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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Sun, August 30, 2009 - 10:25 PMI liked this article. It speaks to many things I think are true. The only real flaw is the insistence that hunter/gatherers are synonymous with animists. These things do go great together but they are not the same things. Despite their argument, farmers can be animists. And most modern hunters are not animists. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Sun, August 30, 2009 - 10:30 PMGood points Forest.
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Mon, August 31, 2009 - 6:43 AMI also thought it was a good essay . . . just a bit behind what's happening with the process of "recovering" animism and with the flaw Forest points out. Charlton writes "Alienation is therefore necessary to the generation and maintenance of our world, and returning to a thoroughgoing, society-wide animism would be impossible without a return to hunter-gatherer lifeways." I don't think that's true.
I believe that we can recover much of animism and in so doing, solve the problem of alienation that Charlton takes as his starting point. The people involved in this BRA tribe, for example, do more than enter shamanic trances on vacation (see those last few sections). We seek to live in the animist reality and bring the knowledge and the values we acquire there to our lives in the "ordinary" (or colonized or dominator or mundane or rational) world, thus healing and transforming the ordinary world. -
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Unsu...
Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Mon, August 31, 2009 - 12:23 PMexactly guys!
thats great hearing you folks!
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Wed, September 9, 2009 - 12:11 PMI think that what Bruce Charlton is saying is that when people went from hunter-gatherers to farmers and beyond, they went from just being one piece in the puzzle to trying to control the other pieces as they saw fit. When you have a garden or field then you have to identify some plants as being unwanted, or weeds, that will compete with your food plants. When you have livestock - chickens, for instance, then you have to be at war with raccoons, possums, hawks, foxes and weasels or mink and whatever. Then, instead of these weeds or predators being fellow citizens in the whole community of life, they become predators on your particular piece of it, and you try to get rid of them. I can't think of anyone I know who would say, "OK, this many sheep (or whatever) I give to the coyotes this year. This is my share to keep their community fed." And hunters these days are more concerned with deer (for the most part) as targets than as something they have an intimate understanding of, though there may be a few who treat it that way. But they are not hunter-gathers - only weekend hunters who then go back home to their artificial existences. Most are animists in no sense of the word.
That doesn't mean that people can't strive to come to a new animism, but it is much more intense when your existence depends on your ability to understand every plant and animal and feature of the natural world, and this is your task literally from birth onward so that it becomes second nature. To the extent that you feel that you have to control nature to have a nice lawn, or whatever, you are at odds with nature's plan of biodiversity. In it's simplist form it's a control issue - who is in control?
Well, that's the way I relate to the essay anyway. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Wed, September 9, 2009 - 1:49 PMi really appreciate your comment Cacatua. I straddle a plant based world, and having grown up in the woods, have hunted and trapped for food and a living. Iv'e chased things down and ate them, and on the other hand, when i would garden in the desert mountains, i made screened bottom raised beds, which eliminates the ground squirells and moles and such. But i let a certain amount be eaten by the cottontail and some deer, cause i am not one to sleep in my garden. (besides, they are quiet, they snuck up on me in my own cabin, haha) I do what i can to deter critters that strip my garden, but i do allow for some plants to exist as food for other than human people. Or, i would leave some food out in the garden, and they would choose to eat that instead (im good with animal cooking). In the end, thats why it just has to be simple - life is a circle, and we are all one. each have a time and place. my two cents. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Wed, September 9, 2009 - 2:54 PMI'm impressed with the lengths that you have gone to, to try to coexist as much as possible rather than to control everything. I think that the urge to control is probably our greatest flaw as humans because we are so good at it. Everything else kind of springs from that.
I have lived in the woods, or on the edge of it for about 37 years now. I've been a hunter-gatherer at times of game and nuts and berries and wild plants and firewood. These days I am a gatherer mostly of woodland materials for artwork and of any other gifts that I come across.
