A Greater Intelligence Revealed in Dwellings

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A Greater Intelligence Revealed in Dwellings Linda Hogan writes in her preface to Dwellings that "there is a terrestrial intelligence that lies beyond our human knowing and grasping." This is the main point that is constantly reiterated throughout the book, and this is the point that makes the book so important. The trouble with the earth today is that humans have become too smart; so smart that they question everything they once took for granted, and being unable to explain it, discount it as unreal. Science, the very thing that has catapulted us into our present state of 'greatness,' is also the human evil that has isolated us from everything we knew. The 'knowing' that Hogan speaks of is not a scientific knowing, not something that can be hypothesized and proven in a lab. It is rather the feeling you get when you see a dead horse, or a great bird of prey swooping down to catch some small, scurrying animal. Here is the difference between contrivance and reality. Humans live in an almost completely contrived world, making it too easy for congressmen to vote on the government sale of a parcel of land inhabiting wild animals, or for park rangers to cave in and assassinate wolves in Yellowstone to 'control' the population when it's really a question of the innocent animals, ignorant of human boundaries, over-stepping the borders of Yellowstone and entering 'private' ranches. Consider the day of an average human. It awakes in a 'home', completely isolated from its environment, bathes in a fake pond or simulated rain using chemicals to strip away its natural oils, eats packaged food seldom resembling anything found in nature, gets i... ... middle of paper ... ...the need to approach and touch it. It reminds me of an alien abduction, the aliens approaching a human they captured and killed and lay down on a table with caution and awe. They slowly reach out their long E.T. fingers trying to make a connection with the thing-to make sure it's real and solid. Imagine a wolf in the wild approaching a dead bear with awe, carefully extending its tongue and licking it in wonder. The wolf would just accept the bear, maybe even eat it as a means of survival. We have forgotten, and now a few of us feel that emptiness and recognize the over-powering urge to fill it with nature, our nature, the nature that we have fought for centuries and now have conquered. But as Hogan argues, in defeating nature, we have defeated ourselves, so the wounds of nature are our wounds, and our "self hate" won't allow us to mend them.

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