Sublime

The old man said that the ox was an animal close to God as all the world knew and that perhaps the silence and the rumination of the ox was something like the shadow of a greater silence, a deeper thought.

To be friends with the animals is to be a friend and a child of the world, connected to it, nourished by it, belonging to it.

The funny thing about Barbara is she has a little dog who she insists is a well-behaved dog but who, in reality, either barks or tries to bite pretty much everyone who comes near—except Barbara. New residents—grad students, adjuncts—sometimes believe Barbara and bend down to pet him, but we got with the program long ago and speak to Barbara only, g

The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction—not just for Native peoples, but for everyone.

Ironically, as we work to save the salmon, it may turn out that the salmon save us.

Paul Schell, mayor of Seattle

There’s a cultural view in which flowers are dainty, trivial, dispensable—and a scientific one in which flowering plants were revolutionary in their appearance on the earth some two hundred million years or so ago, are dominant on land from the arctic to the tropics, and are crucial to our survival.

The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever,