A Practical Animism

Hello again folks!

Life has been crazy busy for me recently. Just really busy; planting trees, working, all at a break neck speed. It’s almost like a global pandemic has created a huge hole and backlog in my life or something… My mind and body is being pulled in a hundred different directions lately, and all that adds up to less writing that I would like. That is life sometimes.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my practice, and how that looks in my life. I have been pruning away a lot of ‘parts’ of my worldview and ideas that just don’t seem to serve me anymore. That’s the nature of this kind of spiritual work I think. It is always a work in progress, and our relationship to it changes over time. Always moving, always dynamics, always a shifting tangled web of relationships in motion.

Which is somewhat a prelude to exactly what I want to talk about today. My animism at it’s core is practical, it has to work. Not only for me, but also has to work in the greater sense of the term; as also a service to others. As I’ve defined it many times before; animism is a worldview in which the world is full of persons (most of which are non-human), and life is lived in relationship to others. It such a simple definition really, but the deeper philosophical and spiritual aspects of that have lots of implications. Like tree roots reaching deep into the earth.

For starters, it means we live in a great big family that includes all living beings on this planet, as well as the whole of the planet. The Tree of Life is not only a useful metaphor for spiritual practice, but also a very real thing. Every living being on this earth, from single celled organisms up through Redwood trees, shares a common biological ancestry. One earthen family, and that makes us all one big, very extended family. Animism in this way is a worldview of community, kinship, and how we relate to… all our relatives.

There is also a deep intermingled code of ethics implied in animism as well. Not only is the world full of persons (spiritual, human, or otherwise); but we live in vast webs of relationship to them. The implication to me, is the nature of those relationships. I have said many times before that ecology and animism are two sides of the same coin for me, and ecology has a great many ways of framing how beings in an ecosystem relate to one another; mutualism, predation, symbiosis… Extending this farther, I think to me the real ethical question at the heart of those relationship is; are they healthy? Are they reciprocal? How do we relate to all the humans and non-humans around us, to all our kin, and are there places we can do better?

In short, treat others the way you want to be treated. The golden rule, present in some form throughout most religions. I don’t think animism gets a pass at all on this either. Because the fact of the matter is, that we treat our many relations, and the Earth poorly in a lot of ways. There is a lot of room for better relationships there, and that is the kind of work that spans generations. It’s a long path for sure, and I don’t have the space to go into that all here. (I’m still editing that book.)

Animistic, Polytheistic, Pantheistic, Naturalistic

My path is predominately what I would describe as a meditative and contemplative path. The vast majority of my spiritual practice is taking long walks to think, or to clear my head. The rest could be called communion (talking with spirits), trance, or other “shamanic” work.

Spending time in my gardens is in many ways the embodiment of how I understand animism. It’s real on the ground work, that is constantly mulling over the relationships between ourselves, the plants, the animals, and the whole planet. When I am out there ‘weeding’, turning the earth, and giving homes to new life; that’s what the bulk of my practice looks like. It may seem boring, but it is also very practical, and works for me.

If I had to describe my spiritual practice in four words, it would be; animistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, and naturalistic. Animism, comes from the root anima which is often translated to; “life, breath, spirit.” That means that my animism is in no small way in service to life and spirit. The Earth is unique in that it has a robust biosphere, and that we are surrounded by countless forms of other life, other persons, other spirits. Service to life is a service to that fact, as I said, a deep meshing of spirituality and ecology.

There was a conversation at my workplace the other day, and it went something like this;

Person 1 “I was raised Catholic.”

Person 2” I was raised Lutheran.”

Me: “Well, I was raised feral.”

The last was meant as a joke, and got a few laughs for sure. But like many jokes, it wasn’t necessarily a lie either. I wasn’t raised in any specific religion, and it isn’t something we much talked about at home. I grew up in a very rural environment and before we got the internet… Well it means I spent a lot of time in the forests and fields, and that’s a habit I’m happy to say I have maintained. That’s the naturalistic part of my practice. I don’t look for, nor much care for, supernatural explanations for things. The world is wonderfully and beautifully complex on its own.

So, when I’m talking about spirits, what I often mean is something physical, not ‘otherworldly’. The spirits of trees can be real, living trees, but also dead ones, and how they feed new life. The spirit of the forest is the vast network of plants, animals, minerals, ect; and the vast systems and cycles of matter and energy that connects all these things. To me, these complex systems not only have memories (in tree rings and soil layers, among others), but also capacities that start to look a lot like ‘minds’ and agencies. The forest is alive, the trees are literally talking with each other, and the whole system is processing a shit ton of information in a way that could be argued to be intelligence or consciousness (though neither is really the right word). That’s what I mean by forest spirits. Most ecosystems are like that, in a variety of diverse and complex ways.

