opening our senses

Whether through our owl eyes, deer ears or coyote noses, opening up our senses this fall season tunes us into another level of experience in the Natural World.
 
Why Owl Eyes? 
We tune into Owl Eyes when we want to see with more awareness or wide-angle vision. Owls have incredible binocular vision to increase depth perception and focus thanks to tube-shaped eyes instead of round eyeballs like we have. Without eye sockets and moveable eyes, Owls move their entire head (up to 270 degrees!) and must keep their gaze soft and open to track movement. Seeing with wide-angle vision allowed us to track changes above, below as well as beside us. 

Why Deer Ears?
As much as we dream it, we can't grow new ears. We can, however, cup our hands and place them behind our ears to expand our sense of hearing! At Forest Play, we call these our Deer Ears. Taking after our Deer friends who move their ears instead of their head, we changed the position of our cupped hands to pick up near and far away forest frequencies.

Why Coyote Nose? 
Olfaction, the act or process of smelling, is Coyote's dominant sense. Whereas humans are sight-dominant animals, Coyotes' brains are dominated by more than 200 million olfactory receptors. Although their sense of smell is estimated to be 100 times more powerful than humans, our Coyote Noses tracked a diversity of smells from pine, spruce, juniper and decomposing leaves to the cinnamon and mustard in our lunches and the poplar bark, rose hips, yarrow and fresh dirt.