“One imagines a relatively precocious insect who manages to befriend a human. These two creatures begin to invent ways to communicate and share benefit across the strange gaps that appear to separate them. The human receives intelligence assets of forms and functions otherwise inaccessible, and so, too, does the insect. Over the brief time of their relationship (the insect has a brief lifespan), incredible experiences and intelligences are developed and shared between them.

This is not difficult for me to imagine since I have experienced it many times. But I want you to imagine now that the tables are turned, and an incredibly precocious human manages to establish a deeply intimate relationship with a living place… or the planet itself. In fact, I don’t want you to merely imagine this, I want you to accomplish it. Believe me when I tell you, your species is the most adept at this specific form of communion, and you have either forgotten or misrepresented nearly everything about it. This is the atmosphere your relational wings were made for. Spread them, and discover what flight is actually about.”

— an anonymous informant