An Introduction to Contemporary Animism: One

I am an animist. This is what I believe:

I believe that the universe (for want of a better word) is made of spirit-matter stuff. All that exists, exists because something non-material and something material became joined, as in a sexual intercourse, and out of that joining the universe was born.

All material being is suffused with intelligence and spirit.

All spiritual being is manifest in some way, be it as stars or blades of grass.

God—Great Being, All Things, Our Source—is also spirit-matter. The universe is the body of God.

Human beings are also spirit-matter. We are spirits in animal form. And so, too, is all of creation spirit-matter, all of creation is intelligence and spirit made manifest, and all things, even stars and blades of grass, are intelligent and spiritual.

All creation has language, even if we cannot speak it, although once upon a time, humanity could speak the language of animals and animals could speak the language of humans, and we recognized our kinship. We also recognized our kinship with rocks, waters, sky, and other created beings. Once upon a time.

An animist believes these things. An animist is so named because he or she believes in a reality in which all things are animate, and no thing is without soul. All creation is family. All is worthy of respect. We have no right to enslave another being, human or non-human, even though we kill and eat it. Nothing may be owned. It is all the body of God.

Love,
Lilly