Posted by littlellighteningbolt on
September 30, 2007
An animist manifesto
By Graham Harvey
All that exists lives
All that lives is worthy of respect
You don’t have to like what you respect
Not liking someone is no reason for not respecting them
Respecting someone is no reason for not eating them
Reasons are best worked out in relationship – especially if you are looking for reasons to eat someone – or if you are looking for reasons not to be eaten
If you agree that all that exists is alive and worthy of respect, it is best to talk about ‘persons’ or ‘people’ rather than ‘beings’ or ‘spirits’, let alone ‘biomechanisms’, ‘resources’, ‘possessions’, and ‘things’
The world is full of persons (people if you prefer), but few of them are human
The world is full of other-than-human persons
The world is full of other-than-oak persons
The world is full of other-than-hedgehog persons
The world is full of other-than-salmon persons
The world is full of other-than-kingfisher persons
The world is full of other-than-rock persons…
‘Other-than’ has at least three references:
it reminds us that we are persons in relationship with others,
it reminds us that many of our closest kin are human, while the closest kin of oaks are oaks, so we talk most easily with humans while rocks talk most easily with other rocks…
it reminds us to speak first of what we know best (those closest to us)
Make that four references:
it reminds us to celebrate difference as an opportunity to expand our relationships rather than seeing it as a cause of conflict or conquest
All life is relational and we should not collapse our intimate alterities into identities
Others and otherness keep us open to change, open to becoming, never finally fixed in being
Alterities resist entropy and encourage creativity through rationality, sociality (or, as William Blake said, ‘enmity is true friendship’)
Animism is neither monist nor dualist, it is only just beginning when you get beyond counting one, two… At its best it is thoroughly, gloriously, unashamedly, rampantly pluralist
Respect means being cautious and constructive
It is cautiously approaching others — and our own wishes,
It is constructing relationships, constructing opportunities to talk, to relate, to listen, to spend time in the face-to-face presence and company of others
It is taking care of, caring for, caring about, being careful about…
It can be shown by leaving alone and by giving gifts
believers in ‘human rights’, for example, demonstrate their belief in rights not only by supporting legislation to protect individuals from states, companies and majorities, but by not insisting on hogging the whole road or pavement, not insisting on another human getting out of the way on a busy street…
You don’t have to hug every tree to show them respect but you might have to let trees grow where they will—you might have to move your telephone lines or greenhouse
You might have to build that road away from that rock or that tree
Hugging trees that you don’t know may be rude – try introducing yourself first
Just because the world and the cosmos is full of life does not make it a nice and easy place to live. Lots of persons are quite unfriendly to others. Many see us as a good dinner. They might respect us as they eat us. Or they may need education. Like us, they might learn best in relationship with others who show respect even to those they don’t like, and especially to those they like the taste of.
Although evolution has no aim, life is not pointless. The purpose of life is to be good people — and good humans or good rocks or good badgers. What we have to find out is what ‘good’ means where we are, when we are, with whom we are, and so on. It is certainly wrapped up with the word ‘respect’ and all the acts that implies.
Since all that exists lives—and since all that lives is, in some senses, to some degree, conscious, communicative and relational—and since many of the persons with whom we humans share this planet have a far better idea of what’s going on than we do—we can now stop all the silliness about being the pinnacle of creation, the highest achievement of evolution, the self-consciousness of the world or cosmos… We’re just part of the whole living community and we’ve got a lot to learn. Our job isn’t to save the planet, or speak for the animals, or evolve towards higher states. Many other-than-human people are already happily self-aware, thank you very much, and if we paid attention we might learn a few things ourselves. By the way, we’re probably not alone in mistaking ourselves for the most important people in the world: hedgehogs probably think they are (but they’re spiky flea-ridden beasts so why believe them?!).
Um, when I said that ‘all that exists lives’, I’m not sure about plastic bags.
But I am certain that we should not treat objects as mere resources, somehow available or even given to us, or humanity, to use as we will or wish.
The same goes for words like ‘substances’, especially those that exist within plant and fungal persons. There are substances, but they aren’t ours until they are given, gifted to us. And then we’d better find out why we’ve been given whatever gifts we get. And we’d better ask how those gifts might be best used (whether its for pleasure, power, wisdom or whatever). This is especially true if the plant or mushroom person who offers us the gift substance has to lose their life in the process.
