Bioregional Animism came to me after years of working with shamanism as a spiritual practice and way of healing and growing.

After many peak experinces and attepmts to find my way, i was shown that the earth and the physical world can provide a way of learning and growing that is focused on intigration, centeredness and grounding your lessons. shamanism was something i had
allways been interested in but it never made alot of sense until i had started working with a south american healer, who wass verry focused on plant teacher medicine as well as the eagle and the condor prophecy. i started to see how to work with the earth and sky, but i was frustrated by learning from a tradition that was out side of my daily experince as being an expression of the ecosystem i lived within, the condor the harpy eagle, the jaguar, the speaking vine and leaves of the amazon, these were not a part of my daily life. i wanted to learnfrom the land i lived as one with right here and now. the amazonian ways were a good introduction on how to do this, as were the north american long dance ceremonies, that my teacherr brought from his teahcer in new mexico.

i eventualy started to focus just on the land under my feet and the sky directly above me. i began to develope relationships with my bioregion and during ceremonies with the plant teachers many lessons started to emerge te term bioregional animism came to me.

I had never read any books on bioregionalism but i had begun a very intuative discoarse with the bioregion i lived within and started developeing what i called finding shamanism in your back yard, a sort of DYI tradition, a new animist cosmology based on dirrect relationships with the land you live within and the sky you swim in.

when i did read kirkpatrick sales book dwellers within the earth i was shocked as to how much alike the messages i was recieveing were to his work and the basic ideals of bioregionalism. though i was a bit saddened to find that there was little spiritual basis for the work, the animism was absent.
the definition of bioregionalism is this...
The belief that social organization and environmental policies should be based on the bioregion rather than on a region determined by political or economic boundaries.

the basic definition of animism is this...
1. The belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena.
2. The belief in the existence of spiritual beings that are separable or separate from bodies.
3. The hypothesis holding that an immaterial force animates the universe.
The new animism however is slightly differant.... as seen here in wikpedia....

"The new animism

In an article entitled "Revisiting Animism", Nurit Bird-David builds on the work of Irving Hallowell by discussing the animist worldview and lifeway of the Nayaka of India. Hallowell had learnt from the Ojibwa of southern central Canada that the humans are only one kind of 'person' among many. There are also 'rock persons', 'eagle persons' and so on. Hallowell and Bird-David discuss the ways in which particular indigenous cultures know how to relate to particular persons (individuals or groups). There is no need to talk of metaphysics or impute non-empirical 'beliefs' in discussing animism. What is required is an openness to consider that humans are neither separate from the world nor distinct from other kinds of being in most significant ways. The new animism also makes considerably more sense of attempts to understand 'totemism' as an understanding that humans are not only closely related to other humans but also to particular animals, plants, etc. It also helps by providing a term for the communities among whom shamans work: they are animists not 'shamanists'. Shamans are employed among animist communities to engage or mediate with other-than-human persons in situations that would be fraught or dangerous for un-initiated, untrained or non-skillful people. The -ism of 'animism' should not suggest an overly systematic approach (but this is true of the lived reality of most religious people), but it is preferable to the term shamanism which has led many commentators to construct an elaborate system out of the everyday practices of animists and those they employ to engage with other-than-human persons. The new animism is most fully discussed in a recent book by Graham Harvey, Animism: Respecting the Living World. But it is also significant in the 'animist realist' novels now being written among many indigenous communities worldwide. The term 'animist realism' was coined by Harry Garuba, a Nigerian scholar of literature, in comparison with 'magical realism' that describes works such as Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude."
Though it is said that " There is no need to talk of metaphysics or impute non-empirical 'beliefs' in discussing animism." it is still important to acknowledge thr transpresonal dimensions of animist thought, the transrational relationships animist people have with all that is, and the polyphisic world view of animist people. the beleif is spirit as it is interpitated by moderrn scholars is errouneous, animist do not have beleif systems so much as methods for having dirrect relationships with what has been desribed as spirits. the new animism has done a wonderfull job in helping modren man to see that we are one with our enviroment and that we are not the top of the totem pole, all beings are persons, but in some ways it has ignored the spirit of animism. it is my opinion the through the mere act of relateing to an other than human person we discover spirit.
and so the old definition of animism still applies yet i am thankfull for the grounded perspective on the new animism.

so why have i combined bioregionalism with animism? why bioregional animism? instead of just animism....or the new animism.
just as a reminder really. to put it just real simpley, its just a reminder. so many of us that seek out shamanism are realy trying to find that dirrect relationship with spirit and with the earth. many of us just really want to become animists not shamans. but we have been transplanted out of our ancetoral lands we are no longer know what it means to be native to a place as freya mathews points out. we no longer have traditions and ways of knowing and being that reflect this feeling and act of being native. we go and find other natives that can help us often times just really missing the point, following the messages of the spirit of another land, a land that we are not native to. by this i do not mean that if we are europeans or our ancestors are europeans we can only be native to that place, by native i mean we live as one with the land we call home, be saying native i mean belonging to the land that feeds you and houses you, the land your body is composed of.
so i placed bioregional infront of animism as a reminder to those that are seeking and trying to find a way to become native again that the lessons in life they are seeking are in their home, in their bioregion, in their backyard, not some far off exotic place nor is the wisdom they seek to come from another culture. The knowledge and wisdom of animist people, the comsologies of animist people, the healing and spiritual lore of shamans comes from a deep intimate relationship with the land or bioregion that these people live within.

If you take a look at what the new animism is saying, which is really just a clearer look at old animism from a western perspective, you see that wee are surrounded by other than human persons, that we can establish relationships with, that wee can learn from, persons that in all actuality NEED US to establish relationships with them, to commune with them, to ally ourselves with them and co-create with them.
if you want to learn about healing and divination ask the teachers that animist peoples have asked for millions of years the spirit of the land and sky and all of the otherr than human persons that share the land and sky with you, if you want to learn how to live in harmony with the land and sky and all of the other than human persons you live with, ask them. dont ask those that live some where else ask the locals! find your own way create your own relationships do it with a community of friends and family. bring all of the other than than human persons in your bioregion into your concept of family and friends, through developing a relationsship with them you find out rather quickly that your allready related, interconnected or one.

Alot of people want to relate to thier world in the way that other animist peoples do. this has caused alot of resentment from other native people, native peopel that feel we are missing the point. its not about how another relates to spirit, to life, to wellness, to the bioregion that you live within, to other than human persons, its the way that YOU RELATE. YOU need to develope your own relationships and through those relationships new cultures will naturaly emerge, new ways, even new languages, arts customs, all though the cultivation of co-creative relationships with whats in our back yard.

so bioregional animism is nothing new its just a new way of saying something thats been around for a real long time. but i think its important to say it. to bereminded that animism and shamanism doesnt come from some place that is other, it comes from a dirrect relationship between you and your back yard, you and your bioregion....
very few people are saying this right now, with the eception of native elders who are trying to remind us that we are missing the point when we adopt anothers traditions. Most teachers of shamanism aren't teaching this point of view, they skip the entire process of becomeing an animist or a native and go straight to the power, the healing, the mystery. They forget that shamans are healers and diviners employed by animist people with prexisting cosmologies developed by first hand experinces with their land and sky, or bioregion as i simply put it.
bioregional animism addresses this and attempts to inspire us to deveolpe a bioregional animist cosmology from first hand personal relationships with the land and its people through the act of communieng with the land and sky and the otherr than human people that are expressions of the land and sky, just like you.