Every now and again a book comes along that can truly transform how we interact with other animals and nature—how we absorb the world into our senses, bodies, hearts, and minds and deeply rewild ourselves. One such volume is a highly acclaimed collection of interdisciplinary essays and poetry by leading scholars, co-edited by Gavin Van Horn (book co-editor), Bruce Jennings, and Heather Swan (poetry editor), titled Sensoria: Attending to the Wonder and Vitality of Nature.¹

In this remarkable collection of writings, you will read about a wide array of topics ranging “from the mating calls of chorus frogs to insect olfaction to elephant funerary rites to the memory-rich tastes of place, Sensoria offers an immersion in the sensual experiences of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling—and their interactions, combinations, and more-than-human manifestations.” Here’s what Gavin Van Horn and Heather Swan had to say about their work of stretching the moral imagination about human relationships with the nonhuman world.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you and your co-editors compile the essays for Sensoria?

Gavin Van Horn: When we engage the natural world, we might do so at arm’s length, considering this animate planet intellectually, philosophically, or as an object. This book aims to turn attention back to the body—all our senses—and our capacities to be in communication with the natural world. The more-than-human world is wildly diverse in terms of other creatures’ ways of perceiving, and their capacities often exceed our own or are totally different in quality. What would it be like to see polarized light like a mantis shrimp? Taste the world with your arms as an octopus does? Smell the pheromonic subtleties in air as a moth can?

Heather Swan, poetry editor: In thinking about the poets I wanted to invite to contribute to Sensoria, I thought of those whose embodied knowledge of the world, human and more-than-human, seems to scaffold their poetry. Poetic language is always trying to lift the reader out of the lull of everyday conversation to new poignant awareness, to wake the reader up. I feel that returning to the senses in this moment is so crucial, and the poems are an invitation to do so.

MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

GVH: At the Center for Humans & Nature, which is where I work, our mission is to explore and promote human responsibilities in relation to nature—the whole community of life. All the books we publish at Humans & Nature Press, in creative ways, revolve around what it means to become a good creature, to become kin on a shared planet, and to expand our empathic imaginations.

HS: I am a poet, a nonfiction writer, a teacher, a human who is deeply aware of the miracle of the natural world as well as the devastation that is unfolding around us. Much of what is occurring in the world, in my opinion, seems to come from disconnection with our bodies, our hearts, with each other, and with the wild beings around us. A way to reconnect is through the senses.

This book aims to enliven and astonish, to make us prick up our ears, stare into rivers, listen to the hum of bumblebees working the flowers, taste the salt of the sea on our tongues, imagine what it might be to walk the Earth as a four-legged being, and in the process awaken to the beauty of this planet and to advocate for what is left.

MB: Who do you hope to reach?

HS: This book is for everyone who wants to live a richer, more just, embodied life.

GVH: At the Center for Humans & Nature, we like to say we try to reach “the naturally curious,” people who love learning about the connections between ourselves and the living world. We are also a big round table for disciplinary boundary crossers, creative storytellers, and innovative ecological thinkers.

MB: What are some of the topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?

GVH: The contributors to Sensoria approach their subject matter in three ways: 1) how humans can develop and sharpen our sensory capacities; 2) the ways other-than-human species experience the world differently than we do; and 3) the collective meaning-making that occurs between species and within living landscapes.

So there are stories about elephant funerary rituals, honeybees’ sense of beauty, the osmospheres of canine companions, and how it might change your perceptual set to get kicked in the head by a mule (courtesy of Gary Paul Nabhan), among so many others. As our perceptions are honed, things that were once “invisible” become visible; things unheard suddenly register. A more heightened sensitivity can refresh what we experience, in the sense that what once was dismissed or ignored as ordinary becomes extraordinary. Sensoria is also a reminder that the world is not for humans alone, nor are we alone within it.

MB: How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

GVH: Sensoria is a collective project, with 50 essayists and poets from various geographies, fields of expertise and practice, and walks of life. There have been some fantastic books about other animals’ umwelts and special relationships between individual humans and particular species. However, we are proud to have created a book that looks to the wisdom of the collective. I would also say Sensoria is unusual in honoring poets as much as essayists and seeing how those different types of writing amplify and nuance one another.

MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about what you call sensoria, it will broaden their moral imaginations and improve their relationships with the nonhuman world?

HS: The human way of being on this planet is only one of a multitude. By imagining other ways of knowing this world, as an octopus or honeybee or canine or a tree, we are expanding our own experience, perhaps learning humility and respect for all that developed before us, the beings who can be our teachers and who deserve to thrive as much as humans do.

GVH: As we look to other creatures, our fellow travelers on this wild planet, we extend our capacity for care. We apprehend more fully that this world is made up of diverse subjects, not lifeless, unfeeling objects. Sensoria is a call to listen with our whole selves—our bodies as sensitive instruments—within a larger planetary song.