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John - love this series so far and looking forward to part three. This article was interesting to me as I am fascinated with our animalistic natures. How many thousands of years of civilization we have under our belts and in so many ways we are still wild things at our core. I think it is important to understand and embrace that aspect of ourselves and it goes along with my ideas of how we should be connected to the natural world. Great stuff!

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I agree, Matthew. We are bodies in the world—a part of our ecology, not separate from it. I think that much art, though we think of it as “civilizing,” explores that reality.

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AH I love it and how you connect death and desire back to Prince. I am going to attempt to do something similar on my Substack with our reading material and the song I sent you. Cannot wait for the next installment.

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This is great, John, glad to have discovered your series today. So interesting how the strict confines of poetry, with all its rules and conventions, can be the portal to so much imaginative freedom. Prince's lyrics and music offer another kind of expressive freedom of course - wild dancing!

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Thanks! Yes, as an artist, he is certainly "embodied."

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Feb 21Liked by John Halbrooks

Such a good newsletter today! Thank you! I'm fascinated by "rewilding."

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Thanks, Lisa! Good, I'll have more to say about the idea next week, and when we get into Tolkien. Meanwhile, here's an interesting podcast episode on "Rewilding Sibelius": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rewilding-sibelius/id1108468608?i=1000498698801

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I wasn't familiar with this saga, and your walkthrough here was a delight to read from beginning to end, John. Thank you. I'm so eager to see how you show these texts speaking to each other next week.

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