"The author shows how cultivating the powerful, mysterious, and fragile bond between humans and other animals can improve our mental, physical, and spiritual health, protect our planet, and serve as an antidote to the loneliness of our species"-- Provided by publisher.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A Mystery 1 (4)
Part I Beautiful Acts: Life-Changing Encounters with Species Not Our Own
5 (38)
1 In the Family of Animals
7 (7)
2 The Aching Heart
14 (9)
Species Loneliness
16 (3)
An Altered View of Human Exceptionalism
19 (4)
3 The Mind-Altering Power of Deep Animal Connection
23 (10)
Habitat of the Heart
24 (3)
The Land of Giant Ants, an Unexpected Urchin, and a Moving Protozoan
27 (4)
Crossing Over
31 (2)
4 The Octopus Who Stopped Time
33 (10)
Time Bending
35 (3)
Resetting Our Sense of Wonder
38 (5)
Part 2 What the Wild Heart Still Knows: The Art and Science of Communicating with Other Animals
43 (52)
5 Becoming the Grasshopper
45 (8)
Wearing the Shoes of the Snake (Critical Anthropomorphism)
48 (5)
6 Intimacy Is All around Us
53 (9)
Beyond the Threshold
55 (3)
Have You Ever Seen a Box Turtle Drink?
58 (4)
7 Earth's Oldest Language
62 (12)
Call and Response
63 (5)
Hanging Out in the Tatooine Cantina
68 (2)
The Song of the Wild
70 (4)
8 How to Talk with Birds
74 (12)
What the Animals Say
75 (5)
Awakening the Seventh Sense
80 (5)
Back to the Garden
85 (1)
9 Playing Well with the Others
86 (9)
The Labrador Retriever of Primates
87 (3)
How Elephants Taught Sven Everything He Needed to Know about Business
90 (5)
Part 3 How We Co-Become: Wonderdogs and Werecats, Therapy Lizards and Robot Pets
95 (64)
10 More Than Human
97 (6)
The Wild, the Domestic, and the Distorted
99 (4)
11 The Animal Lover
103 (14)
Who's Raising Whom?
104 (5)
The Dog Who Taught Ethics
109 (3)
Homo homini lupus
112 (5)
12 Reptiles and Ambivalence
117 (8)
Wild Blood Transfusion
119 (3)
Herping, USA
122 (3)
13 The Boy Who Said Horse
125 (17)
Naomi and Koba
128 (5)
Animal-Assisted Self-Care
133 (3)
Wildlife, Therapy, and the Pet Effect
136 (6)
14 The Replacements: Do We Really Need Animals?
142 (17)
Digital Dog and the Internet of Cows
144 (6)
Escape from Uncanny Valley
150 (4)
An Alternative Universe
154 (2)
Do They Love Us Back?
156 (3)
Part 4 The Age of Connectedness: Creating a Home for All Creatures
159 (64)
15 New Ways to Live Together
161 (13)
Notes from the Animal Underground
163 (4)
Can't We All Live Together?
167 (4)
A New Contract for Cohabitation
171 (3)
16 The Betweens
174 (16)
Arrival of the Neophiles
178 (4)
How Coyotes Conquered America
182 (4)
That'll Be a Caramel Macchiato for Me and an Espresso for the Bear
186 (4)
17 Welcome to Symbiocene City
190 (15)
Designing for Peaceful Coexistence
191 (4)
Doglandia
195 (3)
Texting Pachyderms and the Bats of Bendigo
198 (4)
The Raccoons Next Door
202 (3)
18 The New Noahs
205 (18)
Zealandia
210 (4)
Mammoth Thoughts
214 (3)
Lost World Found
217 (6)
Part 5 Wild Souls: Love, Humility, and the Principle of Reciprocity
223 (51)
19 Dreaming Animals
225 (19)
Avatars, Symbols, and Messengers
226 (5)
The Man with the Crow Tattoo
231 (4)
The Spirit of the Brahminy Kite
235 (6)
In Fire and Smoke
241 (3)
20 The Peaceable Kingdom
244 (9)
The Right to Be
248 (5)
21 Learning and Teaching in a School of Animals
253 (12)
Animal Class
255 (3)
Ten Ways to Love the World
258 (3)
An Older Way of Learning
261 (4)
22 The Bear
265 (9)
Beyond the Horizon
268 (4)
Our Calling
272 (2)
Acknowledgments 274 (1)
Notes 275 (18)
Suggested Reading 293 (4)
Index 297