The number of books published about animals, animal teachings and human-animal communication has skyrocketed in the last few years. I should know. Five years ago, while beginning my own book, I collected and read everything I could find on animal communication. It wasn't hard to do as there were approximately a dozen books devoted solely to that topic. The amount has easily tripled in the last few years! And this does not take into account the many other books on animal-related subjects that also touch on spirituality and our continuing evolution: the teachings of animals; animals and healing (from humans healing animals to animals healing humans); animals and death; psychic animals; animals and shamanic voyages; conversations with animals; animals and myth, and much more.

Why this sudden burgeoning fascination with animals at this particular time? Some say it is because animals energetically carry those pieces of the grand puzzle that we have forgotten. As a species, humans have made incredible strides. But we have also moved so far from conscious connection with the web of life in our creative exploration of such things as technology and other aspects of the external world that we sometimes fail to remember our inherent link with all beings. It is this 'medicine' of oneness that all animals speak to, though in fascinatingly diverse ways.

Eventually, events conspire. The pulse of life -- the drumming of deep-down-in-the-bones connection -- catches up with us and unexpectedly our consciousness yearns to waken further. And so we now find ourselves in a new place. Many are moved to help, to reconnect via a healing partnership with the plant and animal kingdoms. Many are called to listen at deeper levels, to participate in a mystery that brings worlds of many nations together.

As naturalist Henry Beston put it, "The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained… They are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, the splendor and travail of the earth."

This issue of Alaska Wellness is devoted to animals, the ways in which humans and animals interact, communicate, and the ways in which we touch and are touched by companion animals, wild animals, and animals in our hearts.