QotD: on the Mammalian Response to Separation

This reading, from A General Theory of Love is helping me to understand myself. To summarize, mammals are the only creatures with a limbic brain, and it is where we form attachments--to our young, so that we will rear them, to our lovers, and to our other assorted dear ones notably including other mammals. Reptiles and amphibians don't attach the same way, they lay eggs and leave them behind. Birds care for their young but the attachment seems to be completely instinctive and not personal in the least. But mammals, we attach to individuals.
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Mary Oliver poem: In Blackwater Woods

( this one is about letting go )