The environment is a fluid dimension of living memory. This is why I often refer to it as a living library. Direct relation with these beings results in a form of learning that simply cannot be had elsewhere, and this means new forms and ways of development. Unless we make some other choice. Of course, that’s most of what we’re up to as a species. If only we could see that we are calling to ourselves in our relationship with the living places. We are calling ourselves to a future. And if it is denuded of the organisms, relationships and intelligences which were, in fact, the parents of our own, then we will have extinguished not only the uplift-allies of our hominid childhood, but any hope of understanding what and who we are. Without the living mirrors of the living places, we are little more than shadows cast by the functions and descriptions our strange fascinations with objectification, representation and ersatz mastery require. We must therefore reform, restore the agreements and intimacies that once informed all of our relationships with living beings, places, and ways.