Hi all, warmest greetings and I truly hope you’re well as you’re reading this.

Welcome to episode 2. In this episode I read an essay I wrote about 3 years ago, with the ambition to reinforce a de-platforming of human consciousness that will be imperative going forward.

To put it plainly, we’re all people, with our human-thinking brains. But if we are practicing animists, we know that our type of human intelligence and consciousness is only a single speck of interest and beauty in the magnificence of an ever-changing and emoting universe that we are a part of.

There are so many intelligences and awarenesses, styles of communication, and languages between other beings, both known scientifically (like how trees work with mycelium) and unknown (our human relationships with constellations, myths and storied deities, yet? What? How? )

So we need this awareness, a base acknowledgment of knowing that we don’t know. I discuss healing work, the “spiritual industry” and how maybe Being Human is about doing less than it is about “being better.”

Here is that episode.

*please note, you will hear a lot of creaking and cracking from the chair I am sitting on. I’ve since replaced this chair at my desk with a less creaky one. But in the context of this episode, just pretend the sounds are of logs and twigs crackling in the fire we’re all gathered round… you know, the one I mentioned in the introductory episode? Or maybe we’re out all together on a hike, and these are sticks snapping underfoot. For now.

Thank you for your patience!

Episode Script

Hi and welcome back to Animist Activist Podcast. It’s me, your host and writer, Bri. Today I’m reading a mildly edited essay I wrote a while back. My goal in sharing this now is that this work may help destabilize a bit of human consciousness hierarchy - sort of set that foundation of thought for the following episodes this season. Because we’re going to be diving right into paradoxical puzzles like notions of invasive species, weeds, and human waste practices in this season.

I wrote and published this essay on September 1, 2020. This was to be a few days before I turned 29 years old, and I was having deep experiences of knowing crop up about what it means to occupy the human form. I was making art, vocationally making coffee, and designing a lot of content, zines, and virtual classes surrounding earth-based spiritual practice, grief work and art-as-ritual.

I was living in a small duplex in a very small town. This space was surrounded at five points by a breathing pentagram of five mature Oak trees. I hold the number five in great esteem as my life-path number and Oak trees are sacred to my wayback druid ancestors. Each of these trees, especially this time of year, late summer, in the rain and humidity, were populated over their roots by loads of moss beings, as well as the fruiting bodies of several fungi species. Jack-o-Lantern, Indigo Milk, some gorgeous gothic black mushroom I was never able to fully identify, and some others too, in shades of red-brown.

Outside the window of my bedroom was a ramshackle house, rather dilapidated and covered in ivy. There was a moldering wood-slat fence woven through with wild blackberry bushes that separated my “yard” from the space in that wild place. There was an old wooden canoe next to the back of the house from where I often heard a regular “bump-in-the-night” that I rather imagined was a possum. And the old outbuilding, also crumbling, was the home of several families, most notably adorable, the groundhog family, who had three babies in the spring season that I lived there.

Late at night, always in the ink-deep dark of the evening, I’d be lying in bed and hear a soft low metallic humming sound. It was just persistent enough to disrupt my rest. The discomfort of my inability to place this sound led me out into a midnight walk on more than one occasion searching for the origin of this noise. It sounded like something in between very distant construction noise, the electromagnetic buzz of old telephone wires, and a soft guttural purring that some cats or even birds might make. I wandered dark streets, as the sound moved, maze-like, and in spirals. I believed I was following the sound, but I never located it. It was a will-o-the-whisp, a trickster and something but also nothing.

This is the space I occupied. I had one human neighbor, who shared the other side of the duplex. He worked nights and slept days, and we briefly passed one another, a nodded “hello” that marked most timid communication during 2020 in the early Corona times.

The fungi people, the possum, the spiders and oak trees, the nothing-sound, were also all my neighbors. The following essay is what came about from this time and place, musings on hierarchy, and being human. It’s also about my personal learning,

that

even this skin and bone compilation, with this kind of brain, has its flaws and hang-ups, misguided obsessions, and…

that there’s more to this “human- being thing” than just conscious awareness.

This essay was edited for sharing via audio, that is, for listening rather than for reading.

“Your Highest Self is Your Smallest Self and It’s Not About You”

There’s a tendency in the spiritual “industry” to center the human experience. For starters, the most adhered - to religions, currently, are the monotheisms based on a humanoid godhead. In the libraries I frequently visit, the “Self-Help” and “Spirituality” books are often shelved in the same section. Life coaches and gurus make millions on “helping you to be the best version of yourself.”

Concepts of the Higher Self are a necessary mythos. And I don’t mean Myth as a synonym for “fake, false, untrue.” I consider myself an Archetypal Linguist and so I know and cherish the importance of mythology, storytelling, and the human necessity of making meaning.

Concepts of the Higher Self are necessary, but if we spend even one quarter of our spirit’s energy toward “achieving” higher self-hood, we are missing several points in our path of being embodied as humans.

