A PROVOCATIVE NEW VISION: Robert Macfarlane's New Book Helps Us Create a Sustainable Planet
‘’IS A RIVER ALIVE?’' is revolutionary - a new way of seeing, and saving, our environment, our nonhuman kin, and ourselves. Is a river alive? And does it have ‘’rights?’’ As our understanding of the definition of ‘’life’’ expands, through the startling experiences on these pages, the short answer is yes, rivers are ‘’alive.'' Though they may not seem to qualify for what we traditionally think of as live beings, we come to see otherwise.
‘’All things on the Earth have a spirit and a life, whether they are animate or not.’’ - Rights of Nature resolution on the St. Lawrence River, Canadian House of Commons, May 2022.
Should they have ‘’rights?’' If a corporation, which couldn’t be more dead, can be granted ‘’rights,'’ our fellow nonhuman entities on this planet - plants, animals, lakes, rivers, oceans - on which our survival depends, more than qualify to have rights. And none too soon. Nothing is more essential to life than Earth's waterways.
‘’Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake.’’ (page 284)
This book is more than a bright new vision. In prose that is almost poetry at times and as alive as his rivers, we embark on an often heart pounding adventure along three great rivers that are under threat of damming, mining and ‘’development.’’ You cannot take this journey and come away unaltered by its mysteries, by the intricate, astonishing life encountered along, and within, the flow of the river. You can no longer think of a river - or a box elder, a mushroom, or a wolf spider - as an ‘’it.’’ It is alive, an integral part of our web of life.
‘’Where does mind stop and world begin? Not at skull and skin, that’s for sure.’’
‘’Everything is connected to everything else…relation is life.’’ (page 100)
In the tradition of the Lakota proverb, ‘’Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related, two legged, four legged, furred, finned, feathered, those that crawl in the earth and those that grow from it’'- this is a powerful companion to ''Braiding Sweetgrass,'' ''The Serviceberry,'' ''Playground,'' ''The Overstory,'' ''A Buzz in the Meadow,'' ''The Radiant Life of Animals,'' ''The Sea Around Us,'' and other classics of the interplay of humans and nature. ‘’Is a River Alive?’' is a sure step in our evolution toward a sustainable planet, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
richflandersmusic.com
richflanders.substack.com
‘’All things on the Earth have a spirit and a life, whether they are animate or not.’’ - Rights of Nature resolution on the St. Lawrence River, Canadian House of Commons, May 2022.
Should they have ‘’rights?’' If a corporation, which couldn’t be more dead, can be granted ‘’rights,'’ our fellow nonhuman entities on this planet - plants, animals, lakes, rivers, oceans - on which our survival depends, more than qualify to have rights. And none too soon. Nothing is more essential to life than Earth's waterways.
‘’Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake.’’ (page 284)
This book is more than a bright new vision. In prose that is almost poetry at times and as alive as his rivers, we embark on an often heart pounding adventure along three great rivers that are under threat of damming, mining and ‘’development.’’ You cannot take this journey and come away unaltered by its mysteries, by the intricate, astonishing life encountered along, and within, the flow of the river. You can no longer think of a river - or a box elder, a mushroom, or a wolf spider - as an ‘’it.’’ It is alive, an integral part of our web of life.
‘’Where does mind stop and world begin? Not at skull and skin, that’s for sure.’’
‘’Everything is connected to everything else…relation is life.’’ (page 100)
In the tradition of the Lakota proverb, ‘’Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related, two legged, four legged, furred, finned, feathered, those that crawl in the earth and those that grow from it’'- this is a powerful companion to ''Braiding Sweetgrass,'' ''The Serviceberry,'' ''Playground,'' ''The Overstory,'' ''A Buzz in the Meadow,'' ''The Radiant Life of Animals,'' ''The Sea Around Us,'' and other classics of the interplay of humans and nature. ‘’Is a River Alive?’' is a sure step in our evolution toward a sustainable planet, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
richflandersmusic.com
richflanders.substack.com
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