What do you do about controling your immediate environment? The woods are full of roaches and it is a battle in this old farmhouse every year, but I refuse to use chemicals. There are always a number of other insect and spider visitors here, like the two huge crane flys that I just let back outside, or wolf spiders which I welcome to patrol the place. Love singing crickets and have been known to bring the last of them inside in the fall. I think daddy longlegs are hilarious. Sneaky snake lives in the cellar - more power to him, getting the deer mice down there! We have chipmunks under rest of the house and in the wall here by the computer - I can hear one scratching himself, with his little leg going bump-bump-bump against something every so often. We love them but are beginning to worry about them chewing into the wiring. We have a real thing going with tree frogs. They like to hang out in our mailbox which has made for some interesting encounters when they ride into the car with the mail. They also get into the house every so often. The last one jumped up into my chair to ask me to for help, as he was matted with lint from his travels. We used to have bats in the one chimney and there would be a yearly procession of them, but I got sloppy about hauling one out and ended up taking rabies shots, and after that we had the chimney worked on at the top so that the bats could no longer colonize it.
Mostly this all doesn't bother me, as I have always said that the best thing about this old house is that you can't hurt it too much, but every now and then I get really fed-up with it. I just don't want to go to war with all of these people. My husband grew up here, and none of it bothers him too much, except for Sneaky Snake. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Wed, September 9, 2009 - 6:40 PMi've done lots of various things thru the years to try to naturally regulate my enviroment. Something i think is good for woods folks to have, for things from fleas (can be quite a problem at times), ticks, mites, spiders and such is:
alchohol and a hand pump sprayer-
oil of Erigeron (flea bane) a type of wild aster
borneol camphor (very inexpensive from a chinese herb pharmacy)
Bay leaf oil
Pennyroyal oil
clove oil
you can spray anywhere - on the floor, around the door, on the dog, on the cat (if you use erigeron, then make sure that preparation be used along the neck line and spine, so they can't reach it to lick it. You can spray your bed down, and squirt it into nooks and crannies where little biters may like to stay.
for the inwall chipmunk discouragement (again, i think its better to 'discourage' rather than to kill), i would reccomend an aromatic liquid, of alcohol, borneol camphor, cinnamon and clove oil. if you have access, spray that allover inside the wall, or, drill some strategic holes and squirt copious amounts in. buy a couple pounds of cayanne pepper. if there is half an inch of it where they walk, they will soon decide to find a more convenient place to walk too. or, open a bit of the wall, put in a live trap (they just cannot resist peanut butter), and remove them one at a time, and take them to a wonderful abundant wooded area a bit removed from yourself, then pepper the walls and close it back up.
some ground insects that can be a problem, can be eliminated or discouraged with diatomaceous earth, and this also works semi good with wild felines as well, don't like the gritty feel between their toes.
deer generally think the highest pole in a fence line is the top of the fence. So every 10 or 20 feet, put up a slender 15 foot pole/branch. They think the fence is all that tall. (northwest anyway, :)
and the mailbox- i don't know if if would discourage like it does for snails - but the guys reccomended i use copper tape around my pots of cactus. and not a single snail tresspassed. i wonder if perhaps 6 or 8 inches of copper tape around the pole- maybe that will deter them.
sometimes too, animal person recognize medicine or juju. it is not unusual in spirit practice, for the food that is arranged for a spirit and put outside - to not be eaten by animals. They recognize the difference. One time i could only get rid of a possum by praying to my ellegua (trickster spirit) and asked him to bless a pile of sawdust, which i sprinked around like salt for a vampire, and the possum left me in peace. its always good tho, i stop, look and listen, and try to understand the dynamic of the other being, from its perspective, and see if there are any alternatives you can offer that would be more beneficial or desirable for them. then everybody wins. sometimes i would go nuts with my medicine plants being eaten too much. i always preceded every evicition with a converstation with them regarding the need to leave enouph for it to keep growing and producing.
the deer and such stopped being a problem when i put mosquito net over the door,and left it open, my dogs loved to bark and chase them around in the night.
and the only thing that discourages coyote, for me, was my ritual bullroarer. If there were getting to be too large of packs (for safely of animals and neighbors and dogs, etc) i would speak to the sky in the night with the bullroarer. they can hear its tone for miles, and it has a tendency (90% for me) to send the crowd to the other side of the plateau for their night romps. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Wed, September 9, 2009 - 10:40 PMAnyone think his argument a bit similar to Ishmael?
