Forests Precede Us And Deserts Dog Our

Civilization Can Never Be Sustainable.

To Reverse The Effects Of Civilization Would Destroy The Dreams Of A Lot Of People. There's No Way Around It. We Can Talk All We Want About Sustainability, But There's A Sense In Which It Doesn't Matter That These People's Dreams Are Based On, Embedded In, Intertwined With, And Formed By An Inherently Destructive Economic And Social System. Their Dreams Are Still Their Dreams. What Right Do I -- Or Does Anyone Else -- Have To Destroy Them. At The Same Time, What Right Do They Have To Destroy The World?

I Wondered What It Does To Each Of Us To Spend The Majority Of Our Waking Hours Doings Things We'd Rather Not Do, Wishing We Were Outside Or Simply Elsewhere, Wishing We Were Reading, Thinking, Making Love, Fishing, Sleeping, Or Simply Having Time To Figure Out Who The Hell We Are And What The Hell We're Doing.

Civilization Is Based On A Clearly Defined And Widely Accepted Yet Often Unarticulated Hierarchy. Violence Done By Those Higher On The Hierarchy To Those Lower Is Nearly Always Invisible, That Is, Unnoticed. When It Is Noticed, It Is Fully Rationalized. Violence Done By Those Lower On The Hierarchy To Those Higher Is Unthinkable, And When It Does Occur Is Regarded With Shock, Horror, And The Fetishization Of The Victims.

There Is A Language Older By Far And Deeper Than Words. It Is The Language Of Bodies, Of Body On Body, Wind On Snow, Rain On Trees, Wave On Stone. It Is The Language Of Dream, Gesture, Symbol, Memory. We Have Forgotten This Language. We Do Not Even Remember That It Exists.