Troubling the Three Monkeys
We close our eyes, ears, mouths, and even our hearts…
We don’t see you. We don’t hear you. We don’t talk to you. We don’t feel you.
Playing three monkeys1, we seem to love. Playing all sorts of monkeys seems to be our evolutionary birthright.
We, humans, have a great capacity to ignore.
ignore, verb: to intentionally not listen or give attention to; to refuse to take notice of.
We ignore our four-and-a-half-billion-year-old planet, our web of life, the destruction of our ecosystems... We ignore extinctions, massacres, famines, pollution, injustices…
We ignore dreams, disabilities, wounds, trees, plants, planets, ourselves, our creative potential, our destructive potential, each other… you name it and watch us ignore it.
Patriarchy, the Great Collective Ignoring, has systematically ignored the existence of women thinkers, scholars, alchemists, artists, scientists for thousands of years. Aspasia, the teacher of Socrates, is one. Maryam Al-ʻIjliyyah, the maker of astrolabes is another. Leonora Carrington, the great surrealist, is a more recent one.2 These are female humans we know of because more or less they come from privileged backgrounds so they could find ways to perform their talents out in the open and their lives were recorded. There have been so many people, human and more-than-human, whose names we don’t know and we won’t know… yet they existed, yet they lived, yet they mattered. And they still do exist, live and matter.
Ignoring and being ignored happens. And to a certain degree, we need the capacity to ignore. Clearly, we cannot listen to everything and everyone; we cannot give our attention to all and at all times. But I propose that we pay attention to what and who we ignore, why, when and how. Because what we personally and/or collectively ignore tells stories as well and perhaps those are the stories we need to pay attention to and rediscover. What are we ignoring? Who? Why? How? When? Where? Is something manipulating us to ignore, discard, silence some stories, people, places, cultures, species, spirits, feelings, imaginations? Even some parts of ourselves?
We can not underestimate the power of ignoring and how hurtful it can be for our planet, ourselves and each other. We should acknowledge our ignoring power and wield it consciously. Ignoring does not make things, or beings go away.
We should constantly find new creative ways to engage with this riddle.
There are many beings who need our human mouths, human hands, human language, human connections, human relationships, human resources, human arts to express themselves because we are the custodian species of our planet.
If we don’t tell the stories of grapes, fungi, and nudibranchs, who will?
For them also, we must find ways to become un-ignorable, and even inevitable.
In the spirit of reversing and troubling the spell of ignoring and being ignored, I am dreaming of some things with this Venus retrograde. And I’d like to encourage you to dream along.
How can we rekindle our relationship with the ignored personally and collectively?
Do we need bigger ears to hear the wilds, do we need bigger eyes to see in darkness, do we need bigger noses to sniff this rotten human-centric and -supremacist paradigm or do we just need to be willing to offer our attention, deepen our senses, get curious about others and take some risks.
What, who, where, when have been ignored for so many lifetimes and generations, will surely take some time to trust us and our sincerity to repair relationships. Patience, respect, persistence and an immense amount of creativity are needed.
Spring is coming. And it is approaching fast here. Istanbul3 jumped to 20+ degrees in the blink of an eye last week. Indeed, it is way too hot for mid-March. The heat got my attention. Can this be a spring when the ignored ones begin to get noticed by you, by me, by him, by them, by us? Can this be also a spring when the ones who attract a lot of unnecessary attention begin to be ignored? I wonder… Let us wonder and wander.
Like Fiona Apple sings from her own appledom: “Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine.”4
Let’s make the most of it, regardless.
Gizem Gizegen, 2025 Istanbul, ☉ Pisces ☽ Libra, ☿ in Aries stations retro
Three monkeys originate from Japan and they are originally called: Three Wise Monkeys. They are Japanese macaque aka snow monkeys. Each one of them have names: Mizaru (does not see) Kikazaru (does not hear) Iwazaru (does not speak) Together, the three wise monkeys embody “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”
Aspasia lived in 5th century BC. Maryam Al-ʻIjliyyah lived in 10th century. Leonora Carrington was born in 1917 and died in 2011.
Istanbul is the city I live in.
The lyrics are from the song, Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple. It is one of my favourite albums.
🙈🙉🙊 thank you for the women you mentioned in all disciplines