Every now and then I come across something that I can’t wait to share with you because it is so beautiful, inspiring, and nourishing, and because it offers something important for our understanding of interspecies communication, relationships, and how we can heal the fractures between our species and the others with whom we share our worlds.
I have been savoring a gorgeous little book that I picked up over the summer at one of my favorite indie bookshops, Back Of Beyond Books in Moab Utah:
The Radiant Lives of Animals by Linda Hogan.
I have been an ardent admirer and lover of Linda Hogan’s writing for years, but somehow, I missed this book when it was published in 2020 and am so grateful to have found it now.
These notes from the book flap say it best:
Concerned that human lives and the natural world are too often defined by people who are separated from the land and its inhabitants, Indigenous writer and environmentalist Linda Hogan depicts her own intense relationships with animals as an example we all can follow to heal our souls and reconnect with the spirit of the world.
Venturing throughout the South Central and Western states, from her modest forest home in Colorado to her beloved Oklahoma, she introduces us to horses, packrats, snakes, mountain lions, elks, wolves, bees, and so many others whose presence has changed her life. In this illuminating collection of essays and poems, enhanced by a few elegant drawings, Hogan draws on many Native nations’ ancient stories and spiritual traditions to show us that the soul exists in those delicate places where the natural world extends into human consciousness—in the mist of morning, the grass that grew a little through the night, the first warmth of this morning’s light.
Altogether, this beautifully packaged meditation in prose and poetry is a reverential reminder for all of us to witness and appreciate the radiant lives of animals.
I hope that you will love this book as much as I do. Find it at your favorite indie bookshop, or here on Amazon: The Radiant Lives of Animals by Linda Hogan.
