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Entretien avec Linda Hogan, autrice invitée lors du colloque international en écopoétique de juin 2016 à Perpignan, par Bénédicte Meillon. Photo Margot LauwersWhatis your favorite place in the world? &#160;There are places I love to visit and am grateful to have seen. For example,the hills and formations and caves with homes in Turkey when I visitedCappadacio with my friend Carmen Flys. This includes the underground world thatexists there that was once called “home” to many escaping warfare. In spite ofthat history, in the present, it was most beautiful to see the hillsides andcaves and stone formations in the light of dawn. Then is also the great beautyof the Southeast where my ancestors built mounds, some of them in the shapes ofworshipped animals and some from our myths and Southeastern astronomy. Great pyramidswere built along the rivers, as well as a great city. As a child, one enchantingplace was with my grandparents in Oklahoma. I cared about that earth and theodor of trees and humid air, the changing light, and afternoon rains andfireflies. I also have strong ties to rain forest and cloud forest, the way cloudsmove in and rain pounds the world and all the lives that are hidden there, but myfavorite place is my home. Where I live, the dwelling place. In fact, Dwellings is mostly about this place andso is my new book of essays. I live in the country on a creek, in the only homeon this road. It is a small place, a hundred year old summer house from which Ihear the water in the creek all year. Last year this creek had changed because of a strong flood and for thefirst time, it attracted a small group of migrating Sandhill cranes. We had a seriousflood in 2013 that greatly changed the land and the water. When the Cranes sawthe water from the sky, they landed here for a rest from their long migrationto stay along what is now a braided stream. Their voices woke me one night andsoon I recognized them from once hearing their voices in Nebraska. Theyremained three days before continuing on to New Mexico. All these events attract me here, as does the wildlife that passesthrough. This region sustains much life. Deer visit daily and I hear them speakwith one another. The mother voices. Occasional coyotes sing at night and onceyear a pack of wolves came through after the Yellowstone fire. Mountain lionshave territory here. Elk bugle in the fall. My little cabin is in a forest with an amazing variety of trees. Thearborist here said it is the most varied amount he has seen in these mountains.I also love the many canyon walls and stones with many-colored lichens and moundsof mosses, the earth opening with numerous varieties of wildflowers in springand summer. But my closest outdoor companions here are the wild mustang andburro I adopted from the government holding pens. They were both rounded up,one from Nevada, one from WyomingThe mountains and canyons here are great formations and I think of this landas a place that is enchanted by songs from the wind and those of the earth’s longhistory. Once it was an ancient sea bed. Through time, the land here grew many stories,ancient and new. The original tribes came here to be in a place of amnesty and to havepeace with one another in what is a sacred land. I try to maintain that peace.What place does nature occupy inyour writing?My writing has always come from nature and my environment. It was thebeginning of my work as far back as the 70’s, to speak about and for the earthand all the lives of the people in Oklahoma/Indian Territory, as well. Growingup from childhood, I never believed that humans had the utmost intelligence. Igive us credit for a certain kind of knowing but even then there are many otherintelligences all around us. We sometimes forget this and that there is lifeand knowledge in the natural world. My work puts out its feelers, searching forthe intelligence that goes beyond only the human.For many of us, our writing comes from places we do not always know, butalso feel, Whatever it is that a person must write, it is our own way, ourdirection, and we each follow our own path. For me, that path has been theenvironment and ecosystem, and so nature and animals are the most significantfocus of my writing.Do animals play a great role in your writing? Photo Margot LauwersAnyone reading my work knows that I write about animals more thananything else. They are the spirit of the world, again each with their ownintelligence. It would be difficult for me to write a book without them. Whaleswere one of my topics for many years, and will be again. Then the Florida Panthercalled me there and that call became the book, POWER. I’m sure it was also towrite about the difficult conditions in Florida affecting the panther, thetoxic environment. It began as an accident. I was in a working group on reauthorizationof the Endangered Species Act and said those two words. I don’t even know why. Butat the time it divided the room. Great conflict followed. The conflict camefrom a case in which a Seminole man had killed a panther. So I went to Floridaand researched the incident involving the killing of a panther and discoveredthat few were left and that those few were very ill. I stayed with the rangerand went to read the court records. I planned to do a legal article. But I wasstopped on the road by a powerful storm. While I sat in the car, I heard themain character’s voice and then I never wrote the article. Instead, I heard thevoice of Omishto, the main character, and I followed that voice, that girl andwhat she tried to say. It became a novel. I hoped the book would send attention to the beautiful, secretive,endangered cat. And also to the environment, but I did include the killing ofthe panther in the novel.How about plants, minerals, and elements?  