From Gary Snyder's essay on the the concept of Turtle Island...

“[We] need to bring into line with complex science the old view that holds the whole phenomenal world to be our own being: multicentered, ‘alive’ in its own manner, and effortlessly self-organizing in its own chaotic way… This worldview is not caught up in the dualisms of body and mind, spirit and matter, or culture and nature. It is a noninstrumentalist view that extends intrinsic value to the nonhuman natural world.”

In order to “re-inhabit” the continent and planet, we need to see our homeplace in terms of landforms, watersheds, bioregions, plant and animal life, weather patterns, seasonal changes, and natural history. We are challenged to become people who are totally engaged with their homeplace for the long future.