Animistic Links
Resources related to The Animistic Soul
Re-Emerges
Contents
Articles
on Nature, Psyche, Soul and Spirit
Articles
by David Abram on Animism
Native
American/Indigenous Wisdom
A Psyche the Size of the Earth by James
Hillman - For the pioneers of psychology as
therapy, the deepest levels of the psyche merge with the physical body
(Freud) and the physical stuff of the world (Jung). These well-known basics of
psychological theory show that the human subject has all along been implicated
in the wider world of nature. How could it be otherwise, since the human
subject is composed of the same nature as the world? Yet psychological practice
tends to bypass the consequences of such facts. An individual's harmony with
his or her "own deep self" requires not merely a journey to the
interior but a harmonizing with the environmental world. Sometimes I wonder
less how to shift the paradigm than how psychology ever got so off-base. How
did it so cut itself off from reality? Where else in the world would a human
soul be so divorced from the spirits of the surroundings? Even the high
intellectualism of the Renaissance, to say nothing of the modes of mind in
ancient Greece or contemporary Japan, allowed for the animation of things,
recognizing a subjectivity in animals, plants, wells, springs, trees and rocks.
Psychology, so dedicated to awakening human consciousness, needs to wake
itself up to one of the most ancient human truths: we cannot be studied or
cured apart from the planet.
Coping
With Environmental Transitions: Some Attentional Benefits of
Walking by Raymond De Young 3/10 - Coping
with the challenges of global climate disruption and the peaking of the rate of
fossil fuel production will require behavioral change on a massive scale. There
are many skills that will help individuals deal with this coming transition but
none more central than the abilities to problem-solve creatively, plan and
restrain behavior, and manage the emotions that result from the loss of an
affluent lifestyle. These abilities require a mental state called
vitality. This article discusses
mental vitality as being based upon the capacity to direct attention. Functioning
effectively, despite the distractions and challenges of an electrifying and
changing world, fatigues this capacity. Restoring one’s ability to direct
attention is explained as a likely precondition to effective problem-solving,
planning, and self-regulating, thus making such restoration essential for high
levels of individual performance in general and for thoughtful coping in
particular.
Our Psychic Connections to
Nature: Now there is a name for
the emotional distress caused by ecological destruction by David Bollier 3/1/10 - A handful of
psychologists are starting to conclude that human consciousness has a deep
interconnection with nature — and that interfering with our sense of
place and love of nature can cause severe emotional distress. “Solastalgia”
means “the pain experienced when there is a recognition that the place where
one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault.” It is “a form of
homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home’.” Home is being destroyed.
You can’t leave, you can’t do anything about it, and it makes you heartsick. As
global warming continues, it’s a condition that is likely to afflict most of
us. We believed,
wrongly, that mind and nature operated independently of each other. In fact,
nature is a recursive, mindlike system; its unit of exchange isn’t energy, as
most ecologists have argued, but information. The way we thought about the
world could change that world, and the world could in turn change us.
Do Kinder People Have an Evolutionary Advantage? by Yasmin Anwar 3/4/10 - Researchers
at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs
that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social
scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to
become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive. They are building the case that humans
are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and
compassionate traits. One team is
looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into
particular regions of the brain and nervous system. A recent study found
compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be
empathetic.
Letters from Amok: The State of the World in Pen
and Ink by
Chellis Glendinning 2/20/10 - Ecopsychologist Chellis Glendinning shares letters from fellow writers
and poets from around the world and contemplates what they are saying about the
state of the planet and the collective psyche – from the perspective of
animistic souls: The way out of the encroaching psychic stranglehold, my
correspondents are writing, will not come via belief in being saved by the
can-do, big-system management of an Obama or a Marine Corps or a Verizon -- but
, first and only, by admitting the truth. Sight, smell, hearing, pain, joy, urge, motion – these are the
favored terrains of my pen-wielding comrades. Breaking through the numbed-out
daze global society insists upon becomes a journey into mindfulness of the
senses, they are proposing. Indeed, the sensate and the sensual are the identical realms
practitioners in the field of trauma recovery are looking to for guidance. Deep
down, the body and the psyche know how to heal, they are finding. Similarly, is
it possible that people all across this beleaguered planet know how to
re-inhabit life?
Ecological Intelligence: Do Humans Have What it
Takes to Survive? by Daniel Goleman 2/19/10 - At the beginning of the twenty-first century, society has lost touch
with what may be the singular sensibility crucial to our survival as a species. Ecological
intelligence melds cognitive skills with empathy for all life. Just as social
and emotional intelligence build on the abilities to take other people's
perspective, feel with them, and show our concern, ecological intelligence
extends this capacity to all natural systems. To tap into this intelligence, we
need to get beyond the thinking that puts mankind outside nature. The neocortex, the thinking brain,
evolved as our most versatile neural tool for survival -- what the hardwired
reflexive circuits of our brain cannot help us understand, the neocortex can
discover, comprehend, and marshal as needed. We can learn the now hidden
consequences of what we do and so cultivate an acquired ability to compensate
for the weakness of our pre-programmed ways of perceiving and thinking. We face an evolutionary impasse: the ways of thinking that in the
ancient past guided our innate ecological intelligence were well suited to the
harsh realities of prehistory. But
ensuing centuries have blunted the survival skills of the billions of
individuals who live amid modern technologies. Today's threats demand that we
hone a new sensibility, the capacity to recognize the hidden web of connections
between human activity and nature's systems and the subtle complexities of
their intersections.
Hope, Hopelessness
And Faith by Kurt Cobb 12/27/09 - We
often hear people say that it is impossible to live without hope, by which they
mean hope for something better than the current set of problems we face. There may be something to this. To believe that an unbearable present
will only be followed by an unbearable future is truly debilitating. For those
involved in issues of sustainability, peak oil, climate change, and
relocalization it might be better to feel a certain hopelessness in our
situation. For hope implies dependence on forces outside ourselves. In hope's
place I nominate faith. Not
religious faith, but what George
Santayana calls "animal faith." Hope is part and parcel
of our pathology. But faith,
animal faith, is commitment to the moment. This is not a faith based on belief, but rather on
experience, the experience we gain with each small act and the competence that
grows in us as a result of those acts.
Retrieving the Sacred by C.
Michael Smith, PhD 7/25/08 - We can always find the Sacred at the heart of things, at the heart of
any situation or life process because it is always present there, in the heart
of each creature, and in our own hearts. It is our orienting axis (axis mundi).
To be without connection to it is to be without connection to our center and
core of aliveness. It is to be without purpose, depth of satisfaction, and the
sense of a meaningful life. Such a life has no inward unity but is dispersed,
our energies scattered amongst the 10,000 things. No soul healing is complete
if the relation to the Divine Spirit is neglected. Connection to the Spirit is
what life in the world is about. If we miss that, we miss life’s meaning and
purpose. A soul without that is cut off from the very source.
Writers and
the War Against Nature by Gary Snyder
11/07 - There is a tame,
and also a wild, side to the human mind. The tame side, like a farmer’s field,
has been disciplined and cultivated to produce a desired yield. It is useful
but limited. The wild side is larger, deeper, more complex, and though it
cannot be fully known, it can be explored. The explorers of the wild mind are
often writers and artists. The “poetic imagination” of which William Blake so
eloquently spoke is the territory of wild mind. It has landscapes and creatures
within it that will surprise us; it can refresh us and scare us; it reflects
the larger truth of our ancient selves, both animal and spiritual.
Nature and Madness by Paul Shepard - Beneath the veneer of civilization, in the trite phrase of
humanism, lies not the barbarian and the animal, but the human in us who knows
what is right and necessary for becoming fully human…. There is a secret person undamaged in
each of us, aware of the validity of these conditions, sensitive to their right
moments in our lives. All of them are assimilated in perverted forms in modern
society…. We have not lost, and cannot lose, the genuine impulse. It awaits
only an authentic expression.
Message Delivered by a Bear by Paul
Shepard 1994 – Shortly after he was
diagnosed with cancer, Paul Shepard spoke at the American Museum of Natural
History in New York in the "Writings on the Imagination" lecture
series. His subject was "The Origin of the Metaphor: The Animal
Connection." He ended his remarks with "a letter delivered to me by a
bear," a letter to humanity from the Others, the animals, telling us what
they have observed about us during our evolutionary journey. These were the
last words he spoke on a public occasion.
A Look at Man Through the Vapid Eyes of His Captives by Pierre
Tristam 3/7/10 - On the capture and use of large wild animals for human
entertainment, how they express their frustration, and how the look in their
eyes is exactly like that of prison inmates. It’s time to stop this captivity and allow remaining wild
animals to be wild.
