more than human

biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, observes that the indigenous Potawatomi language is rich in verb forms that attribute aliveness to the more-than-human world. The word for "hill," for example, is a verb: to be a hill. Hills are always in the process of hilling, they are actively being hills.

Equipped with

Anthropomorphism is usually thought of as an illusion that arises like a blister in soft human minds: untrained, undisciplined, unhardened. There are good reasons for this: When we humanize the world, we may prevent ourselves from understanding the lives of other organisms on their own terms. But are there things this stance might lead us to pass

Classical scientific definitions of intelligence use humans as a yardstick by which all other species are measured. According to these anthropocentric definitions, humans are always at the top of the intelligence rankings, followed by animals that look like us (chimpanzees, bonobos, etc.), followed again by other "higher" animals, and onward and