A Song for Your Supper

The Ainu [people] say that deer, salmon, and bear like our music and are fascinated by our languages. So we sing to the fish or the game, speak words to them, say grace. Performance is currency in the deep world's gift economy. The "deep world" is of course the thousand million-year-old world of rock, soil, water, air and all living beings, all acting through their roles. "Currency" is what you pay your debt with. We all receive, every day, the gifts of the Deep World, from the air we breathe to the food we eat. How do we repay that gift? Performance. "A song for your supper.

I went on to tell her that i felt that non human nature is basically well-inclined toward humanity and only wishes modern people were more reciprocal, not so bloody. The animals are drawn to us, they see us as good musicians, and the think we have cute ears. The human contribution to the planetary ecology might be our entertaining eccentricity, our skills as musicians and performers, our awe inspiring dignity as ritualists--because that was seems to delight the watching wild world.