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