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EcoMagick

  
 
LVX23
17:50 / 10.08.04
I'm working on a paper examining ways to utilize magick for ecological healing & reinforcement. Particularly I'm interested in ways that people take their magick outdoors and try to plug-in to nature, either to absorb its energy or to give back some of your own. I imagine this could be both local magick (working with a particular forest or river, for example) or global magick (working to feed the planetary body of nature).

And I guess the meta question here is, how does your magick involve nature? Or does it at all?
 
 
LykeX
21:25 / 10.08.04
I like to think of everything as spirits. That is, that everything either is controlled by, inhabited by or literally is spirits. I don't know if it's really like that, but I find it a useful way of thinking, since the possibilities for manipulating the world become so obvious. If your computer isn't working, talk to the spirit in it and find out what's wrong.

Anyway, this kind of thinking lends itself very well to nature-themed magick, of some sort, and in the past month or so, I've felt a strong connection to Rain. I've tried such things as simply talking to the rain everytime it rained and attempting to connect via dreams.
Not a lot of success, though. Oh well.

I often find that if you get near trees, plants, streams and such, you (I) get into a certain mood. A little more calm and a little more "in tune" with things. Another thing that I've done is to try to connect myself to certain locations by a kind of give and take approach. To drink some water from a stream (if it's not too polluted) or eat a leaf. Then leave behind a bit of skin, some hair, saliva or blood.
I don't really know what effects it has had. This sort of thing usually occurs by random ideas, without any specific intention.
Also, I've noticed that this mood-change also can occur in the city without a tree anywhere nearby. I'm not sure what triggers it exactly, but I think it's more likely to happen at night, possibly due to the absence of people who might disturb you.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough now. Next batter up!
 
 
trouser the trouserian
04:41 / 11.08.04
LVX
been involved with the Dragon Ecomagic network pretty off and on since they started. There's a "guide to ecomagic campaigning" you might find a useful read on the "tools" section of their site.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
08:14 / 11.08.04
LVX
I'm gonna be too busy over the next few days to engage with this thread as much as I'd like to, so instead, here's a few links of ecomagic-related articles that I've found inspiring and thought-provoking:

The Ecology of Magic - Re-weaving the Tapestry of Culture
Sacred Ecology
Make Your Voice Heard As You Tread Gently On Our Mother Earth
Earth Rites - A Chaos Magickian’s approach to practical Green Magic
Ekomagic
The pulse of Gaia
Balance in the Ecosphere
 
 
LVX23
18:31 / 12.08.04
Thanks, aog. Lots of good reading there. I'm glad to see some folks are taking this sort of thing seriously. At least among the Chaos Magick scene I tend to get the impression that people are more concerned with finding mates and good jobs or, conversely, become caught up in their own inner journey. I'm interested in ways that magick can be used to tackle the problems of society and the world and one of the big problems is the environment, the decay of the biosphere.

I think I'm also coming from a feeling that if the planet begins to heal, through the love of it's tenders, then people will heal as well. The biosphere is certainly receptive to our energy (Secret Life of Plants) and will respond to our attention. I feel that ultimately much of our magick is drawn from the earth, whether we acknowledge it or not. This, IMO, makes the biosphere especially receptive to magick directed back at it.
 
 
SteppersFan
20:03 / 12.08.04
LVX, I guess you've already thought of checking in on the Wiccan and druid communities? If you want to gain data on people's every day practices w.r.t. this, they might be good sources.

Me, I do a moon ritual out in some woods nearby most months. I do a quarters ritual in the garden most days (when my mind's not focused on me, my wife and the soon-come baby -- any day now -- like it is at the moment). I have a little cairn up in the garden -- won't try and put what it means into words.

I enjoy composting and regard filling up the bin and digging it over as a little ritual. Same with recycling.

All pretty work-a-day, but I like it .
 
 
trouser the trouserian
07:50 / 13.08.04
LVX
You might find the work of German artist Joseph Beuys interesting in this regard - he saw performance art as a medium for both self and social transformation. In 1982, he initiated a project called 7000 oaks - the planting of 7,000 oak trees around Kassel. By the time of his death, in 1986, over 5,000 trees had been planted and the project continues to this day. Beuys saw his art as a means to provoke a spiritual response in those who viewed it, and that his role was providing the means to point out that the human being is a creative being.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
08:41 / 13.08.04
LVX
Two other good sources - Barry Patterson (a.k.a Barry ye ex-pedant) - I posted the hyperlink to his online book "Finding your way in the woods: the art of conversation with genius loci" in the corporate egregore thread. Also Gordon "the Toad" McLellan - a very highly regarded pagan activist and environmental educator - Creeping Toad website
 
 
illmatic
08:45 / 13.08.04
I love being outside, and I'd class some of the most "magical" days I've had in the last year as days when I've spent time outside in great weather. Pity I don't do this more often or engage on a more frequent basis, I was really getting into the habit last year, but let it slide (I even started a thread about it, will look for a link in a sec) - I'll take this thread as a reminder. The only regular contact I have with nature at present is martial arts practice in nearby parks at lunchtimes and the weekend. The chinese say that practising around trees is good for the Ch'i. It certainly gives me a refreshing feeling, much different from practising inside.

