Free-living animals become competitors to subdue and erase. In their place, we produce tame animals that accommodate our desires. Is this peace?

I know better, now. Peace is lying under a lamppost, watching bats flutter in the evening. Peace is meeting a coyote’s gaze at dawn. Or pausing to watch deer cross a snowy meadow. It’s in the silent moments when we’re awed to have been born on such a planet…

Read the full piece, published today at CounterPunch.

Painting by Edward Hicks. Image source: Dick A. Ramsay Fund, Brooklyn Museum.