Dylan Lorio-MacNamara - "The Ecology of Magic", thoughts

Abram's introductory chapter wholly caught me by surprise. At points I felt as if somehow I had written these words, he so vividly captured something I felt deeply in my being, but until now had had no words to describe. At other points I found myself lost in a magical world full of expressive, beautiful, cooperative beings forging harmony, only to be reminded by Abram that I'm actually lost on my own planet. Never before have I felt simultaneously lost and at home in my own body; Abram reveals a potential path to that liminal place, through communion and intense engagement with the non-human natural world.

I found his closing remarks in the chapter to be especially impactful. He laments the human tendency to view Nature merely as a stock of resources to be used at our discretion; we commodify natural objects and then dominate them to the point of non-existence. Humans have consumed Nature into our selves and our cultures, but not in a healthy way such as Emerson or Thoreau might prescribe. Instead, we subjugate the workings of the natural world to our own desires, with little to no reciprocity involved. Abram suggests that by removing ourselves from the central point in the conversation, we can begin to reorganize our existence to include deeper interactions focused on symbiosis with the non-human world

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