Wendell Berry's "Native Hill" is a wake up call to remind us how selfish and arrogant we as people have lived that has resulted in the slow destruction of the world. Berry wants us to understand the connection we have with the world. We need to first identify all the many things that we are doing wrong to damage the relationship that we have with the world, and then realize that we have a partnership with the world, a partnership that will not work if we don't do our part. Not only do we depend on nature, but nature also depends on itself. If we forget this, we will continue to commit a slow suicide and destroy both the earth and ourselves.
             Wendell Berry often dreamed of what this country looked like in the 'beginning', before the white people drove their plows into it and initiated the destruction. "My people's errors have become the features of my country." So much damage has been done over time, it is no longer the same land first-comers saw, it is now almost impossible to imagine a "pristine America", and what the shape of the land was. Berry wanted to plant in our minds the thought of what was once here and realize that it is gone forever. This makes us think of the world in the 'beginning' and the endless possibilities of how beautiful and pure it was. Once this is set in our minds, we now have a goal of what we want nature and the world to get back to. It is too late to get back to the original state that the world was once in, but if we keep that mindset during our quest for change and betterment, we can't go wrong and things will only improve.
             Before we change the world, we have to change our attitudes, our priorities, and ourselves. "We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even f...