Maybe sometimes the mushrooms just want to help us join in the big conversation that’s going on all around us. But not all rocks, fish, plants, fungi, birds, animals or humans want to talk with us:
Sometimes they want to be quiet
Sometimes they want to be rude
Sometimes they have other concerns
Sometimes they don’t understand
Sometimes we don’t speak the language
Sometimes we don’t know the appropriate gift
The precise and proper way to show respect depends where you are, who you are, who you are respecting and what they expect. Gifts, like swords and words, have more than one side. Alcohol is a gift in one place, a poison somewhere else. Handshakes are friendly in one place, shows of strength elsewhere. Kissing is respectful to some people, an assault on others. Respectful etiquette is hard work but its reward is fuller participation in a large and exciting community of life.
Sometimes we need shamans to do the talking for us
Sometimes we need shamans to do the talking to us
Animism is just over the bridge that closes the Cartesian gap by knowing how to answer the question, What is your favourite colour? Perhaps it is the bridge. Perhaps there is no gap and animists are people who refuse to collude with the illusion
Animism is often discovered by sitting beneath trees, on hills, in rivers, with hedgehogs, beside fires… Animism is better communicated in trickster tales, soulful songs, powerful poems, rousing rituals, and/or elemental etiquette than in manifestos.
[Originally published By Strange Attractor Journal Journal number three . We would like to thank Graham for giving us the permission to publish this for the first time on line!]
Posted by littlellighteningbolt on
September 29, 2007
Cellular Regeneration
From wellnessadvocate.com
“Every minute of every day your body is renewing itself. Humans bodies have about 100 trillion cells. Each day, millions of cells in our bodies die and new ones replace them. The quality of the new cells determines our health in the future. Your cells are affected by the foods you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe, sunshine and anything that gets into your body through the skin. Exercise, rest, your environment and stress can also affect the quality of these cells and the health and strength of your body.
The frequency at which these cells are replaced differs in various types of bodily tissues. Some tissues regenerate very quickly and some take years. Except for our brain and certain parts of the nervous system, we actually regenerate a new body every seven years. Most of our cells are replaced within that time.
When you were seven years old, you had a very different body from when you were first born. When you were fourteen, you were in another new body. Hormones influenced you and helped you to grow taller and more like a young adult than a child. By the time you were 21 you were in an adult body. This body was totally different from the one you were born with or the one you will have when you are 70 years old.
Just as hormones influence the changes in your body, so does everything else that you do. Foods that you eat are the materials that form the body’s building blocks. When you eat an unhealthy food you are affecting more than your waistline. You are having an effect on the health of the new body that you will have seven years from now. Every time you exercise you are increasing your potential for a stronger body in the future. Each time you smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of alcohol or take a harmful drug you are poisoning your body and increasing your chances of developing diseased cells. Excess stress can prevent the cells from forming perfectly. The life force is continually regenerating you and you can directly influence your health and the body that you have in the future. By incorporating certain wellness practices you can get your body to build stronger, healthier cells as it replaces the old ones.
When your body regenerates new cells do you want them to be healthy cells or diseased cells? Your actions can make the difference! You have the power to create illness or health in your own body. With active prevention you take action to encourage your body to be healthy. There are many techniques for this such as proper nutrition, regular exercise, fresh air and sunshine and abstaining from poisons such as alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Anti-stress techniques such as deep breathing and meditation can also create wellness in your body and can help you to ward off disease.”
To read more on this subject please read this article from the New Scientist.
” Our cells are literally flushed out, and rebuilt with new cells.
Depending on what source you read (from Dr. Deepak Chopra, MD to Gray’s Anatomy), our body replace its tissues and cells every 1 to 7 years.
- Muscles get replaced every 6 months to 3 years
- The pancreas replaces every 5-12 months
- Our bones replace every 8 months to 4 years
- Red blood cells replace every 90-120 days
- The intestinal lining replaces every 5-30 days
Realize, we have been doing this regeneration every day since the day we were first conceived.”