Photo Margot LauwersYes. Woman Who Watches Over theWorld is divided into sections by elements and the minerals. In the worldas I understand it, all is living. And now the novel I am trying to finish isone about a plant doctor who studies medicinal plants in a rain forest.But none of these things you mention are separate. Plants, minerals,animals, we people, all are interconnected and work together with one anotherto keep things whole. We do not live in a world of separation except by thewords.To what extent are your charactersrelated to the environments you create for them? Completely related. They are the environments. They are the world theylive in because the world creates us. It is just that too often we do not lookand see all the life around us. Most of my poetry has to do with an interwoven world. The fiction has connections between characters and their environment. Weare enfolded within the ecosystem.To what degree might your writing bebased on a scientific understanding of the world? These questions begin to seek the same response from me but let me saythat in our global world there are not only many different ways of knowing, butalso different kinds of science and ways of understanding and doing science.Western science is not even one that knows the most. The western way of doingresearch is too often one of disconnection and removing materials from theirplace to study them. Other sciences are based on millennia of observation. Myown work is based on indigenous knowledge systems and Native Science whichconsists of lifetimes of knowing that is passed on to new generations. I can’teven pretend to be an expert in any knowledge. I learn what I can, but onelifetime is very brief. Still, I do also read and study western science and itsfindings so that I can keep both understandings in my mind and work with acombined knowledge. It is important for me to be informed and to try to beconscious of what is being learned. Or at least to try.Do various myths and mythologies inform your writing or inspire you? (Could you quote a couple of examples?)Photo Béné MeillonYes, I try to look back toward the older stories and incorporate some ofthem. And especially the astronomies of our Southeastern peoples. I think someexamples are not published yet, but writing about the big dipper as the skypeople in their canoe coming to earth and an earth man falling in love with oneof the young women from that canoe, then going to live with them in the sky.(Based on how the constellations move across the night sky.) Soon he becomeslonely, so they return for him and decide to have some time here and some therein the stars. It is a much longer story, but that is the beginning of it. Andthen there are the myths. I wrote a performance for the tribe when I worked forthe Chickasaw Nation as the writer-in-residence. It was all based on mythologyand on the historical nature of clans. It had music in it as well. My cousinmade the costumes and they were amazing. It was a beautiful performance. I know that inside my heart and in my thoughts, the stories come fromsomewhere that is deep in my own tribal understanding of the world, and so howcould I not have our materials within the work at all times. I wouldn’t callmyth only story, but a way of seeing reality, of knowing this world, and ofbeing. I have written a children’s book based on one of the popular stories wetell our children that has to do with respect for spiders, and I constantlythink about how much we knew of the great old growth forests. I love my peopleof the past, the ancestors, their great intelligence. Now, after five hundredyears of colonization, who knows what direction we will take and what kind ofpeople we will be in the future? Sometimes I worry that we will lose ourindigenous knowledge, our original care for the world and all its importantlives and their connections. I see such changes that take place even now.Which writers, if any, might havebeen the most influential on your writing? Any good writer influences me. I love to read and don’t ever have enoughtime to just read. But I look especially to literatures in translation,particularly from the Spanish. Neruda is my best friend when I am searching forsomeone to speak with about writing. A book on the global forest has been myother best friend. I have read books that didn’t do well and loved them, too.One called Cellophane which remindsme a bit of the Mosquito Coast. I try to keep up with not only other Nativewriters in the US but indigenous writers in other countries, too, and many arevery exciting writers, very good. The newer writing I see does not do much for me. Chapters a page long.Fiction I consider superficial and not deep story. Many of these have becomegood sellers but are not at all interesting to me. I look for depth. But I alsoread about different places, about science, and just finished a beautiful bookon body grace that is excellent. I do not stay with just literature but try toread about current politics, and anything else that comes along to tug at myinterest.How powerful do you find dystopicfiction, whether literature or cinema? I may have to look up dystopic. Does it mean a bleak view of life, ofthe future, of the world falling apart? That is what it sounds like. Looking itup, it sounds like a controlled world, one of political insanity. Right now,that seems like our reality, doesn’t it? I don’t know if I’d say it ispowerful. I can’t think of any examples of what I might have read. But when Icome away from a book, I want it to have a resonance, a light that remains. Itcould be a dark light that makes me think and consider where we might beheaded. It could be a hopeful vision to consider where we are headed. I preferto have some hope but am also realistic enough to say we don’t know what isnext even in our own lives. I am a person with a disability and when I wasyoung I never knew I would one day have an accident and ongoing problems forthe rest of my life. Nevertheless, I can still write and teach and remembereverything my students do during a term or semester.