Booklist 2: The Insatiable Human Nature Connection
/I’m sure many of us have experienced their own scale of life lessons throughout this pandemic. For me, my life has recently gone through some major shifts. Earlier this year I made the courageous move (literally) to unburden myself from the things in my life limiting me from my highest potential. I recently separated from my husband, moved my daughter and I out of the home we were sharing for 6 years and found myself a gorgeous apartment in Downtown Oakland.
Along this journey I realized I was also RECLAIMING who I was before this marriage. The house we lived in was so small that a lot of my beloved books and personal belongings were left in boxes the whole time! Now that I was able to find a place of my own with much more physical space then the previous home, I found myself resurfacing these personal belongings and also resurfacing things I had loved so much about who I am and what my passions were.
And that’s when I started to reunite with some of the books I always loved having around. These books are what kept me so close to the wonders of the natural world. And as a kid who didn’t enjoy humans so much, it was nature that kept me safe and fed my insatiable appetite for curiosity of the natural world.
So with this short book list #2, I want to share with you some of the most intriguing finds I’ve kept over the many years. Enjoy looking through this and the key teachings I’ve drawn out of each book and continue on to see what I’m currently reading! You can also follow me on my Goodreads site to look at a bunch more brain food items I’ve got listed!
OUR TRUE NATURE AS LOVING BEINGS
Biological Exuberance
Bruce Bagemihl
My college Bio 101 teacher once told me that the point of all animal life is to eat, shit, and reproduce. A few years later my Mammalogy professor shared with us this book that defies all scientific belief about animals, showing that most animal groups have shown evidence of same sex interactions and gender bending behaviors. And this book is a THICK 655 pages of research articles, without the Appendix! It's a fascinating reference book.
If you ever need the evidence that nature isn’t as simple as you think, this is the book to pick up! At least rummage through it by checking it out from the library. I find it very fascinating every time I come across information about nature I never expected.
Like a text book on animal behavior and sexuality, this book covers it all and in fashion of a sort of field guide on the matters. Where each animal species is catalogued for their biology and researched sexual behavior, the studies behind the evidence are also a part of the book that makes it a solid source of information!
Dabble a little more into the book and you’ll find some interesting references related to the findings where articles cite other aspects of explaining the behavior in animals, often referencing indigenous cosmologies and beliefs about sexual behavior. Or other forms of psychoanalysis from other areas of study.
What I really appreciate in this book is that it continually keeps teaching me things that also make me think about the many different ways us humans find intimacy, sexual interaction, and even domination and power in social context. I highly recommend it!
LISTENING TO OUR ANCESTORS
Listening to Whales, what the Orcas Have Taught Us
Alexandra Morton
Science researcher and author, Alexandra Morton shares with us the years of experience and knowledge following families of Orcas and the unethical practices of marine aquatic attractions like Sea World. This book is super intense at times and reveals just how much Orcas are just like us, deeply connected to their family systems and emotional life experiences.
This book is also close to my experience and beliefs about whales and our relationship with them. As a scientist it’s fascinating to know that structurally (by examining whale bones) they are physically our ancestors. Fused bones in their fins indicate a connection to our own human feet and hands! Spiritually, these beings represent our ancestors. Being connected to them spiritually, many of my dreams where whales have been there have been dreams of messages being sent my way. That each time I had a dream about whales I looked at the context and paid attention to what they wanted me to know. They have always shown up in times of seeking guidance! To me, they are our protectors!
PLANTS HAVE FEELINGS TOO
The Secret Life of Plants
Peter Tompkins & Christopher Bird
I call this the OG of plant studies showing that we can form close bonds with plants, essentially a book about how plants have feelings AND that we surely influence those feelings in them. Think Emoto's water experiment, but the plant version. I love this book as it takes you through story after story of how scientists measured plant "feelings" and reactions to negative and positive emotions AND relationships with humans.
How many of you have increased the amount of plants or time with plants since the pandemic? Plants have surely shown up as those organisms in this world that can provide healing in many forms. From the need to care and nurture something outside of you, to needing a thing to talk to while in isolation, this book is the proof that it’s not a one-way interaction!
Read this one to take you through many experiments where plants were put to the feelings tests and probed to track reactions to things like a negative or violent person in the room to sending your beloved plants loving affirmations from afar, resulting in synchronous “good feelings”! I absolutely love the stories in this book and can surely do without some of the dry science explanations, especially in the last half of the book.
Either way, if you can find this original version, great! But chances are you’ll be picking up a newer version of this book if you can find it!
