Comments on Bioregional Animism: Book review

I am really glad you like the post paganism blog a...

2010-12-24T10:32:57.281-08:00

I am really glad you like the post paganism blog as well! I will have to check our comments.

I think the one thing that has been missing from our attempt to rediscover nature based religions is the emphasis of relationship. Animism has really been the over looked missing link in that respect. Because animism is a relational ontology it redirects peoples focus to how they relate to the world others and themselves.

We have been misled for a very ling time by spiritual oppertunists in both the "shamanism" and paganism circles, and it's been mostly voluntary! Fulfilling our more base desires. There's been a real need for clarity now, I've not been able to find a single book on any shelf of any book store focused on any howto focus that does that right now... Which really makes me sad but wonder if it's even possible?
I can tell you how to relate to that which you are!

well i sent a huge message thingy to some thing on...

2010-12-24T08:56:28.148-08:00

well i sent a huge message thingy to some thing on the post paganism blog too! i fell in love with that blog! i actually just wrote a blog essay on my experiences wiith FSS folks that you might enjoy.

ecoshamanism is pretty good book - the author hates the FSS people and core shamanism, he writes a lot about how that isn't traditional shamanism - and about how his book isn't either type. i mean, he tells you to follow on foot to the source of the water you drink, and stuff like that, he's pretty hardcore. but then he wrote a 2012 book and i was like "sell out".

raven kaldera's northern tradition shamanism series is very interesting, i liked the one of the 8 paths. however i had a reading with him and he was wrong about everything in my life to the point that it was laughable. but he doesn't like the core shamanism people either. the FSS stuff IMHO is very disneyland.

you all are asking great questions and i love how it's so fluid and... bioregional. i am tired of going to pagan rituals and imagining things, ignoring reality.....

I agree with you whole heartedly Heather. There is...

2010-12-23T12:58:14.293-08:00

I agree with you whole heartedly Heather. There is little engaging that is even encouraged in any practical sense of the word. ive been a long critic of the practice of the harner method of "shamanism" due to that same concern. The buying of a deer hoof turtle shell rattle, because they are your power animals, but never having seen one in it natural enviroment let alone taking their lives your self seems to be perfect symbolism for the relational dynamic that has been spread since the 70's by teachers and authors in both shamanic and pagan circles.

Ive seen Ecoshamanism on the shelves, and I recall I flipped through it a while ago, a very long while ago, so bear with me, btu as I recall I winced at some of the common methods that are written about in many books sold on "shamanism", and placed it back on the shelf. But I do recall that I did like that the author was redirrecting the practice and relational dynamic to a more grounded and centered perspective.

"Instead of reinteracting with the land and nature we are a part of, neopagans are working with maps of the land - some land, which land, when land?"

this has been exactly what Glen Butters and I have been addressing on the post paganism blog, a bioregional animism side project focusing on pagan traditions. I am glad you point this out...
Blessings!

Well, I think there are some neopagans walking the...

2010-12-23T11:43:19.207-08:00

Well, I think there are some neopagans walking the talk. Starhawk's permaculture and earth activist training seem to be very popular in many dirt worshipping circles.

Neopaganism used to make a big deal about how we weren't a religion with a book, we were based on nature. However, it is now a relgion of the book, and I am sure Llewellyn owns the copyright. Instead of reinteracting with the land and nature we are a part of, neopagans are working with maps of the land - some land, which land, when land? - written by others. No matter how tuned in Scott Cunningham,Gerald Gardner,that Silverwolf woman, etc are, they are not IMHO able to connect me to nature, espcially not be by a book. The only way i can have a relationships with nature/the divine/etc is if I engage.

And engaging cannot be a guided meditaion on the gnomes of earth elementals- no, it means being naked covered in dirt, it means learning what soils grow which things - and how those persons growing there will chnage that soil so new persons will grow in that soil and so on.

That part time weekend shaman thing, it's common in most "religions" I think. When my day planner says it is time to recognize my intrristic relationships within nature, I'll do that, and afterwards I'll eat factory farmed chicken, use strip mined crystals, pray to a statue stolen from a Korean temple, and turn on the air conditioner.

Have you read Ecoshamanism? I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. He makes a good case for the need to ground our shamanism in the land we are in.