What is bioregional animism?

Bioregional animism is by definition relating to the land/bioregion as the source of ones religion and culture. It is a form of Personalism where other then human persons including the whole bioregion itself is related to and communicated with as a person, not as if it was a person but as a person. Animism does not personify other then human persons, animals forces of nature, plants, the land and sky, it gives up human dominion over the designation of who and what a person is. Bioregional Animism does not treat animals, plants, forces of nature, or the land and sky as tools, or symbols, for humans to use but instead views these other then human persons as just that… persons who can be communicated with, who relationships and partnerships and allegiances can be formed with for living in mutually beneficial and reciprocal ways; In both the physical and spiritual world. Bioregional Animism sees that ones larger self is the eco-region one lives within and that animist spiritual practice, cosmology, ontology, culture, and life practices are all expression of that larger ecological and transpersonal self. In a way Bioregional animism is a response to the need for the rediscovery and rebirth or earth embracing traditions, and attempts to embody the ideal slogan of thinking globally but acting locally. Many people are drawn to shamanism in an attempt to find this way of relating to self and earth just to find that there is no shamanism in reality, shamans are healers and spiritual leaders designated by an animist tradition or culture, in other words all shamans of the world are animists not shamanists. Bioregional animism attempts to assist others in discovering the spiritual tradition which is an expression of the land under their feet and the sky over their head which fills their lungs and moves through ones heart. Bioregional animism attempts to show us that the spirit of the shaman as well as the animist is derived from and is an expression of the bioregion, of the land itself and forms from deeply intimate relationships with the life and spirit of those around us. Bioregional animism works with a base inspiration from the work of Graham Harvey’s New Animism www.animism.org.uk/. As well as with modern concepts of bioregionalism by such authors on the subject as Kirkpatrick Sales, www.schumachersociety.org/publi...3.htmlPlease read His book Dwellers in the Land: A Bioregional Vision. As well as Harvey’s revolutionary work on new animism titled, Animism: Respecting the Living World. For more information on bioregional animism please read our blog. bioregionalanimism.blogspot.com/ If you would like to meet other bioregional animists as well as discuss bioregional animism with Little lightening bolt and other bioregional animist our online forum can be found at tribes… tribes.tribe.net/bioregionalanimism Bioregional animism is the Life vision of Little Lightening Bolt of the Cascadia bioregion and the Tumwawa eco-region. It is not an idea or concept or philosophy it’s a vision that he carries and offers as a gift to all who may need to carry such a vision themselves. Little Lightening Bolt can be contacted via the tribe’s bioregional animism forum. He is currently writing a book entitled Bioregional Animism: Finding the spirit of the shaman in your back yard... with out haveing to culturaly appropriate....

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Building your body from the land up... You are what you eat.

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!

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