I think that this statement in a sense tells us all me need to know:

I set pen to paper lying in the sun amid the joyful fecundity of a summer’s day. The beauty of my garden reveals something of the simplicity of obtaining the three “True” goals of life: Real Peace, Real Happiness and Real Freedom. As Lao Tsu, amongst others, has said, a careful observation of nature contains all one really needs to know about how to live with joy.

From Towards Real Happiness by Hermiticusnath. He states later in that document "when you go to a park or a beach of the mountains, don't you feel a deep peace?" to which I can only answer "Yes!". In this sense, I think part of any magickal work in this direction can simply be being outisde frequently and soaking up the sights and sounds and any feelings it generates. I think this is one of those statements that is so obvious, it's easy to ignore - but being outside, out of the city, is healing and pleasurable in and of itself. Even in the city one can be conscious of the movement of birds or the changes of the weather and seasons, or taking care of a garden can have the same function.

As I said above, I'll take this as a reminder. And BTW, do check out "Finding Your Way in the Woods" - it's linked off the "Chaos approach" link above. It's the best practical guide to working outdoors I've ever seen.

So who's got more to say? I'd like to see this thread keep going.
 
 
Bear
09:52 / 13.08.04
Like Ill it's something I need to get back too.

I've posted on my lj about the feeling I get when the sun is shinning and the air is clear or when I'm at a park or away from the city, a feeling of almost pure bliss/love.

I'm going to read the articles above when I'm not in an open plan office.

Last night I watched the sunset from my hotel over the city and I think it was one of the most magickal experiences I've had for a long time.

Did anyone catch the last episode of the Pagan serious on C4 - I believe it related to our need to get back to nature?
 
 
Skeleton Camera
13:30 / 13.08.04
This was brushed in passing in the Black and Orange thread but, per the topic, not focused on the eco-side.

I find a great deal of innate power in Nature and a still genuine experience of the Other. Most of my magic-work is done outside and the setting plays an essential role. Illmatic said most of it already. I will add, per the above link, that Autumn in particular has always held something truly "magical," that I still (and probably shouldn't) attempt to put into words.

There's a language, more visual than aural, to natural places that is extremely important. It counteracts and "straightens" one's interactions in the world, especially after being surrounded by human language. That natural language - those subtle patterns - are, in my mind, what genuine chaos is all about. This being the chaos of chaos theory. How do dew drops stay perched, perfectly as if frozen, on a nearly-fallen leaf?

Part of that language is aggression, too, the energy and effort needed to (for ex.) climb a mountain or blaze a trail. Examine the entrails of dead animals or watch a falcon at work (DAMN.)It's important to recognize Kali in the midst of the serenity and peace, and that's part of the importance of nature.
 
 
illmatic
14:03 / 13.08.04
Seamus - definitely agree on the power of Autumn - the way everything is starting to decay and lose shape, the mists, it's a very magical time of year, a liminal time maybe.

Your posts reminded me of a few things actually - not entirely eco magick but related, I hope. Namely, what is the effect of a built environment of our bodies and consciousness?

I'd say that -

i) being on a flat hard plane all the
time (stone or wood, tarmac) causes us to lock our knees. and move in a level way which we wouldn't in a more uneven enviroment. Alexander Lowen (bioenergetic therapist, following Reich) has written extensively on the potential damanging effects of this (see his "Bioenergetics" amongst others). He refers to it as a lack of "grounding" appropriately enough.

ii) Moving in straight lines all the time. Following the idea that we exists on flat planes all the time, we also move predominatly in straight lines the time as we're regulated by roads, streets etc. Our environment is similarly dominated by regular shapes - the blocks, squares etc. of buildings. It seems to me that this has got to affect our perceptions/consciousness in some way? Creating of unecessarily narrow maps of environment which don't acknowledge their complexity for instance? Perhaps it eases the blanking oout of the enviroment which most people do in cities. Any thoughts?
 
 
Skeleton Camera
20:56 / 19.08.04
Illmatic - Our current environments are all built on logical principles. Our understandings of geometry are imposed on Nature through the Modernist drive to impose order on chaos. And this doesn't satisfy the human mind. It may be an orderly and sensible way to, say, lay out a city, but there is a definite psychological deficit in all those logical-geometric patterns.