A Lesson in Earth Civics by Chellis
Glendinning - Cultures, past and present, that maintain beliefs and
practices based on a respectful relationship with the natural world share more
than a set of common cosmological qualities; they share a set of common social
practices. These practices are of special interest to us because they model the
very social forms we long for, struggle to reproduce--yet rarely seem to
attain. What occurs when human beings live in intimacy with the Earth? The kind
of society we formulate is likely to be participatory, democratic, egalitarian,
leisurely, ecological, and sustainable. Like the elliptical wholeness of the
natural world, such social practices shape and are shaped by the psychic state
of the people, springing from healthy psyches and simultaneously guarding
against the emergence of psychological aberrations like addiction and
abuse.
All Spiritual Traditions Arise from the Land
by Jonathan Merritt - The original peoples inhabited every land from the Siberian tundra to
the Amazon rainforests, the Pacific islands to the American plains, the African
deserts to the Himalayans. How could they survive and thrive, lacking fur
and fang, claw and wing, except by listening to and living in intimate
connection with the land?
In this time of crisis, as we face
multiple ecological catastrophes, the land calls us to pay attention again to
the voices of the plants and animals and dirt, of the waters and
weather—not just as chemical and biological phenomena, but as living
beings with whom we are in constant relationship. It’s time for us to
slow down, to walk in the forests, by the streams and along the beaches, even
on our sidewalks among our people, listening. It’s time to sit together
outside beside our fires, to listen to each other and to the land. The
world is singing to us, calling us back to connection. If we open
ourselves to that wisdom and let the ancient traditions arise again, we may yet
survive.
Ecosteries by Kirkpatrick Sale 9/01 - If humans survive this collapse – and that is by no means certain
given the kinds and levels of our assaults on the earth – they will have
an opportunity to recast human arrangements and it will be necessary for these
survivors to have some body of lore, and some vision of human regeneration,
that instructs them in how to live in harmony with nature and how to fashion
their technologies with the restraints and obligations a love of nature
demands, seeking not to conquer and dominate and control the species and
systems of the natural world (for the failure of industrial civilisation will
have taught them fully of that), but rather to understand and obey and love and
incorporate nature into their souls as well as their tools.
The
Columbian Legacy and the Ecosterian Response by
Kirkpatrick Sale 10/90 - The
future is not easy to contemplate, but it is, obviously, where we are going to
spend the rest of our lives, and if those lives are to be anything more than
the nasty, brutish, and short passages we experience at the close of the
twentieth century, it has to be an ecological future. Now, it seems to me that
there are only two possible paths to achieving such a future: either by design
or by catastrophe. In either case I would argue that the challenge for us is
the same: to start now to establish small, local, bioregionally guided
alternative institutions that can provide the information by which human
communities can live in harmony with nature, the strategies by which
such communities would go about doing this, and the model of how it is
actually to be carried out.
The
Western World View: Past, Present And Future, Interview with Richard Tarnas by Russell E.
DiCarlo -A world view is a set of values, of conceptual structures,
of implicit assumptions or pre-suppositions about the nature of reality –
about human beings, about the relationship between humans and nature, about
history, the divine, the cosmos – which constellate an entire culture's
way of being and acting. A world-view shift reflects a very profound archetypal
dynamic in the psyche that closely resembles a perinatal process – a
birth process. One has been within a "womb," a matrix of thought, a
conceptual matrix, a conceptual womb for quite a while. You've developed within
it until that conceptual matrix is no longer large enough to contain your
evolving mind. It becomes seen as a problem, or constriction, as something to
be overcome, and a crisis is created. After a very critical period of
transition, of tension, of deconstruction, of disorientation, a sudden new
birth is precipitated into a new conceptual matrix. There is a sudden
revelation of a new Universe, which seems to open up. In this experience of a
shift in world view, one re-experiences one's own birth on an intellectual
level. It involves a very deep archetypal death and re-birth process.
Is the Modern Psyche Undergoing a
Rite of Passage? By Richard Tarnas - We have
sought ever deeper insight into our individual biographies, seeking to recover
the often hidden sources of our present condition, to render conscious those
unconscious forces and complexes that shape our lives. Many now recognize that
same task as critical for our entire civilization. What individuals and
psychologists have long been doing has now become the collective responsibility
of our culture: to make the unconscious conscious.
Humanity's Rite Of Passage: A World Tended By Adults by
Carolyn Baker 10/12/09 - So-called
"civilized" humanity has been exiled from its rootedness in nature
and the organic process of human development so conscientiously observed and
nurtured by indigenous peoples. Consequently, the culture of modernity is not
only disconnected from the earth, but in a large sense "developmentally disabled".
An integral aspect of the disability is modern humanity's disavowal of the
initiatory process in the care and training of children. Carl Jung asserted
that initiation is an archetype or fundamental motif inherent in the human
psyche. That is to say that something in us wants and expects engagement in the
initiatory process, not only at the age of puberty, but throughout our human
experience. If the reality of
initiation is deeply embedded in our humanity, it is likely that survival and
navigation of the collapse of civilization will be enhanced by our perception
and response to collapse as an initiatory process.
Rituals For Lover Earth by
Charles Eisenstein 10/10/09 - Humanity
today is transitioning into a new Story of the People, a new Story of Self, and
a new Story of the World. I sometimes articulate it as "The connected self
living in joyous cocreative partnership with Lover Earth." Rituals connect us to what is real
within these stories. Rituals bridge the distinction between symbol and
reality: they don't just mean something, they are something. They are actions in themselves. When tribal peoples
conducted a ritual reenactment of the creation of the universe, they weren't
just narrating or representing that creation, they were actually participating
in it.
Wilderness
Rites Of Passage: Healing, Growth,
and Initiation by
John Davis, Ph.D. – The goal of wilderness
rites of passage is not just the development of a more informed relationship
with the natural world or a better, stronger sense of self, but a sense of
coming home. On wilderness rites of passage, one finds oneself and one's
journey to be part of a larger whole. The need for control over one's
environment deepens into trust and a sense of harmony with one's environment.
Nature is not a background against which to be challenged and grow. Rather,
nature comes front and center as the foundation and container for the story of
one's life. The Earth itself comes alive and, at the deepest, wilderness rites
of passage become a gift to the Earth as well as one's people. Nature sees
itself through the quester's eyes and feels itself in the quester's joy. Rather
than including Nature in our story, we find ourselves woven into Nature's
story.
Meditation on: A Hopi Elder Speaks by Sally Erickson 12/15/09 - Right now I hear a call to
non-action: to simple, clear awareness, and to the willingness to sit in that
awareness. That’s the call I hear. I want to create space for that,
for myself and for others who hear a similar call. Most other activity at
this particular time feels like struggle to me. And struggle is the word
the Hopi Elder advises me to banish from my vocabulary.
Would We Listen to Nature if Our Lives Depended on
It? by Derrick Jensen 11/6/09 - What would a society look like that was planning on being in that
particular place five hundred years from now? What would an economics look
like? If you knew for a fact that your descendants five hundred years from now
would live on the same landbase you inhabit now, how would that affect your
relationship to sources of water? How would that affect your relationship with
topsoil? With forests? Would you produce waste products that are detrimental to
the soil? Would you poison your water sources (or allow them to be poisoned)?
Would you allow global warming to continue? If the very lives of your children
and their children depended on your current actions—and of course they
do—how would you act differently than you do?
"Re-learning" what we've forgotten by Chris Maser - On how to regain the economy of reciprocity with
each other and our bioregion and biosphere, and thus become appropriately
adapted to our planet.
Revolutionary Ecology: Biocentrism &
Deep Ecology by
Judi Bari 1995 - Starting from the very
reasonable, but unfortunately revolutionary concept that social practices which
threaten the continuation of life on Earth must be changed, we need a theory of
revolutionary ecology that will encompass social and biological issues, class
struggle, and a recognition of the role of global corporate capitalism in the
oppression of peoples and the destruction of nature. I believe we already have such a
theory. It's called deep ecology, and it is the core belief of the radical
environmental movement. In this article, I will
try to explain, from my perspective as an unabashed leftist, why I think deep
ecology is a revolutionary world view. (Includes sections on how biocentrism contradicts capitalism, communism, and patriarchy, and what that implies for bringing
human societies into balance with nature.)
Spiritual Ecology by Carolyn
Merchant 1992 - A description and
catalog of the varieties of eco-spirituality existing before 1992, including
the Council of All Beings, Nature Spirituality, Pagan Spirituality, Native
American Land Wisdom, Mainstream Religion, Ecological Creation Spirituality,
and Ecological Process Theology. Merchant concludes: The main project of spiritual ecology is to effect a
transformation of values that in turn leads to action to heal the planet.