&#160; Things happen in the world that are violent and painful. How many canimagine what it is like to have to be a Syrian refugee without a place to go?Is this dystopic? Or is it a form of serious truth? It is important toconsider.On the other hand, some people thrive and flourish in their lives. Andis that Utopian or realistic?I don’t find either one powerful. I want a fiction or cinema that when Ileave it, when I am walking away from it, I am thinking about this worldchanging into something more beautiful, to someone purifying water for others,toward love in the midst of whatever is happening. I want to learn whatmeasures can be taken to make things more bountiful, to plant more trees, torepair what is broken.Would you agree with saying that all nature writers are mystics? photo Béné MeillonI don’t know who said that, but no, not at all. Some people just do itbecause they want to write about themselves in nature. Some do not see a fullpicture, but think it is “in.” And what is a mystic? In my understanding of theword, few mystics at all exist. The ones I can think of as mystics are notbeing spoken about, are silent in the world, are learning to be full inthemselves and in real and true contact with the world. They may not write atall. And just to write about nature doesn’t at all mean a human being is amystic, or even considering spiritual connections with self and other.Many are individualistic and that takes them out of the zone of what Ithink you are asking. Just writing about nature is just writing. I might ratherconsider poets as mystics even more than environmental writers. Poetry hasrequirements that hold you close to the world of the soul. If there is such a thing as whatMark Tredinnick calls “the land’s wild music,” how do you think one can learnto hear it, and, and how might this wild music ripple into and give shape to one’swriting? You would really have to ask him. It sounds so lovely. Somehow I thinkyou are asking this for yourself. My own response to this would be to go outand listen to the land and write what it speaks.How much of your writing would yousay is about re-enchanting the world? I don’t think about this consciously, but for me, it seems that writingis all about enchantment. It is a form of magic, of something from beyond theordinary mind of the writer. Beyond that one singular human.Here is a quote from an essay I am doing that might explain some ofthis, including the meaning of the word, enchantment and about how, if it ispossible, we might bring that quality back. This quote is also partly fromdirect experience I think we have all shared. It is just that some of us seeeach being in the world as part of the enchantment of our lives and ways ofseeing, while others search for a unique experience:The word, enchantment, is rich andcomplex in meaning. It is not only about a state of being, but it also means tochant. Encant, in one meaning, refers to poetry, cantos, or to chapters of abook. &#160;In a Navajo ceremonial complex theword might be considered part of a connected sacred system called Chantwaysthat are usually healing in practice. Each one includes the recitation ofsomething ancient that recalls for the people a story or song that will bringthe people to wholeness. From the creation of the land, the mythic creation,the sacred beings who were first inhabitants, begin. In some European accounts, as in the Odyssey,enchantment is a form of magic, as practiced by Circe or the Sirens throughsong or story, and they cast a spell over the listener. To keep the humanpresent, to have them remain and unwilling to return or leave may be theirpurpose. It is presence, the being present, that is the important part ofenchantment.In the Yaqui Deer Dance, one elder said that it began in spring when adeer came from the forest with wildflowers in his antlers. It was the start ofenchantment long ago and along came many songs and eventually a long ceremony.I have thought of this often, how the Yaqui had been forest people and wereforced by the government into the desert where they live today. The forest is aplace of enchantment for people, I believe, and other Native ceremonies whereenchantment is at center, with song and dance, use forest plants as part of thedances, including the Christmas dances. It is also the place where largeanimals dwell.It is not so much that we are trying to re-enchant the world. It isalready there. It is that we are trying to keep our own selves in touch withthat. It is the human being trying to remember that the entire world outside ofthem is a part of them, all enchanted. As I wrote in the essay The Great Outside, the human soul lives not just withinthe boundaries of our skin but outside them, too. The trouble we now have isthat the world outside the skin is a hard one for many people. If you are notprivileged to live in a world of nature, then the spirit that helps form you asa human may not be the one that is a wealth of nature, a beautiful world, onewhere deer live outside your home. If you are born in the inner city, then howdo you find that enchantment? So then, perhaps we have to find an integrity andwholeness that is different, that is inner. It may not be possible without theright help. Those fortunate in education or income, have a much easier choice,and more possibility.How much ecocritical theory orenvironmentalist literature do you read? I read other writers who write about the environment but I do not readtheory or look for specific “environmentalist” books. I like to read about plantsand all the underground communications, animal intelligence, forestsinteractions, the enormous variety of marine life, or anything having to dowith the natural world. For me, this is part of putting a world together.But I think of theory as something for people who have particular kinds of work, writing, or teaching to do. I only want to write. I love writing. I already have too many chores to keep me from this work of mine without having to think about theory. If my mind is engaged in such a manner, the writing would disappear. But ideas do come when I work on the land where I live. I have to keep it