R: EO Wilson coined the idea of the 'Eremocene', the 'age of loneliness' which we are creating and entering, in which we have so depleted the world of its wondrous more-than-human diversity that we're left solitary, unsurrounded by the company of other creatures... What a chilling idea that is. Robin Wall Kimmerer memorably calls it 'species-loneliness'. The Lost Spells, though--like its big sister The Lost Words--approaches this possibility not from a perspective of fear and threat, but rather by celebrating the glorious convivium of nearby nature, the calls, cries, voices and languages of the trees, plants, animals and birds with which we share our daily lives, and which lift our hearts and shape our dreams, hour by hour, week after week, whether or not we notice them doing so. More prosaically, my children--now 17, 14 and 7--have also been among the first readers of the spells, and they've been rigorous testers of how the language falls upon the ear of the young. My 7 year old in particular--whose spirit animal is surely a wolverine and whose name, appropriately, is Will--has been ruthless in his indication of interest or boredom with regard to the spells. My most merciless editor...
Sam Levine - Sax For The Spirit
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