Whatever religion or form of spirituality one practices, it is possible to find
a connection to the earth and to the political work that needs to be done to
change the present way of managing resources. Some religions are more radical
than others and some envision a more radical political transformation than
others. With most individuals practicing some form of religion and with
increasing attention to the ecological consequences of current ways of doing
business, a spiritual revolution may help to support human and ecological
justice in the twenty-first century.
The Spirituality of the Earth by
Thomas Berry 1990 - I speak of the earth as
subject, not as object. I am concerned with the maternal principle out of which
we were born and whence we derive all that we are and all that we have. In our
totality we are born of the earth. We are earthlings. The earth is our origin,
our nourishment, our support, our guide. Our spirituality itself is
earth-derived. If there is no spirituality in the earth, then there is no
spirituality in ourselves. The human and the earth are totally implicated each
in the other. Not to recognize the
spirituality of the earth is to indicate a radical lack of spiritual perception
in ourselves.
Alienation, Neo-shamanism and
Recovered Animism by Bruce Charlton, MD 2002 - Animism is not a religious or
philosophical doctrine, neither is it an ‘error’ made by people too young or
too primitive to know better - animism is nothing less than the fundamental
mode by which human consciousness regards the world. Consciousness just is
animistic. And this perspective is a consequence of human evolutionary
history. Humans evolved
sophisticated brain mechanisms for dealing with the complex social situations
that formed a dominant selection pressure throughout primate evolutionary history;
and in animistic thinking these social mechanisms are flexibly applied to
interpret complex aspects of the world in general. Information on animals,
plants and landscape are fed into a system that codes them into social entities
with social motivations, and models their behaviour in social terms.
The Wounded Healer by Paul Levy - Our wounding is a
“numinous” event, in that its source is transpersonal and archetypal, which is
to say that our wound is the very way by which the divine is making contact
with us. The origin of both our wounding and the healing that
precipitates out of our wound comes from beyond ourselves, as it is beyond our
own personal contrivance. Our wounding activates a deeper, transpersonal
process of potential healing and illumination that we could not have initiated
by ourselves…. Our personal wound
is, in condensed and crystallized form, the footprint and signature of the
collective wound in which we all share and participate. It is liberating and
healing to step out of pathologizing ourselves and re-contextualize our
personal conflicts, problems and wounds as part of a wider transpersonal
pattern enfolded throughout the global field of human experience.
Transformed by the
Mysteries of Nature and Psyche - Interview with Bill
Plotkin, author of Nature and the Human
Soul 4/30/08 - The opportunity of the Great Turning is to create soulcentric societies
– those that are imaginative, ecocentric, cooperation-based, just,
compassionate, and sustainable. Every human being has a unique and mystical relationship to the wild
world, and the conscious discovery and cultivation of that relationship is at
the core of true adulthood. True
adulthood is rooted in transpersonal experience – in a mystic affiliation
with nature, experienced as a sacred calling – that is then embodied in
soul-infused work and mature responsibilities. This mystical affiliation is the
very core of maturity, and it is precisely what mainstream Western society has
overlooked – or actively suppressed and expelled.
Groundwork by Bill
Plotkin - Meditation does not help us to sink our roots into the DEEPER impulses, emotions, and images of
the soul. There we will find, in addition to our deepest individual desires and
passions and grief, pockets of a KIND of fear and a KIND of anger that can
motivate us to actively embody in the world what our souls most deeply desire.
Doing so creates a healthy, balanced, joyous, and sustainable world. Meditation
practice, alone, won't do that. To paraphrase James Hillman, we've had 2500
years of Buddhist mindfulness meditation, and the world's getting worse. Why
would we WANT to "achieve a
state of inner peace" while witnessing, for example, genocide and
environmental devastation? For
personal and societal transformation, we need the soul's wildness and passions
and unique desires AS WELL AS the
healing of our egos and the equanimity of the peaceful mind.
Spiritual Implications of Climate Change by John Croft 10/07 - We live in an amazing time, a time that has been long in preparation
and will never again be repeated. We stand at the pivot of history. Gaia
herself seeks to have our species leave its adolescence behind and assume its
responsibilities of adulthood. This task is going to take the harvesting of the
gifts and wisdoms granted to us by all 31 of the civilisations of the last five
thousand years. It needs the insights and abilities of all the first nations
indigenous cultures of every continent. We need to distill the wisdom and
insights of all sages, teachers, and spiritual students, swamis, gurus,
prophets, saints and martyrs that have ever existed. Nothing can be left out,
nothing can be forgotten – we need it all.
Nature is Not a
Paradigm by Morris Berman 1987 - The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries represented a
major metapolitical shift; the whole mode of discourse changed. The biggest
factor was the demise of the magical world view, the loss of an affective and
symbolic mode of communication. Nature was now seen as dead – a perception
historians of science refer to as the "mechanical philosophy” – and this
perception was quickly extended to everything. There has been, as part of this
mode of discourse, a very dramatic impact on the human psyche. To succeed in Western industrial
society, it pays to behave mechanically, to ignore feelings and concentrate on
appearance and behavior. This involves a repression of your dream life and of
the life of your body, of your capacity to love. It seems to me that the very qualities that make for success in our
culture make it very difficult to be vulnerable, to love others, and
ultimately, even to love yourself. These are problems we all struggle with.
Comprehensive Compassion, an
Interview with Brian
Swimme
by Susan Bridle 2001 - A visionary cosmologist
explains why this may be the most critical yet potentially transformative time
on the planet in 65 million years. What's necessary is for us
to understand that, really, at the root of things is community. At the deepest
level, that's the center of things. We come out of community. So how then can
we organize our economics so that it's based on community, not accumulation?
And how can we organize our religion to teach us about community? And when I
say "community," I mean the whole earth community. That's the
ultimate sacred domain—the earth community.
Taking Refuge In Earth: Summoning The Earth To Witness by Cynthia Jurs - When we
recognize all the parts of the whole Earth in community together, all the great
diversity of life, all living in relationship to one another, we have Sangha
right here in front of our eyes, in all the ten directions: friends, enemies,
young, old, rich, poor, 4 legged, 2 legged, winged, finned and growing roots.
The Twelve Principles: Heart Essence of The Way of
Nature
by John P. Milton (According
to John, these are the core sacred
principles that the teachings of the world's liberating, earth-honoring
lineages have in common.)
Greetings From The Gravity Well By Tim Bennett 12/23/07
The curtains may not be
completely torn down, rings and all. Life may prevail. It’s possible. And so I
will hold it as such. A possibility. A hope. Held not despite my fellow human
beings, but BECAUSE I AM ONE.
Finding Our Calling As The World Unravels, Part 1 by
Carla Royal 9/24/08 - My questions to people as they contemplate joining
with others are larger than how are you going to form community for the sake of
survival. Survival is not enough. We need to be asking deeper
questions. Questions like: What is Life asking of you? Who will you be in the
face of the current predicament? What is your calling as the world
unravels?
Reclaiming The Soul In A Soul-Murdering Culture By
Carla Royal
12/12/07 - This culture extends
into every corner of the earth and every corner of our minds. It is
insidious. It is unrelenting. It devours. It will even take
our souls if we let it, and we do let it. But surely our soul is the one
thing this culture can't take from us unless we allow it. We don't have
to allow it. We don't have to surrender our soul, and if we have, we can
reclaim it. Perhaps in this culture the most we can do is to reclaim our
soul. Reclaim it from the machine, from the institutions, from the
busyness, maybe even from God. And perhaps in the reclaiming we will
learn something about how to negotiate this culture and its collapse.
Saturn,
Uranus, and Aquarius Revisited by Dawn Bodrogi 12/30/09 - No coincidence that the Age of Aquarius has been heralded in
with what we now call mass communication. Group Think rules by lowest common
denominator, rather than what is wisest or best for us. Group Think distrusts
intellectuals and artists and anyone who dares to express what is unique and
different from the norm. Group Think tells us that our unique contributions
will not be accepted. From body fascism to terrorism, evidence of the Aquarian
Age is at our door.
Transcend and Transform Your World Tom Kenyon 11/14/07
Advice from the star people—in this case,
the Hathors, channeled through Tom Kenyon. Personally, I’ve found their advice to be sane and sound, to
have integrity and to resonate with my inner knowing. I’ve also found their music, through Tom, to be deeply
healing. To find out who the
Hathors and Tom are, click here.
