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MariusWas this a Giraffe Gaffe?

Giraffes do not figure as the central characters in any public holidays, like Easter bunnies do, but they most certainly figure as a treat to see and watch in a zoo.  Of course they are even more exciting and gallantly graceful in the wild, but I am presently focusing on European territory, and unless you have one living next door, which would be contrary to European Union Regulations, you will find giraffes only in a zoo.  Moreover, like the one-child policy in China, giraffes are subject to government stipulations and statistics.   Giraffes do also figure in much of childrens’ literature and many a chirpy child will have a favourite Giraffe with a a tail.   A Google search came up with, Roald Dahl’s, ‘The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me”, another one titled, ‘The Giraffe who got into a Knot”, another, “Do not Laugh at Giraffe”, and yet another; ‘Why Geraldine the Giraffe is Crying”.  Dear young Marius and his keepers may have had significant reason to cry.

Why Marius the Giraffe had Reason to Cry

Marius is now romping over the clouds somewhere in Giraffe heaven.  He may even make it into a children’s book!  Remember, Marius was the creature who was deemed surplus to EU requirements and met an edible end in the Copenhagen Zoo earlier this month.  Offers to save this doe-eyed cutie came from far and wide, but none were deemed sufficiently worthy to save Marius from death.

Roll up… roll up to watch ‘the circle of life’…

His end was staged by the liberal Danish zoo magnates, who took a decision, following the animal having been put down (out of view), to then create a theatre of carvery, laying Marius’s prostrate body out for gathering visitors ―- primarily liberal parents and their offspring, to watch ‘the circle of life’ in Africa-cum-Copenhagen.  Marius was to go native ― in the sense that his body was to be skinned, cut, and carved into choice pieces and chunks, for feeding to the lions, tigers and bears ― possibly not bears, nor tigers, but most certainly lions.  How emotionally disturbing could that potentially be to a child?

White Rabbits

Let me share a tale that was told to me at a conference many years ago.  The tale revolved around the real case of a small boy who experienced an extreme and adverse reaction to eating chocolate.  As a boy he believed he loved chocolate, but his face would respond in an extreme way.  Huge bulbous lesions would appear on the boy’s complexion, and continued to appear well into his adult life.  You may concur that these lesions were benign, but clearly unsettling and inconvenient.  The emerging adult did, however, continue to eat chocolate ― perhaps in moderation ― but most certainly continued to eat it, well into his adult life.  Then one day he had the visionary thought to seek out an expert hypnotherapist to investigate the extreme physical response.  In his case this was an old school American hypnotherapist.

Easter Saturday and what happened in the session of hypnosis and therapy…

The client regressed back to a day in his childhood.  The day was Easter Saturday and the boy was being treated by his parents to a day at the zoo.  Perchance he and his parents arrived at the habitat of the lions as lunch was about to be served.  On the menu were fresh live rabbits, and these fresh live bunnies were mercilessly devoured in one edible bunny-shaped ker-chunk!  One can only wonder at the sight, and how it may have played-out on a young emerging mind.

Easter Sunday and Easter Bunnies

The next morning was Easter Sunday, the boy had bestowed upon him, an Easter egg and a boxed, chocolate bunny.  The boy ate the chocolate bunny, of course though perplexed at the sight of the bunny, and the sights he had witnessed the previous day at the zoo.  Whatever emotional response he had demonstrated at the zoo, became alarmingly seen and ‘heard’ when his face erupted with skin lesions within the hour of munching the bunny-shaped chocolate.

Hypnosis and therapy as private detective

And so the extreme chocolate experience was unravelled, and explained and the lesions healed.  The understanding and the knowing, allowed the boy and the grown-up man to reconcile the emotional response (with the assistance of a skilled expert hypnotherapist), and so heal completely the physical reaction.  The explosive lesions ceased and the man continued to eat chocolate with relish and joy.

So what do you think of the Giraffe Gaffe?

Do you imagine as I do, that in the future, a sensitive child who, on the day of Marius’s demise, observed the carving-up of Marius, may well experience an emotional response in the form of a nightmares, or a physical response, in another way some day in the future?  Most certainly the Easter Bunny case played on my mind when Marius was prepared for dinner, as educational ‘theatre’ for children with vulnerable and emerging minds.

And that reminds me of Ikea

Why do Ikea sell reindeer meat to eat on any day of the year?  But Christmas?!

Read my description of hypnotherapy here.

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