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i want to share some animist wisdom from my culture, in the land of India, and from my favourite TV show as a child, Avatar: The Last Airbender that i find quite grounding, and helpful. the truth is relating to spirits is a lot like relating to animals
we sense we can do things for the animals they can’t. we can move a dish of milk on the ground for them to feed. we also sense they can do something things we can’t. they can fly, slink, bear a relationship to nature we don’t. they teach us
spirits don’t have corporeal form. the ocean is great, but it can’t make an offering for itself on the beach the way you can make for it. when you do, you do something for it, that it can’t, like leaving feed for a cow
we know what it means to exist in happy independence, interdependence and reciprocity with animals. if you’re a farmer, maybe you depend on your live stock for your livelihood. some tribes and villages felt they depended on a spirit that way too
the spirits were of embedded in the context of a pragmatic relevance. and even today, in india, for semi urban dwellers, their livelihood depends not on the cows and dogs that roam, but they consider them still sacred, and that they share the land with them
i find in modern western societies, their relationship to spirit is this weird, relationshipless call for help. "ah, great spirit!" they tentatively mumble, moving closer to the temple. "i need this and this and that." there’s not a knowing of what to do
they’re afraid of the baby, of the animal. they are treating spirits like, well, the way they treat god, or rather their absent father sky god. it’s not a relationship founded in intimacy and mutual relationship
in the culture of my family, gods were something that lived alongside you, in your house. they were something you prayed to, slathered buttered on, invented a new god maybe for passing the SATs or whatever relevant to your life
we had a familiarity with animals who lived there. there was a sense, this land was deeply shared. populated by intelligence far more numerous and other than our own. so when it came to spirits, it wasn’t so confusing. it wasn’t so absent
i don't mean pets, i mean animals, whether they live in your farm, or neighbourhood. maybe it applies to pets too, but pets as a concept im less familiar with, and it feels energetically different, part of nuclear family. it’s different from sharing land