Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World

Award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan's first work of nonfiction explores the author's lifelong love for the living world and all its inhabitants. As an Indian woman, grandmother, and environmentalist, Hogan questions "our responsibilities to the caretaking of the future and to the other species who share our journey." In stories about bats, bees, porcupines, wolves, and caves, Hogan honors the spirit of all living things.
Dwellings is about the idea and meaning of home. The earth is our universal home, this book tells us. Dwellings teaches us about cultures whose understanding of the world are often at odds with one another and with other species; about Native peoples' sacrifices and gifts, and the Indian tradition as a means of finding balance, of restoring our relationship to the earth. In offering praise to sky, earth, water, animals, we witness how each living thing is alive in a conscious world with its own integrity, grace, and dignity. Spoken with tenderness, beauty, and care, Dwellings takes us on a spiritual quest born out of the deep past. These illuminating writings offer a more hopeful future as they seek visions and light ancient fires.