Self and Place

A large part of bioregional animism to me is the relationship with self and place. The set for this sort of bioregional animist psychology is focused on a concept of oneness, not unity per say but specifically oneness as unity indicates there are two things that are united or BECOME one. The difference on this point lays in that you do not become what you already are but you can become aware of what you are. Now on that note we move into some of the basics of BRA psychology, and it is in a sense a psychology of its own, a study of soul.

Part of the reason why I focused this notion of bioregion into the mix with animism and shamanry was in response to the very ungrounded/centered neo-shamanic practices I was seeing running amok. With huge ego inflation's coming from unitative concepts as well as a sense of being one with the whole of earth. Al of this was wonderful, but keeping with a be here now sort of stand point and seeking grounding and centering in my own practice and in how I guided others it became apparent that in the search for the transpersonal and shamanic many western people where loosing their footing, floating away and becoming highly ineffective and unintigrated. I myself started to come down to earth and my transpersonal experiences became more and more embodied somatic experiences.

I started to see self/mind/soul as more of a spectrum.

Working with a living systems model brought to us from ecology I started to see place as an point of reference for self. Starting with where I was standing right here and now. I began to feel in altered states being the space I was a part of, I was locality, the soul of the whole, the shakti, the prana the chi, the winds of creation moved and moved me and I was the land beneath my feet and the sky above awareness of itself right HERE, right NOW.

And the more one, lets just say, expanded ones awareness one became aware that self expanded outwards to include ones surroundings, the entire bioregion and all of the persons within it. This moved out to include the whole of the earth and the whole of the cosmos. And even though I could feel that oneness with the totality of all that is... here I was sitting in a clear cut surrounded by new life and a raccoon, and I was all of that. Because I was all of that, I saw that all of that was aware, sentient like me but not like me, unique and individual but all sharing one consciousness. I saw that through relating to self as place that one extended their body and self care and personal development to place, integrating and interweaving an exploration of self with a communion with place including the people of place, human and other than human. All was self, all was soul, all was mind and all could commune and establish communicative relationships.

Self discovery is the discovery of the land and the cosmos's sense of self. It is the wholes self exploration, doing so from the grounded, centered, perspective of HERE.

Blessings