Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives-and Save Theirs

by Richard Louv

Overview

“A book that offers hope.” 
—The New York Times Book Review

“A wondrous tapestry.” 
—Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Audubon Medal winner Richard Louv’s landmark book Last Child in the Woods inspired an international movement to connect children and nature. Now he redefines the future of human-animal coexistence. In Our Wild Calling, Louv interviews researchers, theologians, wildlife experts, indigenous healers, psychologists, and others to show how people are connecting with animals in ancient and new ways, and how this serves as an antidote to the growing epidemic of human loneliness; how dogs can teach children ethical behavior; how animal-assisted therapy may yet transform the mental health field; and what role the human-animal relationship plays in our spiritual health. He reports on  wildlife relocation and on how the growing populations of wild species in urban areas are blurring the lines between domestic and wild animals. Our Wild Calling makes the case for protecting, promoting, and creating a sustainable and shared habitat for all creatures—not out of fear, but out of love.

Includes a new interview with the author, discussion questions, and a resource guide.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643750842
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	283,125
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Richard Louv is a journalist and author of ten books, including Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, The Nature Principle, and Vitamin N. Translated into twenty languages, his books have helped launch an international movement to connect children, families, and communities to nature. He is cofounder and chair emeritus of the nonprofit Children & Nature Network, which supports a new nature movement. Louv has written for the New York Times, Outside magazine, Orion Magazine, Parents, and many other publications. He appears regularly on national radio and TV, and lectures throughout the world. In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal. Prior recipients have included Rachel Carson, E. O. Wilson, President Jimmy Carter, and Sir David Attenborough.

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

Editorial Reviews

A game-changer.”
—Psychology Today

“Louv deftly brings together cutting-edge science, longstanding wisdom and recent discoveries, along with wonder and humor, while never losing sight of the magic that’s possible when humans and nonhumans connect. This is a book that offers hope.” 
—The New York Times Book Review

“Our Wild Calling is a thoughtful, calm, reasoned book, best read at a chapter-a-day pace, allowing time to think and digest what the author has presented.”
—The Associated Press

"A manifesto for a new way of living in the world, the book reveals a natural tapestry too often ignored."
—The Christian Science Monitor

“Impassioned and compelling . . . A thoughtfully researched, poetically inspiring call to action that will resonate with a broad range of readers.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Louv writes of our need for immersion in nature and of how our interactions with animals can help us to save not only ourselves, but also the planet. In lyrical, sometimes mystical prose, he challenges our assumptions about how we relate to other species.”
—Booklist, starred review

"[An] intriguing and poetic treatise . . . Thoughtful and hopeful, Louv’s work is a stirring look at ‘the blurred lines that have always existed between wild and domestic, human and other than human.’ ”
—Publishers Weekly

“Looking at scientific research from a variety of experts, this is a compelling call to reestablish ties with the animal world. Strongly recommended for anyone feeling overwhelmed or spiritually bereft in today’s society."
—Library Journal

“Richard Louv has done it again. A remarkable book that will help everyone break away from their fixed gaze at the screens that dominate our lives and remember instead that we are animals in a world of animals.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

“These pages weave a wondrous tapestry in which we all are crucial threads. It’s a picture of our own creation, about a future we will share, a future we can strive to make worth living for.”
—Carl Safina, author of the New York Times bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

“We need community with nature and communication with animals more than ever now that so many of us live in urban environments. Through many fascinating stories of human-animal interaction, Richard Louv urges us to be open-minded about animals and reposition our species inside the natural world.”
—Frans de Waal, author of Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
 
“I wish I had written this book! In this deep exploration, Louv celebrates our essential connections to animals—in the wild, in the city, in our dreams, in our hearts.”
—Jennifer S. Holland, author of the New York Times bestselling Unlikely Friendships series
 
“Not just a brilliant, wise, and eloquent book, but a powerful summons to reconnect with the life all around us. Reconnecting with animals is a remedy for much of what ails modern life including loneliness and boredom.”
—David W. Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Oberlin College
 
“Powerful. A must-read for everyone who is concerned with the ways in which human animals are becoming increasingly alienated from nonhuman animals, with devastating results for all involved.”  
—Marc Bekoff, author of Rewilding Our Hearts
 
