Where Will You Drive Your Own Picket

So Long As We Only Believe In The Justice Of The State, Of The Law-made By Those In Power, To Serve Those In Power-so Long Will We Continue To Be Exploited By Those In Power.

So Many Indigenous People Have Said To Me That The Fundamental Difference Between Western And Indigenous Ways Of Being Is That Even The Most Open-minded Westerners Generally View Listening To The Natural World As A Metaphor, As Opposed To The Way The World Really Is. Trees And Rocks And Rivers Really Do Have Things To Say To Us.

Where Will You Drive Your Own Picket Stake? Where Will You Choose To Make Your Stand? Give Me A Threshold, A Specific Point At Which You Will Finally Stop Running, At Which You Will Finally Fight Back.

Question Four: What Book Would You Give To Every Child? Answer: I Wouldn't Give Them A Book. Books Are Part Of The Problem: This Strange Belief That A Tree Has Nothing To Say Until It Is Murdered, Its Flesh Pulped, And Then (human) People Stain This Flesh With Words. I Would Take Children Outside And Put Them Face To Face With Chipmunks, Dragonflies, Tadpoles, Hummingbirds, Stones, Rivers, Trees, Crawdads. That Said, If You're Going To Force Me To Give Them A Book, It Would Be The Wind In The Willows, Which I Hope Would Remind Them To Go Outside.

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.