The Air Aware: Mind and mood on a breathing
planet by David Abram 9/09 - I suggest that mind is
not at all a human possession, but is rather a property of the earthly
biosphere—a property in which we, along with the other animals and the
plants, all participate. Mind, in this sense, is very much like a medium in
which we’re situated, like the ineffable air or atmosphere, from which we are
simply unable to extricate ourselves without ceasing to exist. Everything we know or
sense of ourselves is conditioned by this atmosphere. If we allow that mind
is a biospheric quality, an attribute endemic to the wide sphere that surrounds
and sustains us, we swiftly notice this consequence: each region—each topography,
each uniquely patterned ecosystem—has its own particular awareness, its unique style of intelligence.
Storytelling and Wonder by David Abram 3/07 - Our animal senses
know nothing of the objective, mechanical, quantifiable world to which most of
our civilized discourse refers. Wild and gregarious organs, our senses
spontaneously experience the world not as a conglomeration of inert objects but
as a field of animate presences that actively call our attention, that grab our focus or capture our gaze.
Whenever we slip beneath the abstract assumptions of the modern world, we find
ourselves drawn into relationship with a diversity of beings as inscrutable and
unfathomable as ourselves. Direct, sensory perception is inherently animistic,
disclosing a world wherein every phenomenon has its own active agency and
power. We are born of this animate
earth, and our sensitive flesh is simply our part of the dreaming body of the
world. However much we may obscure this ancestral affinity, we cannot erase it,
and the persistence of the old stories is the continuance of a way of speaking
that blesses the sentience of things, binding our thoughts back into the depths
of an imagination much vaster than our own.
The Invisibles by David Abram 2006 - In truth, it is only we of the literate, technological
West who tend to construe “the spirit” as something utterly insubstantial,
entirely beyond all sensory ken. It is only literate, Christian civilization
that assumes the spirit is something entirely outside of the world that our
breathing bodies inhabit. The word “spirit,” of course, derives from the Latin
spiritus – a word that originally signified “wind” and “breath”— an
ancestry it plainly shares with the English term “respiration.” By severing the
term “spirit” from its very palpable, earthly provenance as the wind,
alphabetic civilization transformed a mystery that was once simply invisible
into a mystery that was wholly intangible -- incapable of being felt by any of
the bodily senses. But the spirits are not intangible; they are not of another
world. They are the way the local earth speaks when we step back inside this
world.
Animism, Perception, and Earthly Craft
of the Magician by David Abram 2005 - Although the term "animism" was originally
coined in the nineteenth century to designate the mistaken projection of
humanlike attributes -- such as life, mind, intelligence -- to nonhuman and
ostensibly inanimate phenomena, it is clear that this first meaning was itself
rooted in a misapprehension, by Western scholars, of the perceptual experience
of indigenous, oral peoples. Twentieth-century research into the phenomenology
of perception revealed that humans never directly experience any phenomenon as
definitively inert or inanimate. Perception itself is an inherently relational,
participatory event.
Waking
Our Animal Senses: Language and the Ecology of Sensory Experience by David Abram 2002 - When we are really awake to the life of our senses — when we are
really watching with our animal eyes and listening with our animal ears —
we discover that nothing in the world
around us is directly experienced as a passive or inanimate object. Each
thing, each entity meets our gaze with its own secrets, and if we lend it our
attention we are drawn into a dynamic interaction wherein we are taught and
sometimes transformed by this other being. If we really wish to
awaken our senses, and so to renew the solidarity between ourselves and the
rest of the earth, then we must acknowledge that the myriad things around us
have their own active agency, their own active influence upon our lives and our
thoughts (and also, of course, upon one another). We must
begin to speak of the sensuous surroundings in the way that our breathing
bodies really experience them — as active, as animate, as alive.
Shamanic Transference by Paul Levy 3/27/10 - Shamanic
transference is not a style of transference, or a practice of a particular
tradition, but is a natural interchange that is fundamental to every human
relationship (please see my article We are all Shamans-in-Training).
In the depth of any transference, the currency of exchange which genuinely
creates psychological health and spiritual wealth is a dialectical relationship
based on eros, authentic human relatedness, channeled tel-empathically through the
heart. The shamanic doctor of the soul skillfully embodies this way of being in
all his relations. Indigenous people call this being a real human being.
On Soul Loss And Recovery by C.
Michael Smith, Ph.D., 3/23/09 - Care of the soul and
recovery of the soul are the common ground of ancient indigenous shamanic
systems of healing, and modern dynamic and depth psychologies, and indirectly,
even of cognitive behavior therapy. The word “psychology” means expression of
soul, logos or intelligible account or study of soul. The word “psychotherapy”
means service or healing of soul. Of course shamans have ideas, practices
and skill sets that differ in conception and understanding from modern
psychologies, but this can be a plus because shamanism brings a time-tested and
highly effective way that can educate the modern psychologist in powerful and
effective methods of finding and bringing back on line parts of the person that
have flipped off due to trauma, shock, childhood abuse, accident, serious
sickness or major surgery.
Technology, Trauma, and the Wild by Chellis Glendinning -
America the Traumatized: How 13 Events of the Decade Made Us
the PTSD Nation by Adele
M. Stan 12/30/09 - In America today, it seems we all have a
touch of post-traumatic stress disorder, as evidenced by our increasingly
vitriolic political environment, where reality is denied and histrionics run
riot. Anger, we're told, is the natural
reaction to trauma; in people with
PTSD, the anger is out of control. By that measure, the millennial decade has
brought us 10 years of PTSD politics -- with no end in sight.
Healing Transition Trauma In The New Decade by Carolyn Baker 12/30/09 - Do not
think, dear reader, that you have been able to avoid being traumatized. In
fact, if you are alive on planet earth today, you are living and will live the
rest of your life in a state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While
you may not have lived through a traumatic event,
you cannot escape the effects of a
plethora of traumatic events around you, and what is more, you will be reminded
of those events on some level every day of your life. Trauma
– past and present – is an enormous contributor to our daunting
difficulties in creating and maintaining supportive and harmonious living
communities.
In Terror's Grip: Healing The Ravages of
Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk - Effective treatment of PTSD must involve promoting
awareness, rather than avoidance, of internal somatic states. This allows feelings to be known, not
just sensed as harbingers of threat that must be avoided. Mindfulness, awareness of one’s inner
experience, is necessary for a person to respond according to what is happening
and is needed in the present, rather than reacting to certain somatic
sensations as a return of the traumatic past. Such awareness will free people to introduce new options to
solve problems and not merely react reflectively.
The Body Keeps The Score:
Memory
& the Evolving Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress by Bessel van der Kolk - For
more than a century, ever since people's responses to overwhelming experiences
were first systematically explored, it has been noted that the psychological
effects of trauma are expressed as changes in the biological stress response.
In 1889, Pierre Janet, postulated that intense emotional reactions make events
traumatic by interfering with the integration of the experience into existing
memory schemes. Intense emotions, Janet thought, cause memories of particular
events to be dissociated from consciousness, and to be stored, instead, as
visceral sensations (anxiety and panic), or as visual images (nightmares and
flashbacks). Janet also observed that traumatized patients seemed to react to
reminders of the trauma with emergency responses that had been relevant to the
original threat, but that had no bearing on current experience. He noted that
victims had trouble learning from experience: unable to put the trauma behind
them, their energies were absorbed by keeping their emotions under control at
the expense of paying attention to current exigencies. They became fixated upon
the past, in some cases by being obsessed with the trauma, but more often by
behaving and feeling like they were traumatized over and over again without
being able to locate the origins of these feelings.
Yoga and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - An
Interview with Bessel van der Kolk, MD - What most
people do not realize is that trauma is not the story of something awful that
happened in the past, but the residue of imprints left behind in people’s
sensory and hormonal systems. Traumatized people often are terrified of the
sensations in their own bodies. Most trauma-sensitive people need some form of
body-oriented psychotherapy or bodywork to regain a sense of safety in their bodies. The main
challenge for the trauma sensitive is to learn how to tolerate feelings and
sensations by increasing the capacity for interoception or sitting
with yourself, noticing what’s going on inside—the basic principle of
meditation. They need to learn how to modulate
arousal. Their challenge is to
learn how to notice what is happening
and how things can and will shift, rather than running
away or turning to alcohol or drugs to self-medicate.
Soul Retrieval: An Interview with Tenzin
Wangyal Rinpoche 2/08 - Soul
retrieval and life-force retrieval are distinct, but they are integrally
related. Somehow, the soul appears to serve as a deeper foundation of the life
force. If the soul is healed, the life force is strong. If the soul is damaged,
the life force declines. Sometimes we may be hit with a challenge, and before
we can deal with it we are hit by another challenge. When there is a constant
onslaught, we may feel like we can't cope anymore. As we are engaged with one
problem, other deeper issues come to hurt us internally, and there is a
pervasive imbalance of energy. When this cycle persists, soul retrieval is very
necessary. If you are deeply
affected by a big shock or trauma that happens in your life, it will be because
of the accumulation of past imbalances.
