In 1948, writer Henry Beston lamented: “What has come over our age is an alienation from Nature unexampled in human history. It has cost us our sense of reality and all but cost us our humanity.”

I agree with Beston but I don’t want to let my thoughts stop there. Not because I harbor a shred of hope for a reversal of the earth’s fate: the seas are rising, the air is becoming unbreathable, there is famine in much of Africa, and millions of refugees across the globe are forced to clamor for garbage to escape starvation.

Wars are being senselessly waged around the globe and misogyny increases as medieval ideologies and vicious patriarchies take advantage of the chaos to gain ultimate power.

But I also sense that humans’ connections to the earth, to animals, to trees and to one another, however blunted by profit-driven societies and relentless climate disasters, are far from severed. And I am desperate to find even an ounce of serenity in the face of catastrophe. Many are.

Once we were bound by myths to our fellow creatures. Many cultures told of the existence of a common language understood by both humans and animals. The Wabanaki’s culture hero, Gluskabe, for example, was taught inter-species statecraft by Grandmother Woodchuck. In the Miwok mythology. the Creators were Silver Fox and Coyote; lonely animals who decided to walk together and sing the earth into being. Then they sang and danced to create all the valleys, mountains, trees and other animals.

Our relationship to nature is determined by what we value and where we look for guidance.

The Creator in Western mythologies is, of course, in the form of a man. Our lessons thereby come from the words and writings of men. We do not have trickster animals who provide us with critical lessons on how to become mature human beings and live together; we are overtly bereft of an important component of our ancient psyches. Our European forebears wore amulets such as bear claws or the feathers of eagles once in recognition of these relatives and to learn their ways.

Now the animals are returning to us as refugees, those whose habitats we are desecrating worldwide.They flock to our backyards and we are thrilled by their presence; you feel awe when a beautiful bobcat wanders into your yards or even when a rambunctious but handsome black bear arrives bent on smashing your bird feeders.

A graceful family of deer plucking your vegetable garden is hardly welcome, but an appreciation of their needs is recognized. And we take endless pleasure in the birds that grace our countryside, from a rare bay-breasted warbler to a bald eagle nesting nearby. When I sat by a swamp last summer I wondered, did the rollicking otter surface and rest upon a sodden log to try and tell me something I can no longer understand? Did the gentle old horse come to the fence to try and tell me how to heal the divides? Once we knew the magic words of a common language.

The pleasure of these experiences confirms what Lewis Thomas states in “The Medusa and the Snail.” He noticed that the scientist in himself disappeared when he was observing otters at play; he knew only “pure delight and blessed self forgetfulness.” “We are endowed with genes which code our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well.” We have moments of “pure elation with amazement at such perfection” and “a rush of friendship.”

Once upon a time, myth and biology were seamlessly intertwined, affirming our experiences and intuitions as meaningful and essential to our humanity. Deep memories of this past relationship exists in our DNA, though now the amulets we once wore are deep inside and are palpable only when we breathe our deepest breaths. We adopted abstractions instead — words, fragile and ambiguous, neither warm to the touch nor electric to the eye.

But all of us, animals all, offer each other that “rush of friendship,” and that expressed empathy may just be the ounce of serenity we crave amid a looming apocalypse.

Margot Fleck lives in Northfield.

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