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Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

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David Abram's Becoming Animal was for me a thought- and experience-provoking extension of his popular 1996 Spell of the Sensuous. That eco-phenomenological sensibility found in Abram's first book ' the sense that mind arises from our sensory relations with ecological realities ' is here deepened through a series of reflections on personal experiences coupled with philosophical analysis and questioning. In many ways, this book further situates Abram within a rich environmental tradition that considers the nature of 'ecological thinking', a contemporary tradition that began in the 1960s and 70s with the likes of Paul Shepard who in 1967 coined the term 'ecological thinking', Gregory Bateson who wrote the popular An Ecology of Mind and John Livingston who concluded conservation is at root 'a state of mind.' In the spirit of these seminal thinkers, Abram asks 'What if mind, rightly understood, is not a special property of humankind, but is rather a property of the Earth itself ' a power in which we are carnally immersed?' (p.123) But for those of us willing to follow Abram, Becoming Animal takes us into terrain that goes far beyond the earlier philosophical discourses as we enter into a sensuous ecological reality that seemingly can communicate and inform our thought if we are attentive.

Amidst the book's many insightful anecdotes, Abram tells the story of a man whose ears are attuned to the different dialects of trees, those dialects being heard as the wind blows through the unique configuration of branches and leaves that make up different tree species. While sceptics of such intimate sensibility point out to him that 'the sound is created not by the tree but only be the wind blowing through the tree,' he writes that these 'clever persons seem not to notice that it is demonstrably the same when they speak' (p. 171). It is examples like this that help guide the reader beyond theoretical ideas of 'ecological thinking' and toward the kind of intimate relations that are required to experience the sensuous grounding of such thought. The truly radical nature of this thesis is clarified in much more detail as the reader approaches the end of the book and the title Becoming Animal is seen to be more than just metaphoric flourish. Reflecting back on personal experiences in Nepal with a shaman, Abram describes an initiation into sensory knowledge that reveals the true historic roots of 'ecological thinking' goes far deeper than the late 1960s environmental movement ' as Paul Shepard also knew well. Without giving too much away, here is one last intriguing quote that arises as Abram explains a sustained meditation he was directed to have on the being of a raven: 'To move as another is simply the most visceral approach to feel one's way into the body of that creature, and so to taste the flavor of its experience, entering into the felt intelligence of the other' (p.238).

The sensory and spirited implications of Becoming Animal will likely not sit well with those who still commonly think rational thought can control and manage the planet. But for those of us who see environmental issues like climate change as highlighting the limitations to rational thought, Abram's book offers us some vital insights into the kind of experiential revolution that may be required to create a sustainable future.

Abram's previous book, The Spell of the Sensuous, brought the phenomenology of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and others alongside of indigenous perspectives for being in the world. Fifteen years later, it's still a remarkable paradigm-buster of a book whose insights continue to percolate through the ecological humanities.

Becoming Animal showcases Abram as storyteller and flaneur. Here he writes with even more distance between himself and the academic world that he voluntarily renounced some time ago. Call it David-Abram-in-the-world, and the encounters shared here - from his kayak, on the trail or deep in the Himilayas - are riveting. He gives us a briny, kayak-level view of a sea lion colony, in that moment when its members pour into the sea after the author; the ubiquitous, and just as overlooked, shadow-world of trees that colour our thoughts and feelings, often below our conscious awareness; even a fresh look on the familiar interior vistas of our homes.

But it's his accounts of his unlikely apprenticeships with indigenous knowledge keepers - the ones who showed him how to live up to the book's title - that had me turning the pages the fastest. The book's pentultimate chapters - "Sleight of Hand" and "Shapeshifting" - deserve to be counted as contemporary classics of ecological literature.