How Animals Heal Us

(Hardback)

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From celebrated author Jay Griffiths comes a unique and heartfelt insight into the healing nature of our relationship with animal Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge. We meet a pot-bellied pig who saved her owner's life, lions who guarded a girl from kidnappers, dolphins and whales rescuing people in danger, and dogs who can smell cancer and phone the Emergency Services. Animal sounds, from insects to birdsong and the purring of cats, are directly medicinal and their presence can heal the pain of loneliness. Animals, including donkeys, can be natural therapists for the hurt psyche, alleviating trauma, fear and depression. In this original, revelatory and exuberant book, Jay Griffiths explores how animals can have a role in every level of healing, from the individual to the collective, guiding us in how we might create societies that are healthier, fairer and kinder. Wolves may be teachers of ethics; monkeys and dogs can object to unfairness and bees take collective decisions. Animals are irresistible medicine for a healthy culture, animating the arts with spectacular vitality and verve, as poetry knows. Open-hearted, playful and wise, How Animals Heal Us puts animals at the heart of a restorative vision of health.

Reviews

Humans can never get enough of animals. We know they are just like us, and also completely different. Now imagine meeting someone on a train who turns to you and starts telling you the most amazing stories about animals. Each one makes you go wow! And she can talk for hourseloquently, magically. This is Jay Griffiths. Then she puts it all in a wonderful book, and you can return to these tales again and again. If animals cant heal us, I dont know what can -- David Rothenberg, author of 'Secret Sound of Ponds' and 'Nightingales in Berlin'
Jay Griffiths helped redefine activism for a generation, combining detailed research with a poets flair for language. Her works defy categorisation and fizz with original ideas and excitement * Byline Times *
Who else but Jay Griffiths could kaleidoscopically invert our view of animals to ask questions such as, Did wolves have ethics before the dawn of humankind Did Ravens teach us to play Weaving humor, empathy, pathos, and so, so much more, Griffiths shows that animals are braided throughout the human psyche. An absolute fountain of fact, culture, and raw animal power! -- Carl Safina, 'Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe'
Pleasingly unpredictable, deeply researched and highly readable, this is a moving and exquisitely written exploration of how we live with, and are shaped by, different creatures from tigers to teddy bears -- Caroline Eden, author of 'Samarkand: Recipes and Stories From Central Asia and the Caucasus'
Griffiths's genius is to reveal the familiar as wondrous, strange, miraculous. Packed with incredible facts and heart-wrenching tales, this gift of a book will shift your relationship to animals. You'll never look at your pet in the same way again -- Ben Rawlence, author of 'The Treeline'
A book of boundless passion and compassion. As she explores the worlds of animals, Jay Griffiths make the case for a different way of living: a joyous, vital inclusivity. This is how a book should be - genuinely mind-expanding -- Tom Bullough, author of 'Addlands'
A beautiful and important book. Skilfully weaving together personal stories with solid scientific research Jay provides a deeply personal and intelligent account of the vital importance of having animals in our lives, and in our world. Those of us who work in the field of equine and animal-assisted therapy witness the life changing healing they provide to people struggling on a daily basis, but this book presents a wider analysis and timely reminder of how much we can learn from animals, and ultimately heal our world if only we would listen -- Dr Hannah Burgon, author of 'Equine-Assisted Therapy & Learning with At-Risk Young People'
Griffiths has done it again. Done it as no one else can. A surging, deeply resonant hymn to the joys of entanglement with the more-than-human world; a pharmacopoeia of fur, feather and scale; a shrewd, funny, tender, downright clever mapping of the human soul; a celebration of the potency of relationship; a prescription that can heal and save, if well take it, and an astringent political antiseptic. Literally marvellous, urgently important and compellingly readable -- Charles Foster, author of 'Cry of the Wild'
A wild and vital treasure trove of stories, woven together with Griffiths' characteristic exuberance and her joyfully untamed mind -- Helen Jukes, author of 'A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings'
A revelatory and utterly fascinating book. What comes across through the array of stories and insights drawn from the ethology Griffiths has researched and conveyed so brilliantly is both a sense of wonder and also gratitude: we are fortunate to share our lives with these animals and this moving, inspiring and joyous book powerfully reminds us of this -- James Macdonald Lockhart, author of 'Wild Air'

Author Bio

Jay Griffiths is the author of many books, such as Wild- An Elemental Journey, Kith- The Riddle of the Childscape, Tristimania and Pip Pip- A Sideways Look at Time. She won the Discover award for the best first-time author in the USA; the inaugural Orion award and the Hay Festival International Fellowship. She has broadcast and written widely, on subjects such as Radiohead and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her work has received widespread accolades, including from Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Don Paterson, John Berger, Philip Pullman, KT Tunstall and Nikolai Fraiture.