animate earth


The world as experienced by oral, indigenous cultures — a landscape in which rivers, mountains, winds, and animals are all sensate, attentive, and responsive. Not a belief system imposed on the world but a direct description of how the world presents itself when perception is participatory. As a Koyukon elder said: "The country knows. If you do wrong things to it, the whole country knows. It feels what's happening to it."
Etymology
Phrase developed by David Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous (1996).
Suggested Reading
The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram
ecology Indigenous senses
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