Even among some “shamanic” (I put this in quotes, because if I use this word, I note that we have to score this word with its Western fetishization)

So even among some “shamanic” frameworks ( or otherwise known as earth- based spirituality), much of the content, the experiences, the workshops, classes and sessions are all based on the person, human concepts of “nature”, and projections: anthropomorphism.

A lot of mainstream Western herbalism centers on what plants can do for us, rather than the inherent value of a plant’s living wisdom,

a plant’s consciousness

whether we pick and eat it or not.

These practices still typically center healing people, guiding people, and serving people. Soul retrieval toward healing is potent trauma work. Necessary. But then we have hundreds of dollars to two-thousand- dollar weekend retreats

and well, since I’ve written this, I’ll add an addendum,

so much more, so many more for so much more money,

workshops that promise attendees they will “level up” to their next “version” of themselves. That has a bit of a different flavor.

There’s a fear of “playing small” especially in neo-liberal feminist girl-boss capitalist contexts.

(Yeah, say that five times, fast.)

I’m also told that in order to sell my work, either as an artist or as a spiritual facilitator, I have to present what I do in a way that appeals to potential clients’ sense of self, and how my work can help them. Things have to be framed within a package that centers a person.

Like, in marketing lingo, but it’s also seeped into busisness training for spiritual facilitators, that you have to highlight what peoples’ problem is an then create a solution specific to that problem. In other words, sometimes even creating a problem for people that only you can solve, to sell your work

And I cannot, will not, like,

that’s just not how I’m able to approach things.

And I won’t approach things from that perspective.

And.

And.

There is the platitude that when we heal ourselves, we heal the world.

This is true.

It is!

It’s not false…

we have to be healing, in a healing experience ourselves, to be of service.

But what if healing doesn’t necessarily look like “leveling up…”

and amid so much cultural trauma and masses of people (even religious and spiritual ones) that live in soul-divorce ,]

healing is a very personal journey,

but it’s perhaps less public, more about unplugging from larger collective harmful programs than “being better.”

Maybe healing work is a leveling down!

Maybe it’s about shrinking the self. Maybe the Highest Self is the smallest Self. Maybe many of us should be really proud that our “power animal” is the Field Mouse, or the Spider, or the Garden Snake, or the Snail, or the Earthworm.

Maybe we all just need to lie naked in the dirt for a while. Go to ground. Like so many other soft- bodied warm-blooded mammals do…

***

I love helping people. I do.

Whenever I was asked, as a child,

“What are you going to be when you grow up?”

I usually answered with : ballerina, veterinarian, actress, film score composer, marine biologist… until I attended college and was compelled to change my major from Creative Writing to Sociology.

“What are you going to do with a degree in Sociology?” they would ask.

I don’t know. I just want to help people.

“I just want to help people.”

I just want to help people.

That was my refrain for years and years.

And it’s still true. I want to help people.

And

Centering the human experience will not heal this world, or individual humans inside it. Not long term.

Psychology is great. Mental health is so important. And it seems like the more we learn about our human minds, the worse our world is responding to these insights, on the cultural level. Knowledge becomes an abuse of power.

This is because systems of oppression rely on something key, the world over, in the micro and macro realms of this 3D reality:

These systems of hierarchy and dominance (you don’t need me to name them)

count on producing humans that are divorced from their souls, and that are divorced from their relationship to the More -Than -Human,

the All-That-Is,

the Fabric of Life,

the Web of Being…

“Nature” as the Colonial Project is wont to call it.

So I write this to say with so much love and compassion: my business, my sacred work isn’t here to serve people. At least, not only people.

My work with people is a re-membering of what’s already inherent in the being-ness of humxn-ness. It’s a people-type project that centers ancient ways of being humxn, and how we relate: listen, give, receive, protect, nourish, make refuge among the Other World. How we relate as beings in humxn bodies with spirits of the land, old gods with names long forgotten that are known now simply as “mountain” or “river” or “sea,” the plant people, fungi spirits, our animal and stone kin… all of them.

If we work together, if we spend any increment of time in depth conversation,

If you’re reading (or listening to) this now,

I hope

you will forget about “you.” I will forget about “me.” “We” will forget about “us.” We will remember Us (with a capital “U”)

All of Us. From microbe, spore, to fruiting body,

Arachnid, Arthropod, to Winged Beautiful Insect.

To flower, fruit, root, and vine… moss and Stone and hot furry flesh- carrying wisdom- keepers.

Keepers of conscious wisdom, all of capital-U-

Us.

We are medicine.

Thank you for reading (listening)

I love you. I love people. I just want to help people. I just want to be a body on this earth with people, among so many other beautiful bodies, made of so many beautiful things.

Episode transcript:

Welcome all, to the Animist Activist Podcast. I’m Bri, founder, host and writer. I’m ecstatic you’re listening.

I’m gathering wood to build a fire, and it’s my vision that folks who listen in will sit alongside and feed it too, a twig here and there, some brush , and leaves.

Here, I hope you’ll find inspiration, fodder for wonder, critical thought,

and most importantly,

knowledge to deepen your connection with land,

the all-that-is, infinite web of life on this earth, and beyond-earth;

our world and your home and place in it.

Your presence is valuable, and our world desires connection with you as much as you desire connection with it.

