Hogan on home

I've encountered the concept of "home" throughout the writings of many memorable authors, from Kipling to Tolkein. Linda Hogan's Dwellings is a super well-organized essay, as it presents little nuggets of nature-inspired profundity in a number of contexts. The essay reads like a collection of barely incomplete vignettes which are subtly tied together not only by the piece's interesting arrangement, but the very concept of "home" as well.
Hogan, a woman who stated that she feels God not while she is visiting the house of the Lord, but under a tree where her senses take over. Dwellings explores the universal spirituality of living spaces and habits of various types of people, animals, and insects. Hogan continues to wax philosophical/poetic as she discusses what our homes are made of.

Like Thoreau, Hogan expresses her admiration of the Native American people throughout this essay. However, Thoreau's perspective was old school, and that of the "noble savage". He poeticized their culturally unaffected and spiritual lifestyle, but at the end of the day he deems them nothing than human beasts of virtue. Hogan maintains the same romantic tone when she describes some of the legends and traditions of the residents of Zia. She does not, however, represent them as anything other than consistent purveyors of their own culture and history, much worthy of dignity and respect.

Cronon is dronin'

Cronon is examining the similar works and styles of John Muir, William Wordsworth, and Henry David Thoreau by linking them all together using one commonality amongst their writing: scripture. Religious texts have been used time and time again to analyze writers who seem to seek some sort of transcendental reward - a metaphysical consolation prize of sorts.

On these occasions, God kind of becomes everyone's favorite English major. These three nature writers are most definitely seeking something spiritual in the natural world, but perhaps using the Bible to explain this phenomenon is not the best route. Thoreau, Wordsworth, and Muir are seeking The Good Life - not necessarily a "cathedral", but meaning in austerity. Cronon uses scripture to examine our human conception of nature as a cultural construct, but I'm not sure this is what these writers were going for...

This is problematic, even within their own writing. Muir explains the Yosemite Valley as a place "so compactly filled with God's beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be." He compares the water to champagne, claims the Valley is devoid of "dull empty hours" and free of pain. In actuality, nature is not really experiencing hope, experience, dullness, champagne, pain, or even beauty. These are human concepts, backed by a human conception of a creator. Nature is separate from our human existence, though we judge it with our senses and perceive it as beautiful and ethereal. Free of petty personal hope and experience? Some would say merely admitting a creator God has bestowed the landscape before us is entirely hinged on personal hope. One cannot compare the sweetness of mountain water to French champagne if one has not known the drink many times before. This is Muir's observation which is based entirely on his personal experience. When he notices the Valley filled with God's beauty, is he referencing a memory of beauty he has known of nature his whole life, or perhaps a dramatic landscape painting (which were so popular at the time of his writing)?