A single glance is sometimes all it takes to understand profound insights that words can hardly grasp. There he sits, quietly in the grass, a young arctic fox in the middle of the vast, windswept landscape of his Icelandic homeland. And there is something in his expression that touches us deeply – a gentle, quiet warmth, an expressive, attentive understanding, a wise knowledge.

We humans are receptive to such gazes. Receptive for animals like this little fox, which looks at us as if it had long understood what we so often overlook: that we are inseparably connected with Earth, nature and all living beings, that we are part of the whole.

The Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is Iceland’s only native land predator. Its summer coat is earthy brown; in winter it is snow white. They defy icy storms, long periods of darkness and meagre food with a resilience that is admirable. Its habitat ranges from the cool coastal plains to the harsh highlands – but even here its survival is becoming increasingly difficult: climate change is altering even these most remote corners of Earth.

And so, the gaze of this young fox leads us back to a more profound thought: what if we, as humanity, no longer regarded Earth as a dead lump of rock orbiting lifelessly through space – but as a living organism, as our Mother Earth? If we stopped abusing our planet as a supplier of raw materials and a garbage dump and instead protected it emphatically and lovingly, just as we reflexively regard this Arctic fox.

We protect what we love. But we only love what we know well.

Perhaps we should start to get to know our Earth in a completely new way – through the eyes of this little fox, who shows us how quiet compassion can be. And how big.