A Basic Call to Consciousness: The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World, Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977
Spiritualism: The Highest Form of Political
Consciousness
The Hau de no sau nee
Message to the Western World 1977 – Part 1a of A Basic
Call to Consciousness - Ours is a Way of Life. We believe that all living things are spiritual
beings. Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter. The original
instructions direct that we who walk about on the Earth are to express a great
respect, an affection, and a gratitude toward all the spirits which create and
support Life.
Voices from White Earth: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag by Winona
LaDuke 10/93 - If you look at the whole of North America, you find that
the majority of the population is native in about a third of the continent.
Within this larger area indigenous people maintain their own ways of living and
their cultural practices. This is our view of the continent, and it is
different from the view of most other North Americans. Going beyond North America, I want to
talk about the Western Hemisphere and the world from an indigenous perspective.
My intent is to present you with an indigenous worldview and our perception of
the world. There are a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere in which
native peoples are the majority of the population. Overall, the Western
Hemisphere is not predominantly white. Indigenous people continue their ways of
living based on generations and generations of knowledge and practice on the
land. On a worldwide scale there are about five thousand nations. Nations are
groups of indigenous peoples who share common language, culture, history,
territory, and government institutions. That is how international law defines a
nation. And that is who we are:
nations of people who have existed for thousands of years.
How the Conquest of Indigenous Peoples Parallels
the Conquest of Nature by John
Mohawk 10/97 - A powerful lecture with vivid descriptions of the history
of the predator culture in the West from the time of Classical Greece, up to
and including the global economy – from a Native perspective. Mohawk: I propose to you that we live in an age of utopian
excess that is driving us away from doing what would be sustainable and
survivable and is diverting us into participating, in ways we’re not even
conscious of, in activities that are destructive in the long term. The actual trend over the centuries has been toward a
politics of conquest and plundering. And we have rationalized our behavior in
the context of that conquest and plunder. Most of us don’t ask ourselves, when we make choices
about what we’re going to buy, How does this purchase implicate me in the
plunder?
The Ice Is Melting by Oren
Lyons 10/04 - I was one of a group of Indian leaders who went to
Geneva in 1977, the first time indigenous people had ever gone to the United
Nations. We were people from North, Central, and South America who had never
met before, yet we were able to come to an agreement, were able to choose
leaders and speakers and topics all in one day. Even though it was difficult,
we did it. The reason is that we had a common understanding and belief. A thousand
years ago there came to us a spiritual entity called Great Peacemaker. He
brought to us his whole concept of democracy, laid it before us. The Peacemaker said to build our nation on peace,
equity, unity, and health. The Peacemaker was very fundamental. He said, You
can't have peace without health, you can't have justice without equity, you
can't have continuity without unity. And there has to be reverence and respect.
Those are words that we have to bring back again. He gave us very sound
principles to build a nation on. My first message to you is that the kind of leadership we have must be
changed. The second message I bring you is that global warming is real. It is
imminent. It is upon us. It's a lot closer than you think, and I don't believe
we're ready for what's coming.
Mitakuye Oyasin is a Lakota Sioux prayer. The phrase translates as "all my relations." It is a
prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals,
birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks.
Indigenous Mind by Winona Laduke
A Native View Of Nature by John Mohawk - An interview by Charlene Spretnak
First Nations and the Future of the Earth by
Rebecca Adamson
The Leadership Imperative, An interview with Chief Oren
Lyons by Barry Lopez 2/07
Animists: The Spirit of Place - An exhibition of
photographs and commentary by Phil Borges taken in Siberia, Mongolia, the Philippines,
Peru, and the Ecuadorian Amazon. 8/2000 - Animists:
The Spirit of Place reflects upon a time when we were all deeply bonded to the
place where we lived. The artist states: "It was a spiritual connection
seen to be vital for maintaining both the health of the community and the well
being of the individual". During the Enlightenment this spiritual communication
fell out of favour. There are only a few traditional cultures remaining who
spiritually communicate with their environment. These photographs depict some
of these people for whom the environment still holds a sacred enchantment ....
people who still know the The Spirit of Place. Includes quotes by photo subjects.
The Earth is our Mother by
Tashunka Witko – With photographs by Edward S. Curtis, quotes and
music by Native Americans. Video 8:27
The Message – The Plantagon message to the leaders of the world from the
indigenous peoples of all nations, spoken by Oren Lyons, 1/13/08.
Oren Lyons: Value Change for Survival – Interview with Oren Lyons
on global warming, 1/09/07.
Red Crow Westerman -
Speaking To The World – Native
American History and the American Indian Movement
Indigenous Native American Prophecy (Elders Speak part 1)
The Plastic Medicine People Circle by Helene E. Hagan 1992 - The
author is a psychological anthropologist who has worked with Native American
issues and lived for four years on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
while working on an elder oral history project. In this article she details the psychological dangers to
non-natives who are duped into participating in the ceremonies and rituals of
fake shamans – both those who are supposedly Native American and those
who are obviously Caucasian – and the concerns of authentic Native
Americans regarding these “plastic medicine people,” whom she names.
A Theft of
Spirit? by Christopher Shaw 8/95 -
An exploration of Native views regarding the
expropriation of Native American traditions by white people, particularly the
New Age mix-and-match amalgamations of Native ideas that are often
marketed as indigenous spirituality, but could present a long-term threat to
Native culture.
Avatar Official Movie Site – with trailer
Avatar: A
Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora (James Cameron's Avatar) by Maria Wilhelm
& Dirk Mathison - In Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social
History of Pandora we are introduced to Pandora—a pristine and
beautiful moon in a distant solar system—its exotic ecosystems, and the
indigenous race called the Na'vi. By piecing together photographs, scientific field
notes, and research data, citizens on Earth have collected the information in
this field guide as a way to highlight the lessons Pandora can teach the people
of Earth, who have struggled to survive as their planet's critical resources
are depleted.
James Cameron on Charlie Rose 2/17/10 - The director of Avatar talks about its environmental and
paradigm-changing message, audience reactions to it, storytelling and movie
making.
Avatar in the
Amazon by Melaina Spitzer 1/29/10 - If there
were ever a place that came close to the magical world of Pandora in James
Cameron’s new film Avatar, it would probably be the Amazon. There may not be
butterflies that look like flying squid, but in the Amazon can you eat giant
worms and lemon flavored ants for dinner in a forest that is home to both the
jaguar and the pink dolphin. Reporter Melaina Spitzer joined a group of
indigenous leaders from the Amazon in Ecuador’s capital Quito, to see Avatar on the big screen in 3D. With video.
The Pachamama Alliance
is a co-creative initiative between Western activists and
Ecuadorean rainforest peoples, which bussed a hundred Indigenous people from
the jungles and highlands down to a theater in Quito to see Avatar in 3D.
Pachamama is an indigenous Andean name for the world, for reality as a sacred
being and context for life. It is
like the term Mother Earth, expanding to include the universe and all
time. Pachamama is something for
awake people to be aware of, to care for, to learn from, to appreciate, to
celebrate – in its greatest and most local manifestations – for it
carries Life. The Pachamama
Alliance promotes that kind of sacred but grounded life-mindfulness and
planetary stewardship.
Avatar and its
holistic promise by
Juriaan Kamp 2/1/10 - Avatar portrays the beauty of holism - that word that has defined the
new age movement since the sixties. Holism attracted hippies then. It now
attracts masses worldwide. That is the message of Avatar. To be clear: holism is not some distant
dream. It is our everyday reality. We live in an interconnected world. That has
always been the case. Ancient cultures were aware of that. It is only our Cartesian perspectives
from the past few centuries that have spread a different message: that we can chop
up reality and make a lot of money while selling the pieces. It was science that led Descartes and
his contemporaries to the fragmented approach to reality. Yet modern science is
increasingly telling a different story. The good news is that the success of
Avatar is showing that many millions of us are already - consciously or
unconsciously - embracing, or at least feel attracted to, the holistic vision.
Avatar
Transforming - Its Power, Its Message, Its Possibilities 1/26/10
Avatar
is stimulating some very juicy conversation... 1/27/10 - These two blog posts on Avatar by Tom
Atlee provide his reviews of Avatar reviews, focusing on its message and its
transformative potential.
