The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Becoming Nature: Learning the Language of Wild Animals and Plants, scheduled for release on March 31st, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
Every plant and animal is speaking all the time. They are talking to you, and me, and all we have to do is listen. It’s that simple, yet it’s not that easy, and I will explain why shortly. First, let’s get acquainted with animal language. It goes by many names: mental telepathy, psychic ability, intuition, extrasensory perception, gut feeling, first impressions, nonverbal communication, animal talk, the primal language, interspecies communication. Each term describes an aspect of animal language, yet not one of them fully captures what it is. I prefer Nature Speak, which refers to what it is, rather than trying to explain it.
Nature Speak is the First Language—it is the mother tongue of all life and the foundation of interspecies communication. It is the root from which our spoken and written languages grew. Yet even more than a way to speak and listen, it is the operating system for our minds and the basic lens through which we perceive our world.
Our ability to communicate in Nature Speak is inherent to being Human. Nature Speak, one of a bundle of core operating skills that include orienteering, tracking, and Envisioning, is imprinted in our DNA and our brain is wired for it.
Some people see the ability to talk with animals as women’s intuition. Even though many well-known animal communicators are female, my experience shows that gender is not a relevant factor. Children of both genders prove to be equally adept, and the same is true with adults. The apparent gender difference arises from the cultural pressure on men, more than women, to be rational-mind centered (see step 3), so the proclivity for Nature Speak has atrophied more in men than in women. Yet before we get into that, let’s get to know our First Language.
You can read the rest of the chapter here.