Which I think hammers the more polytheistic and pantheistic sides of that equation as well. The forest is bigger than I will ever be, especially here in my home state. The Great Lakes are similar in many ways. If I refer to those things as spirits, those are certainly Big Spirits, and honestly you can call them gods if you want to. There is plenty of flex in my practice for that.

Much the same with pantheism, which is the basic idea that the divine/sacred/spirit is in all things from the ant to the universe. I think that is true, in the way that I am spirit, that tree is a spirit, as is everything on this planet. From the rocks in my yard, to the little bits of dust in the air, and the unseen winds, and heats, and energies that drive it all. While I’m not one for ‘Oneness of it all’, I do think of spirits as inherently creative, and we are all part of that for sure. We are all enmeshed systems upon the Earth, and we are part of that spirit.

The soil on which we walk is the dead feeding the living for billions of years, and an even longer time of rocks and trapped starlight doing what they do. My animistic practice looks for healthy ways to connect to that long arch of history, and find the places where we each can build better relationships, and a healthier world.

I’ve talked about the many, many ways that could look all throughout this blog. To thinking more ecologically, to renewable energy, to preserving and recreating forests… and and and, I could go on seemingly forever. There is a metric buttload of work to be done, and honestly, that involves a lot more than me. That involves everyone, human and non-human alike. Like in ecology, we each get to find our niche, the role we are going to play… Where we fit in that greater schemes of thing. The greater web of creation.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about the ways I do that on a personal level.

As always,

Thanks for reading.

Where I’m at, Where I’m going

Hello again folks!

To say that this winter was a long one is the understatement of the century. It’s been a lot, and it’s hard. 2020 in general was a real long year, with compounding stresses all over the loudness of a pandemic. It was insanely stressful, and I had to put a lot of things down. I put down my business, because that work dried up and I don’t see in returning any time soon. Even the conventions I use to vend at may not return for another year. Writing has been hard too, and even with the end of a pandemic in sight, my ability to write isn’t anywhere near what I used to be. I just couldn’t push words counts like I could in the past. That’s been uncomfortable.

Which means not only did I not get as much done on longer projects as I would have liked, it also means that I had to take a long hard look at my writing in general. What I needed to carry, and what I had to put down. In all honesty, I really considered putting down this blog too. I’ve been writing here since 2011. A full decade at this point. I’ll be straight with you all, that’s a lot of work.

My work has certainly changed and morphed over that time, and when I look back at old posts some of them just aren’t me anymore. I leave them up as a record, as a snapshot in time. They may not be what I think and believe now, and stand as snapshots in time. The briefest glimpses of who I was, and what I did, at the time. Even when I look back and my very recent posts, I realize I’ve changed. I could give countless examples even as recently as the post before this one, but that’s a tangent at this point.

That begs the question of where do I stand right now? Well, at the moment I’d probably best defined myself as an animist, with strong naturalistic leanings, with Michigan, Norse, and Finnish flavorings. I’m naturalistic in the way that I’m firmly rooted in the physical, and yes, the empirical. I love the feel of solid ground under my feet, and water in my hair. I am very found of science and the scientific method, and I think it’s a great tool for keeping ourselves grounded. I am a science fiction author after all. I don’t really like, nor seek out supernatural explanations for things. Gravity makes bridges fall, not angry trolls. Mountains form from tectonic activity, not the tantrums of some angry god. (Why not both, more on that in a bit.)

Yet, science isn’t the only tool in the tool box. In fact, life would be pretty boring if it were. I’m also an animist, and I define that in the way Graham Harvey does; that the world is full of persons (human and other-than-human), and that life is lived in relationship with others. It is also thought of the idea that the world is full of spirits, and I also think this bit from wikipedia really speaks to how I understand animism as well;

Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no hard and fast distinction between the spiritual and physical (or material) world and that soul or spirit or sentience exists not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers or other entities of the natural environment: water sprites, vegetation deities, tree sprites, etc. Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology.

Alright, I’ll admit there is a lot to unpack there, and I won’t have the time or the space to do it in this post. That said, I think of spirits in terms of natural phenomenon. Trees are spirits, you and I are spirits, are the unseen cycles of matter and energy in a forest are spirits. We see them in plants, and animals, and in the way our bodies are recycled after death. There is a lot of implications here, for the spirits of language, and the nature of mind and memory, life and death, and again, I can’t go into that all now.

In that way, may the formation of the mountain is the tantrum of an angry god, a god of tectonic forces and moving geologic plates. The spiritual and the material are not sharply distinct, and in fact are deeply interrelated in a way that it is hard to pull them apart. The spiritual is the material to me, and that is naturalistic animism. The intersection of science, storytelling, and spirituality.

