Woodpecker

So, I've been building relationships with different animals but today I was reminded that I don't have relationships with all of them. I saw a woodpecker today, moved a bit closer to watch him and he wanted none of it. I do have a pretty good relationship with squirrels and so at least I was able to visit them. :)

Stalking Like My Animal

Today instead of "dancing my animal", I "stalked like my animal". I went around town as my fetch/fylgja would. It was a great experience. Much better than just wandering or going for a jog

Celtic Shamanism

I've just made some associations that really work nicely for me. I've been studying shamanism and animism for a while and I've always been interested in Celtic peoples and culture. Now I've remembered one authors connection of the two and made another similar connection. The authors idea was that Cernunos was sort of an archtype for a shaman. I can't remember how he laid out the details but it made sense to me. Of course this doesn't imply that Cernunos wasn't his own being as well, just that he also represented a possible role for humanity. He was an individual and also a symbol of a universal way of living. My connection came through the green man. He is my symbol for a plant spirit shaman. He is one with the plants, literally, and would be able to work with them. So now two paths of shamanry are laid out in a Celtic context: Cernunos and the green man. There is some deep meaning here for me. I now feel my Celtic inspired, but also local and bioregional, shamanism is developing nicely and that I am moving deeper into the great mysteries.

A Call to Adventure

I've been reading a really good book. It is about connecting with our souls. The current section that has been interesting to me is about the call of the soul. About how it calls, why it does, how people sometimes don't heed the call, and so on. It really struck with me because I have felt the call of my soul for sure on multiple occasions. It comes as a great source of inspiriation and joy at all the possibilities that I could be living out. It makes me want to make big changes and go after my deepest desires, desires I don't even consciously know about most of the time. I so love those feelings and how alive I feel when the call comes. Now if I can just go after my soul when it calls instead of reasoning myself back into a life only partially lived, using safety issues, self-doubt and fear of the unknown as chains to keep me living an unhealthy life path.

My thoughts on Spell of the Sensuous

This is taken from my post in the Bioregional Animism tribe:

I am in the second chapter right now, which is really the technical introduction. At first I thought this would become one of my favorite books. Now I am thinking it will go into the ok pile.

It started off great: building a case for a subjective (intersubjective) reality instead of an objective one. A reality that is based on reciprocal relationships between entities, human or not. One that is open-ended and indeterminate. The problem that I now have with the book is the authors insistence on putting in his anti-spiritual point of view through out his work. Which is an odd belief to have seeing as how he is trying to make a case for animism, or at least use animism as a support for his point of view.

At the start of the second chapter he gave me hope that there might be a field of science I could get behind. He spoke of Edmund Husserl and his creation of Phenomenology. Husserl's work really seemed promising and seemed to catch a big flaw in the way the rest of the sciences work. Husserl allowed for spirit in his work that helped increase the importance of subjectivity and the phenomenal world. However things then took a downturn when the author stated how a later phenomenologist, Marice Merleau Ponty "made a radical move" and basically rejected spirit. A scientist or philosopher rejecting spirit is in no way a radical move but really what most of them do. Husserl seemed more like Einstein (in regards to his scope of vision) where Ponty seems more like your run of the mill scientist/philosopher.

The author is trading scientific materialism for a phenomenological materialism. He puts all of life onto being on Earth in a body. He is basically setting the ground for atheism and or nihilism. That once our bodies die, our only access to earth and sensory data (in his view), that we are done.

He also makes a very unfortunate mistake and translates indigenous peoples culture and religion by his view point. He states that shamans don't journey, or leave their bodies, or talk to spirits (at least not incorporeal ones). What they do is have a connection with physical nature. He equates house spirits with ants, and ancestor worship as worshiping the ancestors who are now soil where their bodies decomposed at. He speaks of sentience and relationships with all things, part of animism, but then states that there is nothing beyond the physical. He has an animism that ends when forms do. A handicapped animism.

Now, he does have good points and does he is trying to fix various problems that have come up in sciences and the western viewpoint. If he could have left his anti-spiritual point of view out of it, his work would have been so much better. I obviously have a spiritual point of view but I would have been ok if he had just left spirituality out of it instead of trying to deny it.

What is ironic is that he critiques the Western view on a couple topics, while being very much influenced by Western thought processes. He equates spirituality with Christianity, which he apparently has big problems with, I too have had problems there, but then denies other views of spirituality. For him it is almost Christianity = spirituality and reality = materialism. Being a materialist is very a industrialized Western mindset.

Lighthearted effort

So, after talking it through, it appears that light heartedness and persistent effort are what will help me achieve my spiritual goals. I must consistently play with those abilities and experiences I want. Never blocking it with seriousness or getting distracted. Sounds good!

Nature Speaks

Here is a snippet from a really interesting post I read: "nature is constantly communicating with us, using plants and animals and insects to indicate its stage of succession, its mineral and organic content, its deficiencies, and its abundances. One example was how disturbed, over grazed soil calls in prickly thistles to ward off deer and cattle, or how or how un-harvested abundances of fruits and vegetables call in so-called 'pests' to ensure nothing goes to waste."

Brilliant! To think of things we think of as pests are actually there to balance out the system! Man nature is awesome.

E-Prime

I wish to speak and write in E-Prime often. It appears to fix many subtle problems with the English language. I must admit, sentence phrasing seems very challenging using this method. I made several reviews of the previous statements until they sounded correct to me. My use of E-Prime will sound better over time.

Trying out Campaign Earth

This site may, or may not, be of much use so I thought I would try it out. It puts you on increasingly demanding 30 challenges to lessen one's impact on the earth.

Article on natural water filtration

Link to Tree Hugger article: www.treehugger.com/files/20...tails.php