This topic has been a source of inspiration for me for a long time…
When you look at this information and you look at the fact that you literally are what you eat, then the perception that if one was to move to a new bioregion or ecoregion then one would literally be composed of this ecoregion within a seven year period.
We are composed of our ecoregions and bioregions… our cells are designed by place, even our DNA is composed of the foods we eat.
Eating bioregionaly helps to adapt one to ones bioregion, because you are literally building your body out of it. Feeding your children a bioregional diet also helps with this process…
So much of the foods we eat are from other places this is such an ecologically and socially destructive practice, but it also confuses our very being! One example… Eating local Bee pollen can help one defend against pollen allergies… but only if the Bee pollen is from local bees.
If one only wanted to look at this from a purely metaphorical level, just knowing that you are composed of the foods from the bioregion you live as a part of… just looking at your own body would help remind you that you are one with the land and sky and waters of your land. The actual act of obtaining food bioregionaly to build your body from the land up actually facilitates the maintaining and developing of relationships, which as we all know is the basis of animist ontology.
Eating locally also helps us reconcile our sense of not belong to a place of not being native to place, as well as our sense of loss as to a identity based on regionality, and BEING native to place. If we know that our body is composed of the land helps to foster being native again, just knowing that our cells die and are reborn only to be built from what we put in it, puts a new spin on the word native, which in its most literal definition means to be born of a place… to be of a place, or to be from a place… and if one is eating foods from ones life place and ones cells are deign and being reborn… after seven years of living in a place you are that place… literally!
You really are what you EAT, and if you eat Bioregionaly, go our side look around and say to your self with pride, I AM THAT! I am the land talking and thinking and reading this about its self right now! How wondrous!
The simple act of eating can facilitate a ecological sense of self and identity based on place… to me this breaks down concepts of race, ethnicity, cultural identity and brings it down to the earth…LITERALLY! And is a basis for bioregional animist based identity and cultural.
So become a localvour! Think globally eat locally!
Posted by littlellighteningbolt on
September 27, 2007
Birch bark…an exhausted looking slice of tree that is somehow speaking of times long past. It seems as though this tree has shed or somehow discarded this layer of itself, to be left as proof of its existence.
She’s tired, worn, grey with age, yet comfortable with the journey she has taken. Her skin is brittled with age, like the sinewy hands of a 1,000 year old Grandmother, knotted and twisted from ages of work, yet her energy seemed infinite, almost fluid like time.
She is marked with many lines, pathways, fissures and wrinkles, perhaps a testament to her long journey. She feels unassuming and practical, comfortable, if you will. She holds the coolness of the forest and the warmth of the sun at the same time.
She beckons me to come closer, to see and to listen. I struggle to understand what she wants me to know. Peering into her face, she seems to be looking back at me with eyes everywhere and she seems to possess the wisdom of a million ancient souls.
There is a feeling of transcendency as she shows me the tale of the universe.
Endless, open, wide and expansive! Every moment of it written on her aged, layered exterior. My eyes roam from picture to picture, my mind amazed at the striking, yet intricate photographs of her life’s journey.
An eagle, perched in its watchful repose, looking down, as if protecting its world. Below, groves of trees reaching up toward the sky. There are roads, paths, rivers, and waterfalls.
Even the knots take on a curious appearance. One shows me a canyon, rich with layers of time, as if trying to show me the rhythm of life, like water passing by.
Another knot reveals the stars, wrapped up neatly within what appears to be a nebula,circular lines adding a sense of movement to their portrait. It briefly reminds me of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.
My eyes drift further to yet another knot. Within this knot is a tiny hole that invites me to follow it through, much like a winding road from outside to inside. Following the road, I turn her over to behold yet more of her well traveled soul.
There are gritty layers combined with a soft brown, velvety interior;; an illustration of her essence of spirit. It is almost as though she has weathered the ups and downs of life, yet has not lost her softness, her innocence, her ability to comfort and nurture.
There are fine grains of sand here, even finer bits of sparkling glass mixed in. Earthy, aged and wise, yet preserved as if young like a child. She has drunk from the cup of life and ingested the joy of living, in all its entirety. She certainly has a story to tell.
