Yeah, it's a book written for younger readers because it's half photos and half text. But it's called the Hyena Scientist and it's about hyenas and Dr. Kay Holkamp's studies of these animals who are maligned wrongly. They're fabulous animals. They're a feminist society ruled by the females. And they are not mainly scavengers. They kill up to 95% of their food and they are more likely to have their kill stolen by a lion than the other way around. So Disney was wrong. So that's coming out next Tuesday. And then this fall, the memoir how to Be a Good Creature comes out in which you will meet Molly. And there's a chapter, it's a memoir in 13 animals. So Christopher's in there, Octavia's in there. You will meet an ermine, a tarantula, a couple of tree kangaroos and more. And.

Let'S see, I guess the end of, well, beginning of June, I'm going to go on my second expedition to work with California Condors.

A book in the Scientists in the Field series on the condor comeback. There were once 22 of these left on the planet, and today there's more than 400. But the effort to save them is ongoing and they are again threatened by lead is the main thing that's threatening them. And next year I've got diving trip organized for giant manta rays. And it looks like I'll also be going back to Thailand to do another book on the Asiatic wild dog or dole, with Earthwatch, a wonderful organization that I highly Recommend. Look up earthwatch.org if you ever want to spend a couple of weeks working on a scientific project with scientists studying animals around the world, regular people, laymen can do this. Just join earthwatch.org but anyway, so let's see, you had asked what kind of.

Habits, even with all that travel? I mean, I love how adventurous you are. It's so incredible.

All that travels. Like how do you keep your writing routines? Or do you go immerse yourself and then do more of a writing sprint when you come home?

Well, what I do, I take a ton of notes. I always have a little tiny pocket notebook so that no matter if I'm.

Riding a camel or hiking up a mountain, I can always take notes of what am I seeing, what are people saying.

What things sound like, smell like, feel like, look like.

I have another notebook that I take into the field in which I conduct interviews. I always use that as well as a tape because I actually had an interview eaten by an orangutan once. So I always take notes verbatim as well as tape. And then every night I have a journal when I'm in The field. And I write about what that day showed me, not just what happened. It's not a diary of this is what happened. But I try to say, you know, today.

Was all about being lost, or today was all about.

Redemption, or today was the cheetah's health check, or today.

We drew blood on captured condors, or if there was a theme of the day, that's what I write about. Then when I get home, once all the research is done, that's when I do the actual writing. And you get into a headspace. You try not to be doing a lot of public speaking and stuff during the time that you're writing. And you keep the phone off in the morning. Howard and I both do not answer the phone before noon. And we keep a kind of. You go into a quiet, quiet interior time. That's what we do anyway when we're. When we're writing. And it's funny now because, you know, when you're doing the research, when you're doing the reporting, you're using kind of one part of yourself and your soul. When you're writing, you're using yet another part. And then when your book comes out and you're doing the public ministry part, that's yet another part of you that you use. And you have to keep all of these things kind of in balance and all of them fit. And physical fitness is important, too. And so I attend to that.

It's so true that. I mean, first of all, thank you for sharing your routines. I love your process. And especially what that day showed me. It's like that's. I always like to leave listeners with an assignment or piece of homework that they can practice. And you don't even have to be a writer. But how interesting to look at our day, even if you're not on an epic adventure and say, not just what happened, but what did today show me? What did I learn? And that analysis and understanding is just so cool. And then I also love. I'm similar to you. Don't do any calls in the morning, because that's the best chance I have of a creative pocket.

Right, right. And don't look at your email. Don't look at social media. Don't let that go into your on. You can do that. Yeah. And I don't find that difficult at all. I find that necessary. I don't understand how people feel bereft without that stuff. I don't have. We don't have a smartphone.

That's great, right?

Yeah, we have one of those flip phones that doesn't even work here. But I guess I'm not all that connected because I'm used to being swallowed up in some jungle for months. I'm totally used to not being connected and I kind of like it.

Yeah, for me, it's not that I'm bereft with. It's like a guilt. I have got to crack the case on email pile up guilt where I just start to feel, even though I can't. I have no control over what comes in. But that's the piece where I just start to feel bad. And I know when I'm working on a book. I know when I'm immersed in a book. I'm horrible at email and getting back to people.

Well, sometimes you can make a message go out saying, I'm working on a book. Can you contact me next month?

Yes, that's a great point.

Or write me a letter. And generally people will do that. I also, I have an assistant when I'm away who handles my email because there's just no way I can handle it. I'm in the middle of nowhere. You're not getting the Internet. So, you know, I have her handle that. And what she does is instead of keeping, she basically says she's going to get so many emails that she can't possibly. She'll be inundated. So can you re email her in a month? And a lot of people will decide, okay, I'll do that. And other people will be like, you know what? It wasn't all that important.

Right, right. That's so true. And you have the ultimate excuse, which is the orangutan ate my homework.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, although we don't want to malign orangutans or anything with their reputation, but.

That's right.

I just respect you and your work so much and you have taught me so many things about animals and I just, I see this work that you're doing and believe in your ministry 100%. And you just write with such heart and soul and right from your earliest days as a child, like learning from your older sister dog. Like, I just can't think of a better energy to learn from and bring into this world. And I really thank you for doing the work that you do and for saying yes to this interview. Just.

We will. Right back at you. This has been a total pleasure and I'm thrilled to be connecting with this community.

Awesome. And everyone go get Psy's two new books that are coming out. The Hyena Scientist. And you can pre order how to Be a Good Creature. I cannot wait. Cy, thank you again.

Oh, my pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode at Pivot Method Podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.