Full-Blooded
Awakening & Embodiment: A Review Of Avatar by
Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D. 1/26/10 - Avatar moves and shakes many people quite deeply,
not just because of the incredible special effects, but also because they have
been reminded with considerable impact not only of their own primal nature-attuned
core, but also of their estrangement or disconnection from it. So there's a
simultaneous sense, however subterranean, of deep opening and deep loss, a
more-than-intellectual recognition of having lost touch with something truly
essential to us. In this sense, Avatar serves as an awakening force, a jolt to
our core, inviting us to awaken from the entrapping dreams we habitually
animate. Earth is Pandora, getting
ever closer to being one massive clearcut, and we know it, regardless of our
distractions. The popcorn falls from our hands, waves of green energy branch
through our torso, tears come, and something very deep in us starts to open, to
unfurl, to reach through us with
unmistakable urgency, calling us to a deeper
life...
The Holocaust
We Will Not See by George Monbiot 1/11/10 - Avatar half-tells a story we
would all prefer to forget. It's profound because, like
most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human
cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the
story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas. But this
is a story no one wants to hear, because of the challenge it presents to the
way we choose to see ourselves. Europe was massively enriched by the genocides
in the Americas; the American nations were founded on them. This is a history
we cannot accept. (Monbiot goes on
to tell the gory story of the predator culture’s conquest of the Americas, but
pans the plot of Avatar as “silly.” – SD)
Avatar: Going Native, in 3D (Film Review) by Rob Williams 1/7/10 - For anyone considering the United States as Empire, “Avatar’s”
evocative and disturbing storyline – “Aliens” meets “Dances With Wolves”
meets “Lord of the Rings” – proves much more damning than not. The Omaticaya, as the natives call
themselves, revere a mystical energetic force called Eywa, an animist Spirit
that infuses all living things. Most compelling, perhaps, is the oddly deja-vu-like quality of “Avatar.”
In the Age of Twitter, we are quick to forget our own history of violence
against “the natives” and nature itself, and Cameron’s film brings back this
history with disturbing three-dimensional vividness. The ultimate irony is this:
as we destroy the real world – beautiful, connected, sacred, organic
– the only “place” many of us think we can retreat to is the world of
networked electronic technology, itself a “Cyberia” created by the mining of
the planet’s natural yet finite resources.
Avatar Pulls The Political Trigger by Michael Carmichael 1/6/10 - While Avatar is
being hailed as a breakthrough to new levels of filmic techno-sophistication
– its 3D and special effects are wrapped around a scintillating story
line that is driven by thermonuclear political intensity. Avatar is a hyper-political film from its gripping beginning to its illuminating
end. In a nutshell, Avatar’s
political message is: The American Military-Industrial Complex will
utterly destroy the known universe. The characters of Avatar are archetypes. The story is driven by the conflict in Jake’s mind.
Torn between his commitment to his human DNA and his longing for restorative
surgery to regain the use of his body, Jake finds liberation as a Na’vi warrior
who dives deeply into the indigenous aboriginal culture of animism and the
unadulterated exaltation of Nature. Avatar is powerful art.
Audiences Experience 'Avatar' Blues by Jo
Piazza 1/11/10 - James
Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a
little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and
suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty
of the alien world Pandora. People
saw that we could be living in a completely different world and that caused
them to be depressed.
Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of
Pandora being intangible – Online Avatar
forum
James Cameron's Avatar delivers a powerful message
of connectedness with Mother Nature by Mike
Adams 12/26/09 - Avatar delivers an urgent message for our modern
world where many of the atrocities committed by the human invaders in Avatar
are being carried out right now against our own planet. When it comes to planet Earth, after
all, humans are the imperialists. We have destroyed much of the natural habitat
on our planet; we've poisoned the rivers and oceans; we've polluted the sky and
burned up much of the planet's natural resources. In our quest for more energy,
more consumption and more profit, we are stupidly destroying our own planet...
and destroying our own future in the process. We are, in effect, both the
invaders and the natives on this planet, and through our misguided collective
consumption, we are destroying our own land, our own trees and our own home.
And because life is so delicately interconnected, in destroying our own planet,
we are only destroying ourselves.
Sacred
Passage and the Way of Nature Fellowship - John P. Milton - Vision Quests, Contemporary Solo Quests in Nature, Nature
Quests, Sacred Passages, Meditation Retreats, Rites of Passage, Awareness
Training, Dzogchen Training and Practice, Qi Gong and T'ai Chi Training, Study
of ancient Shamanic Practices, and Traditional Wilderness Quest opportunities
are all available through our
Sacred Passage and The Way of Nature Programs.
The Animas Valley Institute - Bill Plotkin - At Animas, our focus is nature-based initiation,
whose central goal is the descent to soul for the purpose of maturing the ego
so that it becomes a vessel for a person’s deepest, world-transforming
gifts. Our intent is a
foundational shift that elicits each person’s most creative, soul-rooted
response to our precious, critical moment in history.
School of Lost Borders - The School of Lost Borders,
located in Big Pine, California, offers vision fast and rites of passage
training which cultivate self-trust, responsibility, and understanding about
one’s unique place within society and the natural world. Its programs provide
guided opportunities, perspectives, teachings, and much needed self-reflection
time in a non-judgmental yet challenging environment. Our purpose is to
encourage the skills and attitudes necessary to discover, affirm, and
authentically share one’s unique gifts. The School of Lost Borders draws on
pan-cultural traditions in order to support and guide individuals through life
transitions and initiations and into deeper contact with the natural world as
well as their own innate humanness.
Wilderness Quest in the Utah Canyonlands – Elias
Amidon and Elizabeth Rabia Roberts - A nine-day rite-of-passage into the desert
wilderness of southeast Utah – a fitting place to renew, clarify, or
determine your life’s purpose and direction. We have been leading these Quests
since 1991.
Wilderness Awareness School - A national environmental education organization established in 1983,
based in Duvall, Washington, dedicated to caring for the earth and our children
by fostering understanding and appreciation of self, community, and nature. Our
mentoring approach honors individuality, encourages self-sufficiency in
learning, and awakens a kinship with nature as it trains youth and adults to
blend the awareness of a native tracker with the knowledge of a wildlife
biologist. Our wilderness education courses draw on traditions from indigenous
cultures worldwide, emphasizing nature as teacher, routines to enhance
awareness, storytelling, self-motivated learning, and tracking as an
interpretive tool. Our dynamic
wilderness education courses combine ancient and modern ecological wisdom, and
empower people of all ages to become stewards, mentors, and leaders.
Paul
Shepard 1925 – 1996
– Introduction
to and celebration of Paul Shepard’s work, including tributes by many deep
ecological writers.
Alliance for Wild Ethics - David
Abram & Friends - The Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE) is a consortium of
individuals and organizations working to ease the spreading devastation of the
animate earth through a rapid transformation of culture. We employ the arts,
often in tandem with the natural sciences, to provoke deeply felt shifts in the
human experience of nature. Motivated by a love for the more-than-human
collective of life, and for human life as an integral part of that wider
collective, we work to revitalize local, face-to-face community – and to
integrate our communities perceptually, practically, and imaginatively into the
earthly bioregions that surround and support them. Our work is aligned with a
new respect for the mysterious eloquence of earthly reality – a deeply
immanent sense of the sacred quietly dawning across the planet. While
Alliance members bring different skills and strategies to bear in our various
projects, an underlying method in all our efforts is the awakening of wonder.
Dharma Ocean Foundation – Reginald Ray – The Dharma Ocean Foundation offers us
the chance to live within the brilliance of our deepest lives. Within our
Buddhist lineage, meditation is the primary way to uncover this radiance, and
the foundation offers a wide range of retreats and programs in the sitting
practice of meditation. Introductory events include Meditating with the Body
and Winter Dathün, both of which occur annually in Crestone, Colorado.
Ligmincha Institute – Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche - Founded
in 1992 in order to preserve the ancient teachings, transmissions and
practices of the Bon Buddhist tradition, Ligmincha aims to introduce these
traditions in an authentic manner to the Western world, in such a way that they
remain beneficial when integrated into modern Western culture. As the
indigenous religion of Tibet and one of the world's most ancient unbroken
spiritual traditions, the Bon Buddhist tradition has a rich and unique
heritage. More important, today Bon remains a living tradition, a wellspring of
timeless wisdom and knowledge that is highly relevant and applicable to our
modern Western lives.
The
Four Winds Society – Alberto Villoldo -
Our mission is to
train master practitioners in the shamanic wisdom and healing arts of the
ancient Americas. We offer professional
training leading to certification as a master practitioner of energy medicine
for individuals dedicated to their own growth and to healing the earth. The
training includes lectures, hands-on practice, experiential exercises, and
ancient rites of passage.
