Original post from 30.1.21
How can we regain the ability to communicate, to hear both our deep selves and the multitude of beings that are here with us?
There are many approaches to radical inward listening. Since I became interested in the subject in the 70’s and 80’s, the field has developed so much. I’m sure my life would have been completely different if I had had access then to what exists today. My own practice in recent years has centered Voice Dialogue, a method I can rely on to be both fun and profound, that consistently results in growth when I practice according to the guidelines. And there are other good ones as well.
On the other hand, how to listen outward, to the rest of the world, with an animist approach, is still not taught much.
I recommend starting in a natural space that is relatively healthy. I’m assuming my audience here consists of people who are sensitive to the harm done to plants and habitats that our society takes for granted. It’s better to begin without a load of pain and guilt. Our own sticky emotions cloud our ability to listen. If there is no healthy nature around, you can cultivate a small plant that will be happy to grow in a pot. (Plants in the wild also grow and thrive in rock crevices and all kinds of random places.)
Start by paying attention to the beings with you and listen with wonder and the recognition that you are approaching a conscious and holy form of life, much like yourself, only with a different body, consciousness, and experience than yours. The connection you create depends very much on the quality of your presence (quality in the sense of its character, not higher or lower). The quality you bring to the meeting will affect the quality you meet. I personally draw inspiration from reading and hearing texts or interviews that remind me of the intelligence and awareness of those I seek to meet.* Our perceptions are deeply influenced by what we hear from others.
Greet those beings near you simply and honestly – and of course slow down. This won’t work if you seek the immediate gratification we are used to. It’s best to come with an offering (compost tea is a beautiful offering for plants), with the attitude that the very relationship is a gift. (That’s why you don’t always have to bring something – like coming to meet new neighbors, it’s nice to bring some pastry, but it’s better to arrive empty-handed than not show up.) Then take time, observe, listen, enter into meditation, see what comes up.
Much of the nature we encounter is not healthy, thriving, or intact. On my walks, I come across trees that have been brutally cut down and plants that have been sprayed at the edges of the fields. In such cases, I suggest that we begin by noticing our own reaction and holding it lightly. Other bodies and other forms of life are different from us, and the goal is to connect with their experience, and not project our pain and guilt on them. Sometimes we are surprised to find that the other’s experience is completely different from what we expected.
Of course this doesn’t absolve us from responsibility to live as a mature and responsible part of the biosphere, inasmuch as possible . I think I’ll expand on that next week.
*Here are several links to things that inspired me. They are all in English, but this is actually the reason I write these posts and teach these processes, to make them available in Hebrew:
I seem to have written this before I became a die-hard fan of the wonderful The Emerald podcast. The quality has improved tremendously since this iconic episode, but here is the best description I know of how the quality of the approach produces the quality of the meeting
One of my main inspirations for this topic is Stephen Harrod Buhner, a herbalist, poet, author, researcher, mystic and animist who returned his body to his beloved forest just a few weeks ago. This video is one of my favorites.
Here he pretty much presents the bulk of his thinking, only without the (central) part of opening the gates of perception.
I shared this conversation between David Abram and Charles Eisenstein two weeks ago, but it is also inspiring and relevant to what I wrote today.
And there are many books by animist authors like Buhner and Abram, and our local Oshri Hilzenrath’s How Does It Feel To Be You
When I uploaded it in 2021, I wrote that occasionally there is also Daniel Foor’s Practical Animism course. In the meantime, I taught a first course in Hebrew, and plan to have many more, so talk to me if you want to hear about the next one!