I have been reading through a collection of Aldo Leopold’s classic nature writing, A Sand County Almanac as well as some essays from Round River. Leopold was a naturalist who appreciated the beings of the wilderness both as he relied on them for food and fuel, but also as autonomous animals, plants and places. One of the themes that has resonated strongly with me is that of poignant loss. Throughout his writings, he mourned the extinction of native species, whether... Read more
Back in March, I went to visit my parents in Missouri. While I was there, I was horrified to find that the first little patch of scrub woods that I considered “my territory”, as it were, had been completely bulldozed and turned into a pharmacy. There wasn’t a single bit left. What made it worse was that I had intended during this visit to pick up a few more physical traces of the place to go with the pine cone... Read more
In my years of practicing totemism, I’ve noticed that it is much easier for we human animals to connect to other animal beings. And we are especially biased toward those animals that more resemble us—mid-sized, erring on the side of larger, mammals, very often carnivores or omnivores. If we deviate much, it’s usually to birds, our living dinosaurs. Reptiles and amphibians are rarer, and if you want to get into the downright exotic work with a fish or an invertebrate.... Read more
To our readership: I’ve been rather busy as of late, and haven’t had as much time for writing. I’ll be back to it soon enough, but in the meantime I wanted to share something I wrote two years ago over on my personal blog. It’s a concept for which I’d like to see get more exposure and feedback; paganism often tends to go to many of the same sources over and over again for inspiration, and in my studies and... Read more
So you may have noticed I was pretty quiet throughout February as I was out of town for a significant portion of the month. First, I headed north to Seattle to vend at FaerieCon West, and then just a few days later my partner and I drove down to San Jose for PantheaCon. On our way back, we took the laid-back scenic route up the Pacific coastline, since I hadn’t seen the coast south of Newport, OR, and we were... Read more
First of all, thank you to everyone for your diversity of responses on my last post, We Do Not Return to Nature. We Are Already There. And especial thanks to John for his thoughtful response post and the continuing discussion there. The issues of urban sustainability and the overall human infrastructure are things that I feel deserve more attention, both in relation to spirituality and connections, and in the broader discourse of the human condition. (Or, in short, “this is... Read more
You notice how the URL for this section of the Pagan Newswire Collective has the word “nature” in it? Of course. It’s specifically for nature-based pagan religious and spiritual discussions and ideas. I would bet that the majority of people who think of “nature” are thinking of open areas that have a minimum of human impact, where the signs of humanity are reduced or even almost entirely eradicated. And I feel that’s a grave shortcoming in our perceptions. I want... Read more
In the previous section of this series, I discussed a guided meditation to help you find animal totems associated with the three basic evolutionary parts of the human brain, the reptilian, old mammalian, and new mammalian parts of the brain. If you have not yet read the first two sections, please go back and read them here and here so that this section will make more sense. Once you have identified these three totems, here are some ways to work... Read more
In my last post, I introduced the model of the triune brain (reptilian, old mammalian, new mammalian) as a structure for basic understanding of yourself as a human animal, not just a human being. If you have not yet read the first part of this series, please go and check it out over here before reading on, as it will help you make sense of this second portion, for it is here is where we can put the theory into... Read more
The human brain is a fascinating thing. I had already learned a good deal about it just in personal reading, but when I went through my graduate program to get my counseling psych degree, I got a lot more up-to-date information. For example, I learned about the triune brain—the idea that we have the reptilian brain (the basal ganglia, the most primitive part of the brain), the paleomammalian brain (the limbic system) and the neomammalian brain (the neocortex). What I... Read more
Paths Through The Forests
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