Temple of Ice and Salt

In this creative narrative, author Greg Twemlow imagines a meeting in Havana with Thomas Hudson, the protagonist of Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novel Islands in the Stream. Their conversation serves as a vehicle to explore Twemlow’s Earth Mother Manifesto, which posits that modern humanity suffers from a profound sense of civilisational orphanhood due to its detachment from the natural world. By pairing his philosophy with Hudson’s stoic grief, the author argues that we have mistakenly traded a sacred connection to nature for mere resource extraction. The dialogue emphasises that the environment is a sovereign divinity rather than a property to be owned, suggesting that our current loneliness stems from this spiritual severance. Ultimately, the text uses this fictional encounter to advocate for a new theology that recognises nature’s indifference and our own inherent smallness within the global ecosystem. Read the article.About the Author - Greg Twemlow writes and teaches at the intersection of technology, education, and human judgment. He works with educators and businesses to make AI explainable and assessable in classrooms and boardrooms — to ensure AI users show their process and own their decisions. His cognition protocol, the Context & Critique Rule™, is built on a three-step process: Evidence → Cognition → Discernment — a bridge from what’s scattered to what’s chosen. Context & Critique → Accountable AI™. © 2025 Greg Twemlow. “Context & Critique → Accountable AI” and “Context & Critique Rule” are unregistered trademarks (™).