The Clouds Don’t Need to Cry by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

It’s now practically the end of summer and moving into autumn and the days are still light and full and hot for us in the southern hemisphere, but on the other side of the world the days are short and dark and often miserable with people saying, they’re so glad January is done. As many of you know, I recently went to Norway, right up into the Arctic Circle and there was darkness practically all the time.  Hours and hours and hours of night. It was quite dramatic for the likes of me who was born in January in the middle of summer here in Western Australia. I grew up on the beach, in sea water, practically, in long hot days, and night was something you simply slept through: daylight until 7pm and night until dawn at around 5am.  Back here in the West I’m up with the sun and out the door for my daily swim in the  Indian Ocean.

In Kirkenes, in Norway, right up near the Russian border, in December night was effectively all day. Where was the time for waking, when for sleeping? How do people cope with it all? Don’t they get horribly depressed? What is the incidence of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): that condition associated with lethargy, low mood, irritability and craving carbohydrates  (the symptoms of SAD) up there in the Arctic Circle? These thoughts led to a lot of reading, as thoughts  generally do, and I discovered something very interesting: those northerners generally don’t experience SAD. So something more is happening.

Antidepressants are often prescribed  along with psychotherapies for those suffering SAD, a condition more often experienced by those living in kinder climes than Kirkenes. Why do we suffer and they don’t?  Maybe it is because we don’t know how to manage our perceived difficulties. They get no more than a mere sliver of light hovering above the horizon but they are active, engaged, friendly, warm.  We, on the other hand, are often moody and irritable. How do they do it? Studies have indicated that their moods stay pretty well stable throughout the year.

Mindset, it seems, is the key, at least to a point. The way we think about things affects how much we are affected by them. Those who view stressful events as challenges with an opportunity to learn, adapt  and discover do better than those who focus on the threatening aspects (possibility of accidents or illness or loss).

You can think of winter as dark and miserable, or an opportunity for warm companionship, outdoor sports, and fun. And yet, and yet… We are also our biology. Light manages our circadian rhythm in a cycle of sleep and wakefulness in a 24 hour environment. It is during darkness that melatonin is produced. Melatonin is the hormone that makes you feel sleepy and those with SAD may produce higher than normal levels. 

Light also shifts our moods.   Morning  sunlight advances the clock (making you sleepier earlier), while evening light delays it. This is why light therapy (blue light, particularly) is useful in the treatment of SAD. Sunlight is loaded with the blue light, so when the cells absorb it, our brains’ alertness centres are activated and we feel more lively and awake. If we suffer insomnia, exposure to morning light helps reset our internal clock enabling us to wake earlier and sleep longer. Bright light at night delays our body clock, making it harder to fall asleep. 

So there needs to be a balance between light and darkness,  environmentally and metaphorically, for the human being to function well. We can be martyrs to biology or, as those in the Arctic Circle do, think about our light-environment as a challenge or cave in to dark feelings where even the clouds cry.

Is it any wonder that it is right up there in the Arctic Circle that dog sledding is a much delighted in sport. My friend and I did it and it was fast and furious fun. Six dogs ran with us in the sled full speed across the frozen landscape with just a sliver of golden light edging its way over the horizon.  This is the essence of cocking the snoot at biology.

Connecting Across Species by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

February 2026

I am sometimes accused of anthropomorphism in the way I talk about  and to other animals but this kind of assumption doesn’t sit well with me. I do talk to all kinds of beasties: birds, horses, dogs, cats, quokkas, octopuses, and the like. I did talk to a carpet snake once, as I patted his/her silky body. Connection and communication does take place. And this is the key and this, I think is why the accusation of anthropomorphising my relationship with other animals misses the mark. I’m not assuming other animals share my emotional  nor cognitive response to the world, nor do I attribute my experience to them. They are different in size, perspective, bodily shape, methods of engagement, experiences, bodily equipment (sense of smell, eyesight, muscle sense, etc etc). A cat is not a human, I know this. But….

Before I go on, I’ll define anthropomorphism and give a brief history into why some still think we cannot share the life world of other animals and have a knee reaction to those of us who think otherwise.

Anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a animal, or object. The arrogance of philosophers and scientists has, until recently,  dismissed any idea of mind in other animals, going along with the idea that humans are somehow superior in some way. Descartes in the 17th century, as much as the behavioural psychologist B. F. Skinner in the 1950s, saw other animals as stimulus-response mechanisms that could be trained, but lacked an inner life. They saw the attribution of minds to animals as a clumsy anthropomorphism. And yet the observation of other animals, as they go around their business of being in the world, seems to point to a whole lot more. There are many minds, and many ways of acting and responding to the world.  What tremendous arrogance assuming that we humans are pinnacle of evolution, after all we all share an evolutionary and interactional heritage and as such minds didn’t just spring into being with human beings. 

What, though, is this thing called “mind”?  It is generally used to refer to a collection of mental faculties like consciousness, thought, perception, emotion, memory, and will, encompassing both conscious and unconscious processes. These are shared by other animals (though it is only now that we are understanding this more), but do they have a theory of mind? And do we all have a theory of mind? Theory of mind is an ability to understand that others have their own unique thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions, which may differ from our own, allowing us to interpret, explain, and predict their behaviour in social situations and to enter into empathic relationships. Interestingly, people with such conditions such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder sometimes have a deficiency in theory of mind, as do those with severe developmental disorders.

Minds give rise to language and behaviour (direct and indirect), to the ability to manipulate, extract, count, navigate, connect with one another. Those of us who observe and study other animals notice these activities are widespread. Birds, for instance, have complex skills, some more than others: navigational, the learning of complex songs, the creation of fancy nests, the engagement in stealing, pretending to steal it (and thus exhibiting a theory of mind, overserved in corvids [ravens, etc]), the capacity to acknowledge the existence of other agents with motives and knowledge different from their own, make and use tools; recognize and work with abstract concepts; show grief, joy, compassion, and even altruism and form relationships with humans.

Octopuses, as explored by that beautiful documentary My Octopus Teacher, with Craig Foster,  and also Peter Godfrey-Smith in his book Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, we are starting to realize have rich minds as well as a capacity for relationships with us and other species.

Anthropomorphism may have been used to undesirable ends in the past but the demonization of it in the present day serves equally undesirable ends, severing our intuitive connection with the natural world and we need now, more than ever, to connect with all the creatures of the earth for our continued health and life.