Can we not also speak to these powers [of animals, trees, all aspects of nature], and listen for their replies? Can we not cry out to the winds, whisper to the river and the deer, offer our tears to a tree, challenge the mountain with our questions? Outrageous as it may seem, such animistic (or participatory) modes of discourse are simply necessary, I believe, if we wish to really enact a respectful relation to these other beings, to remember the wild alterity of the waters, the winds, and the breathing land itself. If, finally, we wish to ensure an ethic of restraint in our human engagements with the more-than-human earth.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Giraffe in South Africa. photo by Chris Kruger, bigstockphoto.com