I would also say there are some components of polytheism, pantheism, and even panpsychism in my practice as well. We are persons nested in systems bigger than ourselves. When I step in a creek, that creek flows to a river, that river to Lake Michigan, and from there to the Atlantic Ocean. I am nested in a system much bigger than myself. In other words, a spirit in a system of spirits. Or more accurately, a community of many scales, from the creek to the planet.

There are many ways to understand spirits in this way. As a multitude of forest and river big spirits/gods interacting with one another. As the extension of the spiritual into everything around us. Also, yes, in some ways (much nuance), the extension of what we might call ‘mind’, or ‘consciousness’ and life into the planetary and cosmic systems we find ourselves nested in. That another big thing I can’t unpack here. Have I mentioned I’m working on a book about it? Ha!

Which leaves the question of where this goes… At some point along the path you realize you have come to the edge of where your mentors can take you. A point where you have to find the trail for yourself, and strike out on your own. Who knows, maybe some day you will turn around and find other people following you. But that is neither here nor there.

I think the next parts of this journey involve fleshing out more what that path looks like to me, inspired by my ancestors, but also grounded in the here and now. In Michigan, and in an animism that brings meaning to my life. Of seeking out relationships and finding new ways to relate to the land I call home. Community building in a ways that includes all of our relatives, human and non-human alike. My previous posts have laid out some of the outlines of that work, but there is a lot more to do.

I won’t be able to talk about it all here of course, as some of that work is very personal, and of what you might call a ‘closed tradition.’ But, for what I can share, I do hope you come along for the ride. There is certainly more coming, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Great Lakes Cosmology

One of the things I love about being a practicing animist, is that relationships are dynamic. Things are always changing, moving, relating and interconnecting in different and unique ways. Put another way, our webs of interconnection are always shifting. This fact brings with it not only the nature of shifting relationships, but also shifting paradigms and perspectives. Cosmology, the map with which I relate to the world, is always in motion, and always a work in progress.

This post is the next in a series that started with Towards a Great Lakes Animism. For this piece I will be drawing on a lot of my previous work, especially my previous work on Finnish folklore. I find that this work has given me a metaphorical compass, a way to orient myself as a animist living far away from anything that might be called ‘ancestral cultures’. But then again, at the same time, several generations of my family are buried right here in Michigan.

Michigan is part of my ancestry, and animism in many ways starts right where I am right now. Here, at home. I talked about this more in my piece The Spirits of Michigan, and in a lot of ways that post served as the springboard for this one. Now, with 30% extra content! Okay, that’s me being snarky, but this is an expansion in a way. But also, a map, a cosmology, a place of understanding where my animism is right now. In addition to a way to know where the edges are, where there be monsters, and what still needs to be explored.

It also draws some from my previous post here. 

Creation Stories

In most cultural cosmologies, the stories begin with the creation of the world. Well, here we can blend science and spirituality. Our world formed when the Sun and the rest of the solar system formed 4.5 some billion years ago. There was fire, and drama, and the Earth came into being. There are plenty of stories to be told there about Star Spirits as well as Fire Spirits, and many other spirits and stories besides. There is a plenty of material for inspiration there.

But more than that, we are children of the Sun, and of the Earth. Moving down through time, we can tell stories about Michigan as well. This is because Michigan has a great creation story. The Great Lakes as we know them today were carved out by massive glaciers expanding and retreating. You could say that Michigan was literally carved by the Glacial Giants. They mighty beings carved out the hollows, and then melted away as the world warmed. Their bodies filled the Great Lakes, and Michigan took on the shape that we all know today.

The Waters, and the Underworlds

Does the story of Glacial Giants remind you a bit of the story of Ymir? I did that on purpose, as Nordic is one of my (many) ancestral cultures. Yet, that is only one direction a Great Lakes animism might take. There is a lot of room for other stories as well. Most importantly, my home state of Michigan is surrounded on four sides by the Great Lakes, and so the Spirits of Water are part of the vitality of my homelands. Every river in this state eventually makes its way to a Great Lake, and from there to the Atlantic Ocean. All the waters of this land are interconnected, physically and spiritually.

In addition, to me water has always had an ‘otherworldly’ feel to it. When you go swimming, and dive into the waters, instantly you find yourself in another world. The ‘ceiling’ has change to the air above, and the ‘floor’ is now the lake/river/pool bottom. Or maybe, the unseen depths and darkness far below your feet.