She has brought to mind such wonderful images, from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night to that familiar stretch of road just south of our sacred mountain, Mt. Katahdin on route 95 North in Maine, where there is a sudden break in the tree line amidst the repetitiousness of the pine.
There in the clearing is a grove of tall rather stately looking silver birch trees, leaves dancing in the sunlight. It is a small but welcome diversion on an endless drive. The birch trees offer a welcome respite from the tediousness of the trip. I always take my rest in that oasis; my face caressed by the wind and my own weary spirit welcomed home by the birches. A very feminine contrast to the maleness of Katahdin. There the world seems in perfect balance, if only for a brief moment.
No other tree can make the sun dance so playfully and make the whole forest come alive with joyous, golden twinkles. No other tree reflects the moon-light so magically from its silver bark.
The ancient people called the birch ‘the Mother Tree’, because after the ice age it gave birth to a new habitat for all the trees and plants which did not have the same powers of endurance.
They sometimes called the tree “the shining one” Maybe this nickname was given because of the bright silvery bark, or the way the sunlight dances in the leaves, or perhaps simply because of her radiating spirit.
She is a spirit of the universe, the sun, moon, and stars and she has told a million stories. Somehow I think she has a million more to tell.
Birch bark lives for years, long after it is separated from the tree. As I place her shed skin back on the forest floor, I wonder if someone else will pick her up again one day and she will tell the story again.
The story of an enduring spirit for all time.
Posted by littlellighteningbolt on
September 25, 2007
Nanci is a member of the bioregional animsit tribe at tribe.net,
she recently emailed me about her day at work… I got such joy out of what she told me, I asked her to write it up and post it on the tribe. This is what she shared with us….
What really cracked me up was that she told them to google it… I have resorted to that over and over again as well!
Enjoy!
Educating the Talking Heads!~
So how about I am at a staff meeting/training/federal audit…oooooppps! sorry (MONITORING) for my Night Owl Programming today.
The very looong morning has turned into a mid-day, monotonous, droning… on and on about programming, staffing, goals, etc. The discussion turns into an impromptu training, in which everyone has to say what three gifts they bring to the team. One of the staff conveys that one of her gifts is appreciating and getting to know where she is and being one with nature. I’m having a little trouble grasping the concept but anyway…
I have had enough of this monotone madness and my smart ass self couldn’t help it…I blurted out quite suddenly…”Yeah that’s bioregional animism!” The room now goes entirely quiet…you could have heard and leaf drop at that very moment…or at least an acorn!
OMG!~ now I have really done it…put myself out there, for sure; as I have just recently grasped the concept myself! My head full of useless knowledge has come head to head with the talking heads…and now I have to explain what I just said. I can bullshit my way through a lot of stuff but whoa…bioregional animism?!?!? If ever a foot was in a mouth…now was the time!
The entire room now has to know what this is, so I go onto explain the concept to an eagerly awaiting audience; speaking about balance, harmony, and sustainable living through a oneness with the environment you live in. They are all on the edge of
their proverbial seats, asking many questions and looking like the biggest beeswax candle just illuminated their tiny, talking head world!~ The Fed is looking at me as if he is thinking “Oh we got a loon here!”…sizing up my mental health. (And by the way I saw a loon on my way home) He asks me to repeat the word, which I certainly do. He quickly acts astonished and says he’s never heard of it.
At this point I go on to tell him that certainly he has experienced this concept on some level , as most cultures were animistic at one time. In our zeal to remain a superpower and a dominant force in the global arena, we have wandered away from the natural order and rhythm of things. Bigger, better, and modern convenience has now replaced a workable and sustainable way of living. It is part of the reason that human beings are so stressed out all the time. They have become engaged in linear time and
forgotten how to coexist with their environment and let things happen organically.
The fed was speechless and merely stared at me for a moment. “What was that word again?” ROFLMAO…”BIOREGIONAL ANIMISM….google it!”
Tonight, twelve people will be googling bioregional animism and getting a concept of exactly what that is; and what fun it was to fuck with the fed!~
And on my way home..I was at peace with the beautiful l fall landscape, the loon, the blue heron in the river, and the eagle that flew up over the ridge as I topped the crest in the road~
Peace.
Little Shield
(nanci)
