20/10/2024
Animists are people who recognize that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others. Animism is lived out in various ways that are all about learning to act respectfully (carefully and constructively) toward and among other persons.
Graham Harvey
This is Graham Harvey’s definiton of New Animism, which you can find in his wonderful book “Animism: Respecting the Living World”. As we can read in the definition, it focuses on personhood of and relationship with a diversity of people, the great majority of whom are not human. This idea might sound strange to many in modern society, but it is actually second nature to those part of Earth-honouring traditions all around the world. Re-learning how to respectfully interact with other-than-human beings through place-based rituals and etiquette is a big part of being a practising animist.
Bioregional animists make use of animistic core values to deepen their relationship with their own bioregion - their Life-Place.
