Join host, Greg Carlwood, of The Higherside Chats podcast as he talks Animal Magic, Neo-Paganism, & Totems with guest, Lupa Greenwolf.

While many of us recognize that the ancient perspective of indigenous cultures spanning throughout history has placed an overwhelming amount of importance on the connection between humans and nature, we can also acknowledge that modern Western society has divorced itself from the natural perspective.

With the intersection of nature and magic in our rear view, our isolation  leading to our justification for cruelty, destruction, and eradication of species worldwide, it appears our stewardship to Mother Earth is on the decline.

Fortunately, the importance of nature, especially in conjunction with consciousness, and the values of indigenous cultures and Pagan communities are experiencing a triumphant return to the forefront on the human psyche under the guidance of people like today's guest.

A practitioner of animal magic and Neopaganism, Lupa Greenwolf joins The Higherside to help us reforge our relationship with the natural world.

3:00 Lupa kicks things off by walking though the pillars of her magical practice. She details the early days of cutting her teeth on the generic, Wiccan works of Scott Cunningham, her discovery of Chaos magic, and her winding path Neopaganism and Totemic magic. Greenwolf explains how in recent years, after feeling the ritualistic aspects of Paganism pulling her away from her fundamentals, such as time spent consciously connecting to nature, she has returned to the basics and her views as a naturalist pagan no longer encompass a belief in the supernatural. Greg and Lupa also discuss the totem, an archetypal being that embodies all the qualities of a given species, and the recent push from Pagans to scientifically validate their beliefs on consciousness.

13:00 With undeniable similarities among ideas and practices of indigenous cultures and the nonexistent communication among them, it's easy to see how this respect for animals and nature may be an inherent, and subconscious piece of humanity. And, in our drive to connect and better understand how these nonhuman beings interpret the world, we tend to under estimate their role, anthropomorphize their experience, distort reality, and demystify nature. Greg and Lupa discuss the ways we misinterpret animal behavior, the need to value all species equally, and the reasons we should recognize the importance of each specie in it's given ecosystem.

24:00 Throughout history, cultures have maintained a coexistent and codependent relationship with nature, and it is only recently that we have begun divorcing ourselves from it. With the vast majority of cultures during the history of our species incorporating animals of some kind in th...