“Once we not only recognize but experience ourselves as inseparable parts of the organic whole, it’s no longer possible to make excuses for our indulgent and destructive lifestyles, to accept the dispiriting domestication or complete extinction of other life forms.  When we feel the earth as an integral and continuous part of ourselves, we no longer protect the dying rainforests as a botanical source for medicines or as a “scenic resource,” as something other than us. We know them deeply and completely.  They are our lungs – to save them is to save ourselves.  And as they are the lungs of the planet, we are the conscience.”

– Jesse Wolf Hardin/Lone Wolf Circles