“The timing for Our Wild Calling could not be better. Louv suggests that humans who have strong relationships with animals help their own mental health as well as possibly saving life on earth. This book is incredibly important to our future on this planet.”
—Robert Bateman, artist, naturalist, and author of Robert Bateman’s Canada
 
“Richard Louv continues to connect all of us to nature through his new book . . . A great read for all!” 
—Fran P. Mainella, 16th Director of the U.S. National Park Service

From the Publisher

In making his case, Louv deftly brings together cutting-edge science, longstanding wisdom and recent discoveries, along with wonder and humor, while never losing sight of the magic that's possible when humans and nonhumans connect…This is a book that offers hope.

The New York Times Book Review - Vicki Constantine Croke

09/09/2019

In this intriguing and poetic treatise, journalist Louv (Vitamin N) argues for a “great reset” in how humans relate to the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans may feel themselves separate from other creatures, he observes, but human history and existence have always been intertwined with them, to the extent that wild animals are now adapting to urban environments. He shares stories about unexpected cross-species interactions—there’s a wonderful anecdote about an initially tense encounter between a diver and an octopus, who forge a “nonaggression pact”—and details about the varied ways animals (and even plants) have of communicating with each other—horses, he notes, have 17 facial expressions. After that, Louv turns to subjects that include therapeutic relations between humans and animals, the inability of technology to substitute for these interactions, and how to educate the next generation about having a healthier relationship to nature. Thoughtful and hopeful, Louv’s work is a stirring look at “the blurred lines that have always existed between wild and domestic, human and other than human.” Agent: Jim Levine, Levine, Greenberg, Rostan Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

10/01/2019

Louv (Last Child in the Woods) advocates for critical anthropomorphism in his latest book. Scientists have typically been wary of attributing human characteristics to animals, but Louv argues that critical anthropomorphism can couple scientific knowledge with curiosity and imagination. This coupling can lead to a richer insight into nonhuman animal behavior and is providing a rich area of research for scientists known as human-animal interactions or anthrozoology. As humans are encountering extreme feelings of loneliness and disconnectedness, reconnecting to animals can counteract the negative repercussions of digital distraction, poor urban design, and economic insecurity, according to Louv. The author discusses animals of all types, from wildlife and urban wildlife to companion animals, and even robotic companion animals as potential anecdotes to feelings of hopelessness. VERDICT Looking at scientific research from a variety of experts, this is a compelling call to reestablish ties with the animal world. Strongly recommended for anyone feeling overwhelmed or spiritually bereft in today's society.—Diana Hartle, Univ. of Georgia Science Lib., Athens

Library Journal

★ 2019-09-15
The renowned nature writer explores how we can find better ways to coexist with animals in the future.

In his latest, Louv (Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life, 2016, etc.) expands on key themes he has addressed in his previous books: specifically, how we must engage more directly and harmoniously with nature. He offers an impassioned and compelling case for establishing a sustainable bond with animals by proactively seeking to protect them. With extensive urbanization and the devastating effects of climate change driving more wild animals outside of their traditional habitats and into the cities, the urgency is greater than ever. "Wild animals, for their solitude or independence, stay a respectable distance from us," writes Louv. "How do we do the same for them? How do we protect the spaces in which other animals live and still watch them, connect with them, be with them? The point is not just to fulfill our human need for connectedness but to mindfully replace our destructive interactions—as individuals, as a society." Weaving his personal experiences into accounts of his interviews with wildlife experts, psychologists, teachers, and others, the author recounts spiritual and sometimes mind-altering or life-changing encounters with various types of wild animals. These range from dogs to cattle to birds to snakes to sea creatures (a particularly interesting section involves a diver's enigmatic meeting with a giant octopus). Louv offers glimpses of how animals can effectively communicate with their own species and remarkable examples of cross-species interactions. He further considers how interactions with animals can be therapeutic, both physically and mentally, including our increasing dependency on support animals and evidence of how animal-assisted therapy can benefit autistic children. By understanding how to effectively connect with the animal world, argues the author, we will not only reduce human and animal loneliness; ideally, we could find the key to our survival on this planet.

A thoughtfully researched, poetically inspiring call to action that will resonate with a broad range of readers.

Kirkus Reviews