Dear ones -I’ve come to believe in an animistic world - or perhaps I should say: I’ve come back to believing in one. As children, we inherently understand the world as alive, magical, conscious. We inherently know there is more to it than what we can always see with our physical eyes or touch with our physical hands. We innately know how to mine stories and our wild, untamed imaginations for wisdom and kernels of insight from beyond. Then we grow up and we’re taught to be practical, to be ‘real’. We are taught, not to marry our abilities to sense between worlds, but to discount one in favor of the other. And our lives become poorer, more disconnected, more anxious and afraid and lonely because of it. It’s possible to pursue remedies for that disconnection, than depression and anxiety and sense of lack without ever getting to the root of it. It’s possible to find ways to cope without ever reconnecting. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not the whole story either and many of us seem unwilling to settle any longer. Tracing my way back to indigenous, land-based, animistic wisdom traditions was one opening for me. Working with plant teachers and medicines, not from a Western mindset, but from a mind willing to be changed, was another. Next week, you can listen to a conversation I had with Jaime Lehner about my journey with the plants in re-animating and re-wilding myself; re-awakening to and unlearning a perspective of the world which kept me lost and adrift. We (and the other healers, visionaries and leaders who are living in relationship with the plants and are part of these conversations) sit with the questions: How can we truly honor the plants and embody their wisdom? How can we approach them with reverence and grow beyond our current perceptions of reality? How can we live more in alignment with the truth that the plants reveal to us? You can watch all these conversations in Living the Sacred: Weaving the Wisdom of Plant Medicines into Our Modern World. They will be aired online September 20-22, 2023. You can sign up for FREE here. May these conversations inspire us to reconsider the narratives we are living in, our inherent connection to nature, and where we are going as humans on this planet. All with the wisdom & guidance of the plants! 🌿 With love, Kate P.S. The conversation series will be available to you for FREE for one week. If you would like longer with these conversations, you can always purchase an all-access pass which gives you access for one year. This link to do so will let them know I sent you. Purchasing the pass supports the operational costs of the program, me, and Amazon Frontlines (an organization empowering indigenous people on the ground in the Amazon to protect their lives, their traditions and their home). P.P.S. If you would like to hear more of my thoughts on animism and what it means to me, you can check out this solo podcast episode from earlier this year here! |
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