As with a child, to commune with Athena demands a level of openness and intuition greater than that used in the usual discourse between adult humans of a common culture.
As he did with the electric eels, Scott is trying to figure out a way to induce the toads to show themselves. How? You need to get within the mind of the toad, he says.
The bliss of stroking an octopus’s head is difficult to convey to most people, even to animal lovers.
If you took the monsters' point of view, everything they did made perfect sense. The trick was learning to think like a monster.
Being friends with an octopus-whatever that friendship meant to her-has shown me that our world, and the worlds around and within it, is aflame with shades of brilliance we cannot fathom
Assessing the mind of a creature this alien demands that we be extraordinary flexible in our own thinking. Marine biologist James Wood suggests our hubris gets in our way.
Unlike the supply of dogs, the supply of good names isn't limitless.
The Buddha denied the existence of persisting selves. At the end of life, the self may dissolve into eternity like salt in the ocean. To some, this might seem distressing. But to lose the lonely self...
Octopuses and their relatives have what Woods Hole researcher Roger Hanlon calls electric skin. For its color palette, the octopus uses three layers of three different types of cells near the skin’s s...
Normally a prolonged stare from a gorilla is a threat. But Digit’s gaze bore no aggression. He seemed to say: I know. Dian would later write that she believed Digit understood she was sick.
In all religions, as in all legal systems. people find ways to skirt the rules. We obey the letter of the law without honoring its spirit, and then reassure ourselves of our righteousness.
I wonder: Can a brainless animal feel curiosity? Does it want to play? Or does it only want toys or food the way a plant wants the sun? Does a sea star experience consciousness? If it does, what does...
The idea of universal consciousness suffuses both Western and Eastern thought and philosophy, from the collective unconscious of psychologist Carl Jung, to unified field theory, to the investigations...
Preserved pufferfish. Former flounders. Ex-eels.
Octopus slime is sort of a cross between drool and snot. But in a nice way. And it’s very useful. It helps to be slippery if you’re squeezing your body in and out of tight places. Slime keeps the octo...
Adult gorillas will fight to the death defending their families. This is why poachers who may be seeking only one infant for the zoo trade must often kill all the adults in the family to capture the b...
Karma is choice.
Wholeness feels like gratitude. Gratitude that we are safe and happy and together.
Love is the highest and best use of a life.
Most animals on this planet live in the ocean. And most of them are invertebrates.