Animal Dreaming – Scott Alexander King - I call my path ANIMAL DREAMING: a fresh, new approach to Shamanic lore that is easily understood and
integrated into today's modern lifestyle. Following a more 'animist' approach, its message is simple: Look to the
animals for guidance, interpret their medicine or Dreaming messages, and
incorporate the acumen obtained into your life and give thanks. The animals
never make mistakes and if we can heed their example, we will never make
mistakes again, either. It is as simple as realising that if the Earth is our
Mother, then perhaps we are her children. She supports us, cradles us and whispers her support to us every hour of
every day. She speaks metaphorically. She uses symbols, and her symbols are the
animals.
Process
Work Institute – Arnold and Amy Mindell
- Profound personal and
group work based on the cross-disciplinary research of the Mindell’s and
colleagues.
Primitivism – An inquiry into
ways of life running counter to the development of technology, its alienating
historical antecedents, and the ensemble of changes wrought by both. This site
is an exploration into primitivist theory, presenting works by many authors
that contribute to an understanding of the tendency.
The E. F. Schumacher Society – Free online edited texts of the society’s annual lecture program, begun in 1981, along with selected
staff essays. This is a treasure
trove of Dharmagaian/deep ecological thinking. Check out the newsletters and other resources on the site.
Highly recommended!
Sacred Fire
Magazine: The Antidote to Human Amnesia – For many, many thousands of years, humankind
experienced every facet of the world as being alive with spirit. The earliest
peoples regularly communicated with the plants, with the animals, and with the
natural forces of the world. This was not a religious practice, not a
belief system. It was an everyday fact of life. These relationships were
essential to our health and well being. Sacred
Fire is here to promote listening. The kind of deep listening
that comes from hearing, not with our minds, but with our hearts. To bring balance back into the world, we need to listen to the people
who have come before us, the ancestors. We need to listen to
the people alive today whose traditions remind us of the stories and lessons
that served humankind for thousands of years. And we need to listen
to the living spirits of nature that are there to help us awaken to all of
life. Listen deeply.
Be in conversation with the world.
Animism – Wikipedia: Animism (from Latin anima "soul,
life") is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in other
animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features
such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment. Animism may further attribute souls to
abstract concepts such as words, true names or metaphors in mythology. Animism
is particularly widely found in the religions of indigenous peoples, although
it is also found in Shinto, and some forms of Hinduism and Neopaganism.
Archetype – Primordial, structural elements of the
human psyche. Archetypes are irrepresentable in themselves but their effects
are discernible in archetypal images and motifs. Jung also described archetypes
as "instinctual images," the forms which the instincts assume.
Archetypes manifest both on a personal level, through complexes, and
collectively, as characteristics of whole cultures. Jung believed it was the
task of each age to understand anew their content and their effects.
Depth Psychology – Depth psychology explores the relationship
between the conscious and the unconscious and includes both psychoanalysis and
Jungian psychology. "Depth" refers to what's below the
surface of psychic manifestations like behaviors, conflicts, relationships,
family dynamics, dreams, even social and political events. The "what"
is some deep fantasy or image system inaccessible to purely literal-minded
approaches.
Ecological literacy – Wikipedia: Ecological literacy (also referred to as ecoliteracy) is the ability to understand the natural
systems that make life on earth possible. To be ecoliterate means understanding
the principles of organization of ecological communities (i.e. ecosystems) and
using those principles for creating sustainable human communities. The term was
coined by American educator David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra in the 1990s – thereby a new value entered education; the
“well-being of the earth”. An ecologically
literate society would be a sustainable society that does not destroy the
natural environment on which they depend. Ecological literacy is a powerful
concept as it creates a foundation for an integrated approach to environmental
problems. Advocates champion eco-literacy as a new educational paradigm
emerging around the poles of holism, systems thinking, sustainability, and
complexity.
Individuation –A process of
psychological differentiation, having for its goal
the development of the individual personality.
Individuation and a life
lived by collective values are nevertheless two divergent destinies. In Jung's
view they are related to one another by guilt. Whoever embarks on the personal
path becomes to some extent estranged from collective values, but does not
thereby lose those aspects of the psyche which are inherently collective. To
atone for this "desertion," the individual is obliged to create
something of worth for the benefit of society.
In Jung's view, no one is
ever completely individuated. While the goal is wholeness and a healthy working
relationship with the self, the true value of individuation lies in what
happens along the way.
Jung
Lexicon – Designed for those
seeking an understanding of relevant terms and concepts as they were used by
Carl Gustav Jung himself, there are choice extracts from Jung's Collected
Works, but no references to other writers.
Mysticism - Wikipedia: mysticism (from the Greek) is
the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an
ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience,
intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or
practices intended to nurture those experiences or awareness. Mysticism may be
dualistic, maintaining a distinction between the self and the divine, or may be
nondualistic. Differing religious traditions have described this fundamental
mystical experience in different ways.
[These are relevant to the
meaning I attribute to mysticism:]
• Deep intrinsic
connection to the world (Satori in Mahayana Buddhism, Te in Taoism)
• Innate Knowledge (Irfan
and Sufism in Islam)
• Experience of one's true
blissful nature (Samadhi Svarupa-Avirbhava in Hinduism and Buddhism)
The term
'"mysticism'" is used to refer to beliefs and practices which go
beyond the liturgical and devotional forms of worship of mainstream faith,
often by seeking out inner or esoteric meanings of conventional religious
doctrine, and by engaging in spiritual practices such as breathing practices,
prayer, contemplation and meditation, along with chanting and other activities
designed to heighten spiritual awareness.
Paradigm shift –Wikipedia: Paradigm shift (or revolutionary
science) is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) to describe a change in basic
assumptions within the ruling theory of science. It is in contrast to his idea
of normal
science. The term paradigm shift, as a change in a fundamental model of events,
has since become widely applied to many other realms of human experience as
well, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard
sciences. Since the 1960s, the
term has been found useful to thinkers in numerous non-scientific contexts.
Primitivism – Wikipedia: Primitivism is the opinion that life was better or more
moral during the early stages of mankind or among primitive peoples (or
children) and has deteriorated with the growth of civilization. It is a
response to the perennial question of whether the development of complex civilizations
and technologies has benefited or harmed mankind.
Shadow – (excerpts) Hidden or unconscious aspects of oneself, both
good and bad, which the ego has either repressed or never recognized. Before
unconscious contents have been differentiated, the shadow is in effect the
whole of the unconscious. The shadow is composed for the most part of repressed
desires and uncivilized impulses, morally inferior motives, childish fantasies
and resentments, etc.--all those things about oneself one is not proud of.
These unacknowledged personal characteristics are often experienced in others
through the mechanism of projection. Responsibility for the shadow rests with
the ego. That is why the shadow is a moral problem. It is one thing to realize
what it looks like – what we are capable of. It is quite something else
to determine what we can live out, or with. The shadow is not, however, only
the dark underside of the personality. It also consists of instincts, abilities
and positive moral qualities that have long been buried or never been
conscious. An outbreak of neurosis constellates both sides of the shadow: those
qualities and activities one is not proud of, and new possibilities one never
knew were there.
Jung
distinguished between the personal and the collective or archetypal shadow.
Soul – Tibetan: (la) The soul is the most subtle balance of the five elements in an individual.
In order to repair the damage or loss you do shamanic ritual of "Soul
Retrieval"...which is like charging one battery from another battery. The
other battery is not losing energy.... Every life force has a soul… we are asking to receive energy
to heal our soul. There is a Tibetan term that refers to the brightness of the
life force.... Tenzin Wangyal (The Five
Elements in Tibetan Shamanism and Tantra,1998)
Soul - Wikipedia: The soul,
in some religions, spiritual traditions, and philosophies, is the immaterial or
eternal part of a living being, commonly held to be separable in existence from
the body—the metaphysical part as distinct from the physical part. The
soul is generally conceived as existing within humans and sometimes within all
living things, inanimate objects, and the universe as a whole. In some
cultures, non-human living things, and sometimes other objects (such as rivers)
are said to have souls; these cultures hold a belief known as animism. The soul is often believed to live on
after a person’s death, and some religions posit that God creates souls.
The soul has been deemed integral or essential
to consciousness and personality, and may be synonymous with spirit, mind or self. Although the terms soul and spirit are sometimes used interchangeably, soul may denote a more worldly and less
transcendent aspect of a person. According to
psychologist James Hillman, soul has an affinity for negative thoughts and
images, whereas spirit seeks to rise above the entanglements of life and death. The words soul and psyche can also be treated synonymously, although psyche has more physical connotations, whereas soul is connected more closely to metaphysics and
religion.
