Reflections on Animism - Why did I choose it and what it means to me

 Several years ago, I had an intense experience while on my honeymoon in Bali. I visited a traditional Balinese healer and had what can only be described as an energetic cleansing that I believe changed the course of my life. The healer told me that I must “have passion for life, not just sex, but life”. Put this baldly, it is advice that seems banal and possibly sexist. However, I believe that his instruction had a deeper spiritual meaning. What has crystallized for me over the past five years is a very urgent sense that the world is alive and that humans are meant to be a part of the great web that sustains us but that we have forgotten the ways to be in respectful relationship with the world. Plants, animals, all of life is in communication around us and we have ignored and denigrated this complex, mysterious web of interactions, rivalries, and reciprocities as resources to be exploited, extracted, and disrespected. Our illusion of separateness - our failure to embrace and interrogate our place in the web of life and insistence that we are the only beings or people who matter - is a profound cultural illness whose fruit is climate change and mass extinction. 

This is the truth of our existence: there is no nature, we are not separate, we are not superior. There is only the earth and places on the earth more or less impacted by human activity. We breathe the air other animals breathe, that is cleansed by the trees, that is moistened by the waters. Plants are people. Animals are people. The mountains, rivers, oceans, the land. All are “people” and all are worthy of respectful interaction and communication. The earth is alive and aware in a deep and profound way that is so much greater than ourselves. Science confirms much of this instinct that I have; for example, it is a scientific fact that mycelial networks in healthy forests act as communication superhighways for trees and ways for them and the teeming trillions of insects, bacteria, and other life forms in the ground to interact, communicate, share and feed each other. Crows form friendships with us; elephants mourn their dead and our own; dolphins play with us and each other; the examples of an interactive and profoundly alive world of beings around us are legion. And yet we continue to insist that animals and the “natural world” is dumb, deaf, and separate from us. 

Our arrogant assurance that we are separate is at least partially due to the destruction of indigenous peoples and their cultures around the world. Most intact indigenous cultures hold that human beings are not alone in being sentient or alone in being “people”. Rivers, mountains, forests, trees, animals, all are people of some kind and in some way they are in communication with human beings. They all have ways of interacting with the world in a way that is not exploitative but reciprocal - humans as partners with their environment, not as empty consumers. As I was investigating and contemplating which spiritual path might best fit my beliefs, I knew that I could not simply adopt the moniker “indigenous spirituality”, nor could I appropriate an indigenous religion. Indigenous spiritual practices are deeply rooted in culture and it would be morally wrong and spiritually inadvisable to adopt the name and practices from a tribal culture I have no tie to. I had rejected Christianity long ago and Buddhism felt too human centered to work for me. Paganism was a better fit but so much of American paganism is Celtic or Norse based and I wanted a practice that would make room for my diverse ethnic heritage. I despaired of ever finding a fit for how I was feeling. 

Then I picked up the book Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, an indigenous ethnobotanist. She briefly addresses the theft of native traditions by non-native people living in the Americas and says that if we are to save our world and try and heal the damage we have done to the land and animals, the descendants of the people who came here must try and develop their own relationships with the spirits of the land, animals, and plants. It can’t be the relationship of First Nations people, but it is possible to build our own relationship and it is necessary for our species to survive. This gave me some hope that I would be able to find something that would give me a fulfilling spiritual practice. When I finally googled a description of my personal beliefs as clearly as I could articulate them, I found the term Animism.

Animism has historically been a term tainted by racism and carries the whiff of old white men laughing at “primitive” religion. Newer animists are reclaiming the term and reinterpreting it to provide a framework to build a relational, reciprocal way of being without appropriating First Nations or Indigenous beliefs. Ultimately, I found the course Practical Animism led by Dr. Daniel Foor and chose to dive into a course that will help me to navigate this new way of living my life. 

I hope to use this space to reflect on my experiences as I work through the course.