I’m going to start each episode with an invocation and a prayer, so we are made aware of who we’re speaking to, who we speak of and so it’s understood that, in this podcast, we’re creating a sacred container for deep work to happen on every level we are able to allow that to transpire.

Welcome, listener. Take a deep breath, respire with me.

Here is our initiation:

Welcome spirits of place and space. welcome old gods. Welcome new gods. Welcome green-bleeding hearts. Welcome metal people, Welcome spirits of artificial intelligence. Welcome to the spirits of Land, Sea , and Sky and Fire. Welcome to the air we breathe.

Hello and welcome to Fire, spirits of Sun, Star, and ripening fruit that warms our world. Torch to torch, we light up in what we share in common. We gather around your comfort and warmth, discussing the ancient, the present, the future.

Fire, this time is for you.

***

Hi again. Thanks for your presence with the invocation. Now let’s begin at the beginning. What are we doing here? What is this space, this “audio ritual” for?

What is an Animist?

One who views the world through the lens of

Animism.

a word in reference to something older than the word itself.

An ontology of the world,

a philosophy of our basic existence,

understood by ancestors of all people living today. Animism references the life force energy that permeates all beings.

Some would say this permeates the objects and technologies human beings have created and become responsible for.

Things Like vehicles,

buildings,

or artificial intelligence.

Just a few examples.

Animism

desires to know the

elemental forces that give breath and energy to the world,

present also in our own bones,

in the core of the earth, our beloved home,

Energy present in the gas and matter

burning in the stars that create the light we see in the night sky.

Light that takes billions of years to reach our young eyes.

This energy is in a flea, in a cell of algae,

In a thread of hyphae branching through the mycelium that spreads as far beneath a forest floor as it does below the concrete our

“urban” human feet use day in and day out.

It’s in all these

and it connects all these.

This energy lives in the city, in the country, very present in wild spaces. Very present in our skyscrapers.

It is an energy that lives in us,

that connects to all seen and unseen.

Mysterious, but also practical.

Animism is not this energy, but it is a perspective useful in getting to know life-force-energy.

Animism is a perspective that is present in ecology and mysticism.

Animism speaks to the measured particulate in a sample of water taken from the French Broad River in my home-place, the Blue-Ridge Mountains.

It references how a creaking bunch

of tall, old Eastern Pine Trees

moving in the wind speak,

akin to moaning, to keening, as they sway.

A rare instance when trees speak in a language the

human ear can hear.

And What is Activist?

Why use a charged word? A political word?

An overused and under-proved word?

What is an activist really?

This word is

boots on the ground,

bare feet on land,

hands in soil, turning compost, mixing paint.

Activist, literally, just: in motion, or

decisive stillness.

Listening as much

(if not more than)

speaking.

Activism may or may not be loud. But it is a decided position. We are for the land.

This position,

of animist,

places context around our individual existences.

We understand we are part of that thing we call an ecosystem,

not separate from that thing we call

quote- “nature” - unquote

(”nature” is a term we will explore further throughout this podcast.)

Animism is not a religion.

It is a perspective, that, when fully realized, becomes a practice of relating.

how can we not act upon our realizations in relationship?

This perspective as a practice

makes it impossible not to make change,

to listen,

to relate.

So, we take action. We activate.

In this podcast we’ll explore animism, earth-based spirituality, and practicing living in right relationship, in place-

and body-

or form-based context

with all-that-is.

We understand that our actions and existence

have impact

on what we are physically and immediately aware of

and also our existence impacts what is yet unknown or unnamed by people.

We’re in relationship with that too.

We choose exploration of earth - based spirituality, medicine, and animism

in the context of various present colonial realities,

in this time of many things dying,

of many systems collapsing.

We also explore earth-based spirituality, medicine, and animism in context of

futures,

of post-colonial realities,

and the time after systems have collapsed.

And we are naturally in the context of

ancient and near-past peoples and ancestors.

They are in us.

We are in committed attempt to live in right relationship with land

in a place currently called the “United States of America.” This podcast is born from this place, in collaboration with land that is ancestral to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation.

And we de-platform human beings from our place in the hierarchy

that our current culture has designed for us to occupy.

In abstaining from this hierarchy we

are in the thing we are meant to dominate.

We are the same.

We recognize no hierarchical structure.

There is a pattern to our

earth-home-place-in- the-cosmos.

But this pattern is ever- mysterious and full of wonder.

And we respect this mystery, and

We are grateful to be here.

***

So hopefully at this close of this episode you’re getting a gist of what to expect with your time and spending your time in this space with me.

I won’t always be the only one speaking; I’ll have guests but very much so on occasion.

So again, I’m just grateful that you’re listening. Thanks for being here, and the first

let’s say, “meaty” episode, will be coming up in a month. So stay tuned.

I appreciate you, and until next time, do take care of yourself.

And, if you want to stay up to date and receive all notification of this podcast and its new episodes

plus some extra content that I might throw in here and there, subscribe to our newsletter.

Thank you very much; I’m really glad we could connect this way, and I look forward to reconnecting soon.