As air breathers, this world is foreign to us, and we to it. We cannot ever stay long, unless you are fond of drowning. Even with the best scuba gear in existence, our presence in this underworld can only ever be passing. It is another world, and a world where countless dead have come to rest.

This is especially true of the Great Lakes, which has claimed the lives of countless ships, sailors, and swimmers. The Dead dwell within the waters. In addition, all the Great Lakes are down river from whatever river you stand in, and so ‘down river’ too has a very underworldly context. The underworlds are down river. Folklore is full of these kinds of stories, where some otherworld is across the river, or under the lake. I don’t have the space to detail all that.

In addition to the obvious surface waters such as lakes and rivers; there are also the waters that run beneath the earth. These waters are literally under-the-world, from where we stand. These are the places the tree roots reach for, and also the places where we bury our dead. Whether by water, by fire, or in the grave, we often place the bones of our ancestors under-the-world. In the Underworlds, which if you go deep enough turn into the burning core of the planet. We’ve circled back around the Fire Spirits, which also move through the sky.

The Sky, and the Upper Worlds

Our day is defined as the Sun, our local Star Spirit, moves across the sky. The Moon and the Stars track across the night, and across the year. These spirits help us keep time, and our the inspiration for countless stories. My ancestors painted their stories across the skies, there, the Hunter, there the Great Bear, and the Path of Birds (Milky Way) traces an arc across the sky.

Stories in the sky trace the lineage of not only the stardust from which we came, but also the course of where we might be going. My homeland has beautiful night skies, especially when reflected out over the lake. But beyond that, Michigan might also be home to two space launch sites. From the stars we come, to the stars we may return.

The trees reach up towards the sky, into the air, and towards the heavens. They reach towards the Sun, which is their source of food and life. They dig into the Earth for water, and so too is water life. That’s why I am so fond of “world tree” cosmologies, that connect the lower and upper worlds in a continuous stream like a river. A cosmic tree, and a cosmic river, Upper world and lower worlds. I love the poetry in it, and the potential for storytelling. My ancestors recognized it too, as many of those tales are full of World Trees and Great Rivers.

More than stars and moons, the Upper Worlds are also the place of rains, snows, and the changing seasons. As the days grow short in the coming months, the trees will change to the vibrant colors of fall, and then the long sleep of winter. The sky turns, and so do the seasons, and harvest spirits give way to snow spirits and Jack Frost.

The Lands, and the Middle Worlds

The lands are where we humans make ourselves at home. We are not fishes of the water, nor birds of the air. But bi-pedal ape descendants that make ourselves comfortable on the ground under a shady tree. We are animals, and so we are most closely related to the animals around us. The Spirits of the Forest and the Land are among those we understand best, because they are the most similar to ourselves.

In Finnish folklore especially, there is great respect and reverence for the Bear, the Wolf, the Elk, and a whole host of animals besides. There are reasons Finnish immigrants settled in the Michigan, as they saw a lot of their homelands here. Stories and a spirituality grounded in Michigan should not ignore our relatives and teachers of the land.

In fact, my own stories of the seasons turn on the Bear and the Wolf. The Black Bear (Ursus americanus) is native to my state. In fall, the Black Bear dens down to sleep through the long winter*. The Season of the Bear ends at the Autumnal Equinox, and begins again at the Spring Equinox. The Bear sleep in winter, but the Wolf hunts; as such the dark half of the year is the Season of the Wolf. More importantly, the Eastern Timber Wolf (Canis lupus lycaon) is a unique subspecies of the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) is native to the Great Lakes region.

But I don’t have the space to detail all the animals, from the Ant to the Whitetail Deer, that are part of what makes Michigan home. Spiritually, they are teachers, guides and the source of more stories than I can count. The Red Fox, in all their mischievous, and the Trout who Swallowed the Fire.

While animals are among our closest kin, the rocks and the trees are vital parts of our stories too. Michigan was once all old growth forest, and the loss, and slow return, of those forests is a deep part of our history. So too is the very nature of the soil beneath our feet, a unique and wonderful blend of glacial till and the remains of the long dead. The soil is the flesh of the dead that nourish the living.

Upwards and Onwards.

There is more than enough stories among our plant and animal cousins for countless generations of tales and stories, and I even have a few of my own. This the the direction my own work is heading, and I hope to outline that a little more in my next post in this series, which more and more may well turn into a book. This is so much I am glossing over here, and so much more I want to say. But I am already past my arbitrary word limit (whoosh) for blogs, so I am going to have to end this here. More forthcoming!

As always, thank you for reading!

Notes

*The Black Bear not a true hibernator, but more like an extended napper. Black bears go into an extended lethargy from late fall to around April.

Sources/References;

http://geo.msu.edu/extra/geogmich/glacial.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_wolf