From the book jacket: 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 stores 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. "We want to live as if there is no other place, as if we will always be here. We want to live with devotion to the world of waters and the universe of life." 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.

Linda Hogan very eloquently conveys the connection of humans, animals, earth, sky, wind, water in Dwellings. I frequently found my mind wandering to a past time of Native Americans in their native land. Curious of what our world would resemble if the founding fathers (and generations that follow) had not obliterated much of Native culture but rather embraced and learned from our Native brothers and sisters. The knowledge of and relationship with the natural world would very much have benefited all of our generations.

Over the past year I have adopted a curiosity for Native culture and spirituality. The spirituality and deep connection of all natural beings in the Native culture is captivating. One of my favorite passages: "Drinking the water, I thought how earth and sky are generous with their gifts, and how good it is to receive them. Most of us are taught, somehow, about giving and accepting human gifts, but not about opening ourselves and our bodies to welcome the sun, the land, the visions of sky and dreaming, not about standing in the rain ecstatic with what is offered."

Or this passage: "Humans colonizing and conquering others have a propensity for this, for burning behind them what they cannot possess or control, as if their conflicts are not with themselves and their own way of being, but with the land itself." The mark of an amazing book is one that encourages me to think beyond the pages. I had always considered the destruction of wars and battles to human life. But, to consider the damage to the land itself - just because humans disagree or intend to conquer another. Linda Hogan's words strike deeply and further my admiration for the Native connection to all of nature. It breaks my heart that this connection and respect was not allowed to flourish after our country was conquered. How different our souls would have been through history.