Effigies: An Anthology of
New Indigenous Writing, Pacific Rim, 2009, Edited By Alison Adelle Hedge Coke
-
Reviewed By Eva Saulitis - Our country’s most ancient stories say there was a time
when humans and animals spoke the same language. Everything had spirit: the
rocks, the trees, the ice, the wind, the waves. Everything communicated. The
poets in this volume, in their cellular memory, recall that time. There’s no
way to go back, to return to the distant past. But the common language is all
around us, and, ultimately, it’s in us. Poetry (and its precursor, chant)
brings us closer to it. The voices of Effigies remind us that the world
is alive and it’s endangered, it’s wise and it’s beautiful, it’s silent and
it’s storied, it’s spirit-filled and it’s dangerous. They speak out of the
whirlwind of history and change. There’s only one thing to say on their behalf:
listen. Ultimately, these poets teach us about survival. The basis of both shamanism and poetry is
transformation. Through juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, the
generative and the destructive, the human and nonhuman, they ask us to consider
the world we’ve imagined, and the world that’s imagined us. Ultimately, these
poems ask us to reimagine our world.
The Akashic Experience:
Science and the Cosmic Memory Field by
Ervin Laszlo 2009 - In The Akashic
Experience, 20 leading authorities in fields such as psychiatry, physics,
philosophy, anthropology, natural healing, near death experience, and
spirituality offer firsthand accounts of interactions with a cosmic memory
field that can transmit information to people without having to go through the
senses. Their experiences with the Akashic field are now validated and
supported by evidence from cutting-edge sciences that shows that there is a
cosmic memory field that contains all information--past, present, and future.
The increasing frequency and intensity of these Akashic experiences are an
integral part of a large-scale spiritual resurgence and evolution of human
consciousness that is under way today.
Smile at Fear:
Awakening the True Heart of Bravery by Chogyam Trungpa,
edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian
Sacred
Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse by Carolyn Baker
Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in
the Body by Reginald A. Ray
Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World by Joanna Macy and Molly Young
Brown
Animate Earth: Science,
Intuition, And Gaia by Stephan Harding
The Spell of the
Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by
David Abram
Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature
and Psyche by Bill
Plotkin
Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness
and Community in a Fragmented World by Bill
Plotkin
The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of
Ecopsychology by
Theodore Roszak
The Earth Has a Soul:
The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung by Meredith Sabini
Thinking Like a Mountain by John
Seed, Joanna Macy and Pat Fleming – a Deep Ecology classic.
My Name is Chellis and
I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization by Chellis Glendinning
A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen
Dwellers In The Land: The Bioregional Vision by
Kirkpatrick Sale
Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy
Medicine of the Americas by Alberto Villoldo
Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul
Retrieval by
Alberto Villoldo
Healing with Form, Energy, and Light: The Five
Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Dreaming the Council Ways: True Native Teachings From the Red Lodge by Ohky Simine Forest
Sky Above, Earth Below:
Spiritual Practice in Nature by John P. Milton - Book or
audio cassettes with study guide.
Born of the Earth: Your
Journal, Poetry and Meditations in Nature by
Shiila Safer - Born of the Earth is a delightful invitation to
return to one's true identity. Use the guided meditations and poetry to take
you deeper into yourself. Use the blank pages as a journal, to hold your
spontaneous insight. This unique book gives you the opportunity, not only to dig
your roots down into the richness of the Earth, but also to express your
creativity at the same time! Deep in the heart of Nature you can find your true
voice. Born of the Earth will help you strengthen your vital connection with
Mother Earth.
The Green Beautiful - Part 1/9 - The Green Beautiful is a lyrical, funny and
enchanting film about people on another planet whose ecocentric culture left
industrialism behind ages ago, and who visit Earth again for the first time in
200 years. The story is woven
around the contrast between Earth’s industrial society and the aliens’ own
leisurely, harmonious, healthy, telepathic, soulful, post-industrial
culture. This is a delightful
French film with English subtitles, in 9 parts on YouTube.
Kevin Richardson: The
Lion Whisperer - Website of Kevin Richardson, an animal behaviorist who works with large
predators in South Africa. The
site has his story, many photos and videos.
Kevin Richardson - The Lion Whisperer - Facebook page for Kevin Richardson, showing how many
animistic souls are responding to his work.
Jonathan Balcombe:
"Second Nature" 3/16/10 - Humans aren't the only beings who communicate, feel
emotions and have self-awareness. Drawing on the latest research, an animal
behaviorist explains why people need to change the way they treat other living
creatures.
Being with Animals – Interview with author Barbara King 1/28/10 - Americans spend billions of dollars and countless hours caring for
their pets. An anthropologist explains the bond between humans and animals and
its importance to our evolution.
Joanna Macy on the Five
Gifts of Uncertainty at Bioneers Conference (video)
Shambhala Center Talk: Waking Up for the
Sake of Life on Earth by Joanna Macy 4/6/09 - Joanna's talk in Boulder, CO, sponsored by the Shambhala Center and
Transition Boulder. (Audio 1 hr.+)
Sacred Demise – Interview with Carolyn
Baker (51 min.)
Your Wild, Sacred Soul - Audio interview with Bill
Plotkin - Deep into his career
as a psychotherapist and research psychologist, Bill Plotkin recognized that as
we surround ourselves with the trappings of our culture, and distance ourselves
from nature, a host of emotional and spiritual troubles emerge. He placed
himself in nature's guiding hands and found his true calling in helping others
find theirs. He now leads vision quests, in which individuals engage the
natural world as both the medium and the context for a passage to adulthood,
and a maturity that too often is beyond reach in our urban society.
The Work that Reconnects Training
DVD by Joanna Macy
Audio recordings of Pema Chödron
Sounds True audio recordings with Clarissa Pinkola Estés
GAIAlogues with
Joanna Harcourt-Smith
Meditating with the
Body: Six
Tibetan Buddhist Meditations for Touching Enlightenment with the Body by Reginald
A. Ray (Audio
CD)
Your Breathing Body
Volume 1 by Reginald
A. Ray (Audio CD)
Nonviolent Communication Part 1 Marshall Rosenberg - Explains the origin and mentality of ‘predator
culture,’ beginning about 8,000 years ago, as a system of domination and
hierarchy in which the few dominate the many through violent coercion and the
language of violence. Rosenberg
contrasts this with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in which violence was much
rarer, and says he developed nonviolent communication to help people to get
back to a more natural, empathetic way of communicating,
Caroline Casey interview – On religion, astrology, and her animistic view. 2008
Timewave
2013: The Future is Now --The Odyssey
II - A Film by Sharron Rose - What lies ahead for the
human race? Will we reach the destiny that awaits us? In the film 2012 The
Odyssey, author Sharron Rose went on a quest to understand the many prophecies
around the year 2012. In this sequel to that film, she travels far beyond the world
of 2012.
During this
fascinating expedition into the nature of time itself, Ms. Rose speaks to many
of the world’s experts on mythology, alchemy, astrology, anthropology and
ancient history: Jose Arguelles, Gregg Braden, Riane Eisler, William Henry, Jean
Houston, John Major Jenkins, Rick Levine, Dennis McKenna, Terence McKenna,
Daniel Pinchbeck, Geoff Stray, Whitley Strieber, Alberto Villoldo and Jay
Weidner. They discuss topics such as the shift of the ages, the galactic
alignment, global warming, the pervasive role of the media in our lives, the
secret place of refuge, the mystic work of Benjamin Franklin, renewal of the
American spirit and the transformation of humanity.
What's amazing is that, as humans, if we dwell on
anything, after a while we become fascinated by it. It doesn't matter what it
is. The ability to dwell on things is uniquely human because we don't have such
fixed action programs as other species do. We can forget about everything else
and just dwell on something. I call it the power of gawking. We can pay
attention to whales or to the hummingbirds and just become fascinated by them.
It's noticing in a deep way, or contemplating, and my intuition is that as
humans allow themselves to be fascinated by the other creatures, these species
will awaken the psychic depths in the human that respond to their beauty. And
then we become convinced that in some amazing way, they are essential to us. We
can become amazed by how essential they are for our zest, our sense of
well-being or happiness. Chief Seattle said that if the animals were not here,
we would die of loneliness. I think that a deeper feeling of care begins with
allowing ourselves to move into awe—with all of the different creatures, no
matter which ones we've picked. If we would attend to them, we would see their
colossal grandeur. Abraham Heschel said that awe is the first step into wisdom.
You can just sit and watch fish and think of how they've developed over
hundreds of millions of years and imagine what they're experiencing, and after
awhile you're sunk into contemplation of ultimacy. This is what I think is the
first step toward compassion. ~
Brian Swimme, Comprehensive Compassion