I have always wanted to be an oceanographer as I was mainly attracted to the marine world. The ocean, the sea, unknown or little-known animals have always fascinated me. Then, my path led me to live and work three months in Israël among a nature reserve. I realized that I enjoyed traveling by myself and that it was the way I wanted to live and work.
Also with wild remote species outside of the ocean. Israël has been a true revelation to me. I was dreaming almost every night that I was about to be born. On the eve of my twentieth birthday, I witnessed my own re-birth. I came back to France to complete a two-year ecology training in a school and I also started to study more the animal species. At the end of those two years, I knew what I wanted to do: it was to travel again. This trip brought me to the chimpanzees and I began a Master specialized in ethology. I had the need to better understand their behaviours, their games, their way of living. A true revelation: these animals had a high level of reasoning and they could give the best as well as the worst of themselves, which I thought was only reserved to humans so far. They could sometimes show a great emotional intelligence and also behave very violently. And what was very interesting among groups of young chimpanzees is that if you don’t position yourself amongst them, they quickly invade or overtake you. That changed a lot of things for me. I understood the influence our positioning has on our environment. How the other reacts on us comes from our inside! It is not that by making a lot of gestures that they would respect us. But they do respect our presence. It took me some time to realize all this and to remain in the present. In order to be able to do this, I focused on details, payed attention to what was really going on. I was observing their concentration, their faces, their skin folds, I was really looking at them. Just looking. For real. I did not really have the right to make a mistakes or they we would get constantly tease me. When I was quiet, they cuddled me and when I was in my head, they were extremely invasive.
Then, I left to work with wolves during six months in Russia, where I lived in a small isba -wooden house-, with sometimes down to -40°C outside! There, a relationship with a she-wolf left a deep mark in me. I was following her every day to write down her behaviour and link it with the flaws of the GPS collars. One day, as I was tracing her, I got buried in snow up to the chest. I was scared that despite the trust relationship we had built up, this situation might rekindle her primary predatory instincts. I was an easy prey in this position. I could feel my heartbeat, waiting for her reaction. But contrary to my fears, she started to whimper, it surprised me and moved me a great deal. She then tried to move a branch towards me so that I could grab it and pull myself up. She behaved as if she was extremely embarrassed and empathic, the same as a dog would have reacted. She was coming towards me then moving backwards as if she was saying to me: come, follow me, get out of here. It was both funny and touching. Some time later, after the end of my stay in Russia, she chose to leave with a pack of wild wolves and she was sighted with cubs.
The wild world allows us a total reconnexion with who we are, and if we persist in destroying it, we finally cut off the last link connecting us with Mother Earth. What I also realized was how much we need to share those things to enjoy this intensity even more. And at the same time, we have the need to find ourselves alone, to fully explore our solitude in order to understand that being alone is not a question of number but rather a state of being. The way to be, the way to love oneself. I started to understand who I really am and to love myself in Russia. It was as if I had met myself for the first time, in seeing the mirror of this wolf which had put so much trust in me…
Amsterdam island.
I left for fourteen months on Amsterdam island to follow seals, albatrosses and penguins. What was amazing is that I was the only biologist. I was living there together with nineteen other people, among whom eighteen men and I was regularly sharing my passion with them. My work was opening them up to something completely different from what they had experienced before. Like holding an albatross in their arms and telling themselves that that they could kill it but that it is absolutely perfect. As I was banding birds, my colleagues, who were often military, were protecting the eggs or the very young chicken. I discovered their very nice femininity in those gestures. It completely turned the lives of some of them upside down! The human experience on this Amsterdam island turned out to be fully extraordinary! It was, after all, a constant effort and a wonderful invitation to position ourselves. Wolves and chimpanzees had taught me the lesson. The journey back was the most difficult part. It was as if I had to tear myself away from the wild world to find myself back into civilisation. The hardest thing was to see the city lights from the boat. I was well aware and I came to understand that this was not real life, in the authentic manner. But rather, the world of the running. Of masks! We are never closer to our true self than being in nature. In my eyes, returning to civilization meant to accept losing myself again. Before leaving, I was doing a lot of yoga and meditation but on the island, you are in a permanent state of meditation, all the answers immediately come to you, you don’t need to do the exercises, everything happens completely naturally. And towards the end, I received a beautiful gift. Seals are generally very aggressive. It is only in the water that you can be with them in a serene way. Once on the ground, they always try to bite you. As I was carrying a seal in my arms for I had to measure her, a female came closer to me. With a stick and the little one in my hands, I was telling her to go away. I was pushing her back but she stood on her webbed feet with closed eyes! I then started to stroke her belly with the stick. I even finally managed to find the courage to touch her with my own hand! Her muzzle came closer to me without aggressiveness while there were thousands of them around us and, for more than a year, not a single seal had shown any sign of sympathy on the ground. The person who was with me filmed the scene, I almost could not believe it! It was as if I was being offered an immense gift telling me what you did is right and has been appreciated. A gesture, a superior intelligence… sometimes we do not get the bigger picture!
One of my main goals is to continue to be amazed, to see the beauty we can perceive and share it. I wish to transmit this to as many people as possible so that each one decides to preserve those jewels by themselves. So that it becomes completely natural. Not that it requires an effort, that it represents a constraint but that it is done with spontaneity and love.
My next project is to fly around the Arctic with an ecological ultra-light hydroplane. We want to take up that challenge with the team of the Polar Kid project to keep on revealing the beauty and the emergency to preserve it. I will be in charge of the scientific aspect, of the encounter with species. You can follow us on social networks and any kind of help, whether financial or moral, is welcome.
