This is a book about the worlds that we inhabit, both the external and natural worlds and the internal and imaginary worlds, and how they inform and shape each other. It is related in the form of a memoir, deep and personal and disturbing and revelatory, in the hope that the individual experience can help illuminate the universal.
Ten years ago the author was raising chickens and losing many of them to pillaging coyotes. Finally, in frustration, he begged the coyotes -- calling out to one that he caught sight of leaving the coop -- to stop killing his chickens. Remarkably, the killing stopped and the coyotes, still ever-present, settled for the scraps from the author's butchering.
Thus inspired to write a book about animal communication, Derrick Jensen instead confronted the question of why experiences like this are discounted in our culture and even silenced. Connections between people and the environments they inhabit, the creatures they share them with, and even their fellow humans are dismissed as unimportant or secondary to the business of producing wealth.
"How and why do we numb ourselves to our own experiences? How and why do we deafen ourselves to the voices of others? Who benefits? Who suffers? Is there a connection between the silencing of women, to use one example, and the silencing of the natural world?"
As he does in most of his works, Jensen writes poetically, emotionally and confronts difficult and troubling issues with informed arguments and probing questions. This book won't necessarily teach the reader how to hear or interpret the "language older than words," but it does make one aware that it's out there waiting to be heard.
"There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists."
"It became clear that this book had to be different. If I were to be honest, it could only be a cry of outrage, a lamentation, and at the same time a love story about that which is and that which was and is no longer. It would have to be about the potential for life and love and happiness we each carry inside but are too afraid to explore."