Oh, and ever use biodynamic holocaust preparations (burnt pests ashes spread around with wood ash) Flint?
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Thu, September 10, 2009 - 12:52 AMwording that way makes it a very dicey concept to discuss, but it would have to be a yes. arg :P
but seriously, i haven't heard that one, and i am very fond of biodynamic methods, so i appreciate it, thank you Nick. i like using the homeopathic herb sprays used to promote the energy merging with the land again, from the early steiner experimentation.
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Thu, September 10, 2009 - 8:11 AMWell, I thank you for the suggestions, and I have printed them off, but with the exception of the growing chipmunk problem and the yearly roach wars, I'm kind of fond of the rest of the critters, even if they occasionally get on my nerves. They are part of my social circle and I enjoy their company for the most part. Having them around also weeds out uncongenial human visitors! ;o)
In my experience the cayenne pepper thing is overrated. I got it in bulk at the food coop and tried to discourage moles in the garden with very generous applications of it where they were coming up under plants. I thought that if anything would react it would be a mole getting a snoutfull of hot pepper, but it didn't seem to phase them. I've tried it in my birdfeeders to keep out the squirrels, and it doesn't seem to do any good there either. I know it would keep me away! There are so many chipmunks in the woods that I'm afraid that getting rid of "our guests" will only create a vacuum that will suck in a replacement crew. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, as I can remember when I first heard them barking in the woods I thought they were some sort of bird that I could never see. This must have been 15-20 years ago. Now they are everywhere and into everything. They had a bumper crop of young ones this year too. I don't know just what we will end up doing unless we do some sort of major overhaul around this house's foundation because the way it is, keeping these guys out is about as successful as hauling water in a sieve. We don't have cats because of all of the bird feeders. The dog would love to get them, but they are usually too quick.
I don't have a bull roarer. I do have a shofar. I found it at the Salvation Army store one day. Any uses for that? It usually gets the dog's attention, unless he is trying to bark a woodchuck to death under some outbuilding. -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Thu, September 10, 2009 - 1:48 PMI was gonna say from the start that it sounds like it might be beneficial to make more habitat for predators in general. A cat is a good start, and there's ways to hang bird-feeders so the cats can't get them (even if drives the cats fucking batty, lol).
But maybe research what kinds of birds of prey, and small predators you have in your area, find out what kinds of niches or nests or whatever they like to live in and design some niches like that.....Odds are they'll come around before too long....
It's a possibility anyways!
:) -
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Re: interesting essay... Alienation, Neo-shamanism and Recovered Animism
Thu, September 10, 2009 - 2:30 PMI've been thinking on that. We have Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks that love hunting birds at our feeders. Charly saw one up the lane the other day with a chipmunk, so maybe they will get some. Occasionally a red-tailed hawk comes by too. I have put tops of one sort or another on all of the feeders so that the birds can eat without having a hawk swoop down on them, so hawks would have to catch the chipmunks somewhere out and about, but they have lots of cover here with all of the woods plants up close. The little boogers have quite a network of holes and tunnels.
The feeders themselves are part of the problem because they also feed the chipmunks. They cannot get into some of them. I could conceivably do some trimming and put stovepipe on the four "legs" of the big platform feeder so that the chipmunks can't get into it, but the big one on the ground is another matter.
Maybe import a couple of cats? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - I like cats but I don't like what they do to my birds. I wish they could be programmed to NOT hunt birds. How's that for objectifying another creature? We've also got the corgi to chase away every cat that gets dumped out here, so there's another problem. It does deserve some consideration though.
I can see this is going to require some more serious thought and perhaps some choices that I'd rather not make. Thanks for your suggestions.
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