Animals and People : A Selection of Essays from Orion Magazine

Perhaps nothing illuminates the complexity of our relationship to the natural world better than the relationship between people and animals: we wonder at them, use them, adore them, mourn them, protect them, cause them suffering. The essays collected here explore these contradicitons in all their difficulty, but they also celebrate our connection to the animal world and provide a model for how we might respect and revere our fellow animals more deeply. As Pattiann Rogers writes, "For how can we possess dignity if we allow them no dignity? Who will recognize our beauty if we do not revel in their beauty?...How can we believe in grace if we cannot bestow grace?"

"There is much to learn here from those who truly care about the animals with whom we share, or should share, our planet. People who are at the edge of a deep understanding. People who marvel at the life force of these other beings. People who mourn the harm that we inflict on their innocence, thus damaging ourselves." --Jane Goodall