Recently, while reading a book of essays called The Practice of the Wild, by poet, essayist, lecturer Gary Snyder, I came across this thought-provoking passage:
A young white woman asked me:... "If we have made such good use of animals, eating them, singing about them, drawing them, riding them, and dreaming about them, what do they get back from us?"
A little further on Gary states:
The Ainu say that the deer, salmon and bear like our music and are fascinated by our languages. So we sing to the fish or the game, speak words to them, say grace. Periodically we dance for them. A song for your supper: performance is the currency in the deep world's gift economy. The other creatures probably do find us a bit frivolous: we keep changing our outfits, and we eat too many different things. Nonhuman nature, I cannot help feeling, is well inclined toward humanity and only wishes modern people were more reciprocal, not so bloody.
Definitely some food for thought...
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