Who Speaks for Wolf?
"...the ancestors of the Oneida [Indians] once grew in population so much that some of them had to go look for a new
place to live. They found a
wonderful place, and the people moved there. After moving, they found that they had 'chosen the Center
Place for a great community of Wolf.'
But the people did not wish to leave. After a while, the people decided that there was not room
enough in this place for both them and Wolf. They held a council and decided that they could hunt all the
wolves down so there would be no more.
But when they thought of what kind of people they would then be, 'it did
not seem to them that they wanted to become such a people.'
So
the people devised a way of limiting their impact: In all of their decisions, they would ask, 'Who speaks for
Wolf?' and the interests of the nonhuman world would be considered."
(Reprinted from Confessions of an Eco-Warrior by Dave
Foreman. NY: Harmony Books, 1991:48-9. Originally recounted in Paula Underwood
Spencer’s Who Speaks for Wolf. Austin: Tribe of Two Press, 1983.)
The above excerpt from Dave Foreman's book identifies for me what I care most about at this time in Earth's history, more than two decades after Confessions of an Eco-Warrior was published: giving voice to life beyond only the human. My blogging here will give me an opportunity to figure out how to do that so others hear and begin to understand . . . more than just "understand," but change their relationship to the non-human world, which sustains all of us and, without which we could not survive.
I'm here! Keep writing... This is a topic so many of us need to learn more about. I love wolves, mostly because as a child I was convinced they lived down in the woods behind our house and if they became angry they would tear through our front door. As an adult, I'm still trying to figure out what that fear really meant and still means. In a way wolves represent the unknown inside of me. Interesting that you chose them to represent the non-human world. Can't wait to see what you post next. I'm going to check every morning.
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