We like to assume that language is a purely human property, our exclusive possession, and that everything else is basically mute. — David Abram Copy Share Image
Only by affirming the animateness of perceived things do we allow our words to emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing… — David Abram Copy Share Image
No event for the Koyukon - or for most other indigenous peoples - is ever entirely meaningless or accidental, but neither is… — David Abram Copy Share Image
For the Amahuaca, the Koyukon, the Apache, and the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Australia - as for numerous other indigenous peoples -… — David Abram Copy Share Image
The telling of stories, like singing and praying, would seem to be an almost ceremonial act, an ancient and necessary mode of… — David Abram Copy Share Image
Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And… — David Abram Copy Share Image
Entranced by the denotative power of words to define, to order, to represent the things around us, weve overlooked the songful dimension… — David Abram Copy Share Image
In the absence of any written analogue to speech, the sensible, natural environment remains the primary visual counterpart of spoken utterance, the… — David Abram Copy Share Image
“Human language, for us moderns, has swung in on itself, turning its back on the beings around us. Language is a human… — David Abram Copy Share Image
“All things have the capacity for speech -- all beings have the ability to communicate something of themselves to other beings. Indeed,… — David Abram Copy Share Image
“To our indigenous ancestors, and to the many aboriginal peoples who still hold fast to their oral traditions, language is less a… — David Abram Copy Share Image
Does the human intellect, or "reason," really spring us free from our inherence in the depths of this wild proliferation of forms? Or on… — David Abram Copy Share
“Human language, for us moderns, has swung in on itself, turning its back on the beings around us. Language is a human property, suitable… — David Abram Copy Share
Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then… — David Abram Copy Share
Each place its own mind, its own psyche! Oak, Madrone, Douglas fir, red-tailed hawk, serpentine in the sandstone, a certain scale to the topography,… — David Abram Copy Share
What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself… — David Abram Copy Share
Other animals, in a constant and mostly unmediated relation with their sensory surroundings, think with the whole of their bodies. — David Abram Copy Share
The telling of stories, like singing and praying, would seem to be an almost ceremonial act, an ancient and necessary mode of speech that… — David Abram Copy Share
Such reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world. Sensory perception is… — David Abram Copy Share
“Ecologically considered, it is not primarily our verbal statements that are "true" or "false," but rather the kind of relations that we sustain with… — David Abram Copy Share
A particular place in the land is never, for an oral culture, just a passive or inert setting for the human events that occur… — David Abram Copy Share
If, on the other hand, we wish to describe a particular phenomenon without repressing our direct experience, then we cannot avoid speaking of the… — David Abram Copy Share
The animate earth - this moody terrain that we experience differently in anger and in joy, in grief and in love - is both… — David Abram Copy Share
To describe the animate life of particular things is simply the most precise and parsimonious way to articulate the things as we spontaneously experience… — David Abram Copy Share
Sensory perception is the silken web that binds our separate nervous systems into the encompassing ecosystem. — David Abram Copy Share
![“Entranced by the denotative power of words to define, to order, to represent the things around us, weve overlooked the songful dimension of language so obvious to our oral [storytelling] ancestors. Weve lost our ear for the music of language -- for the rhythmic, melodic layer of speech by which…” quote by David Abram](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/023/david-abram-15943_ancestor_entranced-by-the-denotative-power-of-wor_1198850.jpg)