all up, the horse and burro to care, their fences to keep strong, a home I occasionally attempt to keep clean. It is already too much distraction. And I do not have an abstract kind of mind or way of thinking.Photo and graffiti art by Julieta XLFDo you believe that literature canchange the way humans think about our relationship to the natural world aroundand bring about not only awareness, but also political changes? Yes. All of those. I think literature has done this. I love some writersnot even known, like John Hay, whose later book, The Immortal Wilderness,is so beautifully written about the world and how he sees this world, how hecares. I think every book we read about the environment teaches us, whether itis poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. We only have images and words to help us becomeaware and change the world, even politically. If not for these, how could ithappen? Speeches don’t seem to work. Films often do, but those are a form ofliterature.Can you think of a case that youknow of where policies may have followed from awareness raised by a great novel,or any other work of art? I believe policies on whales changed after Farley Mowat and I am surethere are otherincidents. I will try to remember. Certainly in the 20’s policieschanged, but they were not always the ones the author hoped for. The Junglechanged the meat industry, although it didn’t make life much better forworkers, as he’d hoped. …..Do you think that most peoplereading your work are already cognizant of environmental issues, or do you feellike your writing might bring some of your readers to a different kind of understandingand consciousness?No. I don’t think most people begin my books thinking they will be aboutthe James Bay Hydroquebec dam project, as in Solar Storms, or that thisnovel or poetry will be about the natural world. They just begin reading andthen, I hope, some undercurrent of enchantment moves and touches the hearts andminds in ways that are not me pushing them, lecturing, or telling them what tothink. Those would be of little use, would not create change. It happens fromthe inside, the heart, then moves throughout the body and finally, finds itsplace in the mind. At least that is what I believe when I am writing. These aremy hoped for changes. These are my reasons for working and being.How does your knowledge and careabout environmental issues and non-human life affect your own life style andchoices?In every way you can imagine, how I have decided to live, what I do eachday about work, what I eat or try not to eat. It is so much a part of theperson, that we don’t even think of it, but I live with rescued animals and Ipay more money on them than on my own living. I also do the upkeep on theforest and have not sprayed trees and as a result have the healthiest trees ofall. I put in fencing so the horses can have grasses. It is a constant laborhere and most people would not do it.If you could recommend a few ways toimprove one’s lifestyle in a way that could also reduce the negative impact ofhumans’ activities on the planet, which would you suggest?One important thing is not to eat red meat. I have seen the agriculturalrun-off and slaughter house destruction of rivers, causing a loss of drinkingwater to people downstream. The special grasses are not local or native, thetrees are cut and drought follows, the trucks create too much pollution, and inplaces where the animals are warehoused, it is even worse. We have to think ofthe farm workers and the use of pesticides on them, or the conditions underwhich they work, also. &#160; Back to my home and to enchantment:Linda HoganThis little cabin has been enchanted in otherways than from the outside. It is created of the elements of this environment,the stones, the wood. Veins of quartz are in the land here and the home has aquartz fireplace that glows on a cold night, a ceiling beautiful withworm-written wood, polished, and old wallpaper from the 1920’s which hasnothing but leaves. I have spent much time looking up, feeling myself in thewoods even while indoors. But the most enchanted place was once thebedroom with all the lives from outside entering, the dragonflies and theintelligent wasps, even the hummingbirds. I placed the favorite flowers ofhummingbirds inside.For the first years, the windows opened inward.It was a cottage, after all, a summer cottage not meant for year-roundinhabitance. I didn’t think about that when I moved here as my year-round home.I moved here still recovering from a brain injury and with difficulty makingdecisions that were appropriate. But here I could see the stars and planets andthink of the stars being born far away. It is a large world around me, yet sucha small life I live in this place.It all began when I placed two floral paintedbird houses on the wall as decoration. I left the cottage windows open in thedaytime and soon, without my invitation, wasps inhabited the houses, setting uptheir nests of amazing symmetry. I let them be and we had the same schedule. Iopened the windows when I rose. I closed them before bed. We managed tocohabit. One day I slept late and a wasp came directly over my head, fairlyclose, buzzing loudly in order to wake me. It was the best alarm I’d ever had.I opened the windows and let the waiting wasps go outside and off to theirbusiness. I learned from them, their intelligence, their way of communicating,how they recognized me and my participation in their lives to open windows. Then, the hummingbirds arrived. To my surprise,they also came inside, so I planted hyssop throughout the room. It has a mildsmell of liquorice. To my amazement I watched them enter and go from flower toflower. For me, it was a room of enchantment. This small home surrounded by forest and it iseasy to forget other homes are not too far away. From two sides of the house,there is only valley, forest, mountains very close in, encircling me in a kindof safety only such a world offers within a full circle of nature.Photo Béné. Meillon