“Wild Thing! You Make My Heart Sing!”

For Love of Our Creature-Kin, Part 1

In the Harry Potter world where magic’s power is felt most profoundly within the protection of love, Newt Scamander is a wizard for our times. He speaks, lives and breathes with the beasts. In the first film of the series, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” Newt accidentally releases his cherished other-worldly magical creatures in New York City in 1927. Afraid that the imminent discovery of the beasts’ existence will threaten the underground world of wizardry and bring vilification and persecution from non-magical humans, the magical community is desperate to destroy the creatures in hope of preserving its concealment. “Don’t hurt those creatures,” he pleads, “Nothing in there is dangerous.” Newt has discovered that humans tend to kill whatever they fear or misunderstand. Referring to his beloved creatures, he says, “They’re currently in an alien terrain surrounded by millions of the most vicious creatures on the planet. Humans.”

Are we humans primarily care-takers and protectors of our wild-kin, or are we mainly a threat? This has become a question of central significance as we continue to expand our notion of “WE” today. How are we humans called to relate to other-than-human creatures in the biosphere, including those species-fluid creatures like Venus fly-traps and the chameleon vine? Are they included in our “WE?” Have we yet to understand how best to relate with and learn from them?

This time of COVID has ushered many into the world of our “wilder-kin,” including our avian- and pollinator-kin, with newfound wonder and love. It is making us collectively question why we never noticed them before, or just considered them “backdrop” for our daily life. All this collective time “off” from our “normal life” is making us question who these wondrous beings are in their own integrity, and how we ought to relate with them. Part 1 of this essay looks at who we are in relationship to our creature-kin, and Part 2 (next Sunday’s blog post) offers some reflection on the questions that arise around our practices in relating with them.

In the Beginning…

If we rely on prevailing interpretations of Genesis 2:20, it seems that the human, so called “Ha-damah,” Adam, i.e., the mucky humus of Earth, is given the privilege/authority of naming the creatures brought to him by the Lord God. The act of naming has been interpreted to mean that the human was given a superior role in the relationship, and all creatures a subservient role. Humans have been given “dominion over” all the creatures, and are encouraged to not only fill the Earth, but “subdue it,” so the predominant interpretation goes heavy on the ”power over” understanding, and humans are encouraged to dominate all other creatures in creation, including Earth as a whole. According to this prevailing patriarchal interpretation rendered sacrosanct through the transmission (and conquering/colonializing practice) of Western civilization, this is a hierarchy set in place and ordained by God: God at the top, then male humans, then all other creatures, then Earth itself.

What if that assumed hierarchy of being has set in motion a disastrous tragedy for creation in our understanding? What if we were not meant to dominate, control, harm, inflict suffering or “own” our creature-kin? What if our primary vocation was care and nurture for creation and all creatures? The Hebrew words kavash (“subdue”) and radah (“have dominion,” or “rule”) have at their roots a sense of authority that exercises care and should be neither harsh nor oppressive. The verbs connote more a care-taking responsibility, as one might watch over young ones, drawing close to their needs and ensuring their well-being. That understanding might shift our perception of who we are as humans, and how we are called to relate with our creature-kin.

What insights can we glean from those who have drawn close to our creature-kin over the centuries, and who have loved them in their own integrity?

• The medieval St. Francis of Assisi, patron of ecology, seemed to be one such person. Known as the saint who fervently loved his creature-kin, he was famous for his relationship with the Wolf who was terrorizing the town of Gubbio, eventually bringing the Wolf and the humans into a relationship of mutual respect and reconciliation. Lesser known is the story of how he was said to have preached to the birds:

“My sweet little sisters, birds of the sky,” Francis said, “you are bound to heaven, to God, your Creator. In every beat of your wings and every note of your songs, praise him. He has given you the greatest of gifts, the freedom of the air. You neither sow, nor reap, yet God provides for you the most delicious food, rivers, and lakes to quench your thirst, mountains and valleys for your home, tall trees to build your nests, and the most beautiful clothing: a change of feathers with every season. You and your kind were preserved in Noah’s Ark. Clearly, our Creator loves you dearly, since he gives you gifts so abundantly. So please beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, and always sing praise to God.” (The Little Flowers of St. Francis)

• Francis’ namesake, the current Roman Catholic Pope, also has this to say about our relationship with our creature-kin:

“We are not God … Nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures … When our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one. It follows that our indifference or cruelty towards fellow creatures of this world sooner or later affects the treatment we mete out to other human beings.” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 92)

• In the world of ecology and environmental advocacy, those who learned to swim with the fishes and live in the woods with the apes also have something astounding to teach us. We not only learn from our creature-kin; by imitating them, we might gain greater insight into the whole of creation and how best to care for its fragile life.
• In the better part of the 20th century, Commander Jacques Cousteau, famous French naval officer, oceanographer, environmentalist, explorer, filmmaker and lover of creatures of the deep, took us with him on an incredible odyssey under the sea to learn from our pesci-kin. On the long-running televised series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” the ship Calypso (immortalized in John Denver’s song of the same name) carried us into the depths of oceanic life while he and his crew explored the behavior, communication, and habitat of our gilled, finned, shimmering, water-loving creature-kin. With the publication of his first book in 1953, The Silent World,Cousteau correctly predicted the existence of the echolocation abilities of porpoises, allowing them to navigate vast oceanic areas with precision not available to humans. He believed in the power of learning from our sea-creatures to teach us the key to living as one whole, inter-related organism.

“The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.” (Jacques Cousteau)

• Jane Goodall, prize-winning anthropologist, primatologist and champion of the natural world who offered ground-breaking research about tool-making capabilities among the great apes, has reminded us repeatedly of the importance of creature-care in our primarily anthropocentric ethics. Having lived with the chimpanzees for a decade in the wilds of Tanzania, she grew to understand that we humans are more like them than we know, and it caused her to question our ethical practices in relation to our creature-kin. “The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man—whether this be in entertainment, as ‘pets,’ for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them.”(Jane Goodall)

For those who want to draw near, it seems our creature-kin are truly our teachers, if we are willing students.

Questions for Reflection:

1) What encounter(s) with creature-kin in your own experience offered a shift in perspective, an “aha” moment, or a new way of seeing them in their own integrity?

2) When you say you “love” an other-than-human creature, what do you mean?

3) Are other-than-human creatures part of your wider “We?”

—Laura Weber, Prairiewoods associate director and retreats coordinator