(Which doesn't mean nature is not geometric but the geometry is more subtle. It stimulates different parts of the brain.)

I hadn't thought about the surface qualities but that is an excellent point.
What this breaks down to is the lack of certain psychological stimuli in man-made environments. Not to demonize them, of course - pure nature-living means you're gettin' torn up by lions every night. But you must balance the psychology of constructed environs with those that occur naturally (or chaotically?)
 
 
illmatic
13:11 / 20.08.04
Ta Seamus, good post. I agree with you on the "chaos" issue - in a "chaos" theory sense of the word, not in the sigils-and-postit way. Just bumping this one 'cos I like it. Does anyone have anything to add? F'instance would anyone who's been involved on contemporary paganism/wicca care to comment on how much wokring in these systems keys them into nature? (I'm looking at you 2Stepfan?)

And what about the idea of our "idealisation" of nature as Seamus alludes to above - is it indeed something we can "key" into? (I make it sound a bit like a petrol pump of green sprituality don't I?) I think that a thread on that - our "constructions" of nature - would make good Headshop material but it'd be nice to talk in an experiential and inspired way for now.

Finally has anyone got any thoughts on nature as encountered in an urban enviroment? I've wrote a bit about the urban environment above but there's always weeds pushing up through paving stones, mice running underneath tube tracks, the open spaces of London's parks... will post some more on this soonish?

How's the paper coming on, LVX?
 
 
LVX23
18:11 / 20.08.04
Seamus & Ill, I like what you guys are getting at with the geometric differences between nature and civilization. Our human geometries tend to be very linear and boxy, reflecting our increasingly rational minds. Once upon a time villages were not so organized, thatched huts and shanties built loosely around a center. Gradually our minds and our structures became more linearized.

There's a wierd feedback here (and sort of a chicken & egg scenario): As logic becomes more rationalized, so does our planning and creation. But as our environment grows more linear, our minds absorb it more. However, it seems more than just an extension of an increasingly rational and numeric logic structure. The Maya were arguably quite archaic yet produced amazingly complex and linearized geometries. This seems to suggest, as in the golden mean and Fibonacci sequence, that there are fundamental patterns in nature that are rational yet produce irrational structures.

A sunflower is a fine example. It is both chaotic and organic, but highly organized and geometric. The human brain itself is an exceedingly chaotic mess of cells, yet somehow it has clearly arranged functional areas capable of conspiring to produce amazing amounts of organization and coordination.

Basically I'm trying to agree with Illmatic that cities have powerful feedback effects on our linear and rational tendencies which seems to run counter to the loose chaos of nature. But nature itself exhibits simliar linearities (if you look at a forest of redwood trees you see a lot of straight vertical lines). The difference is that in human geometries there is a tendency towards exactness. The line of a skyscraper is nearly exaclty straight whereas the redwood tree is not so "perfect".

Of course, cities themselves breed their own type of chaos. Order & chaos are simply phases, and this is what nature exceeds at conveyeing. All is change. Rationality, logics, linearized architecture and civic planning attempts to keep nature at bey by imposing order as a dominant paradigm. Pave over the broken earth with a flat road, create enduring idealized forms with constructed materials "stronger than natures own".

In the end, of course, it all falls to dust and is absorbed back into the womb of the goddess. Like our own lives, we wish to belive we're immortal but in the end its ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I gues this is what I'm getting at with the original intent of this thread. What can we as chaotes and metaphysicians do to strengthen the archetype of nature and undermine the dominance of rationality?
 
 
Skeleton Camera
04:04 / 03.09.04
What can we as chaotes and metaphysicians do to strengthen the archetype of nature and undermine the dominance of rationality?

*bump*

I don't have a clue. Except that, by being both, we are already working in hyper-rational directions. As has been stated, rationality is not absent from nature whatsoever. It's just hypertrophied within the human species right now, and that means that the species suffers to varying degrees from being off-balance.

But, as for practical action, as I said, I don't have a clue where to begin. The obvious - green movements, rituals, work with nature dieties, etc etc - are there. Are we looking for something more? Setting a current in motion, for example? The co-opting of neo-hippie culture is something to take advantage of, methinks. However all this stuff takes time and it may well take a cataclysm of some sort to shake us out of our techno-rational reality tunnels - and hopefully we're around to do that shaking.

(Sorry, but I'm tired and thus going to trail off...)
 
 
trouser the trouserian
09:11 / 03.09.04
A couple of weeks ago I participated in an Ecomagic workshop/ritual led by Adrian Harris - culminating with 30-odd pagans in a field, invoking the elements by dancing them and then empowering a bindrune created from wooden staves - again primarily by dancing. A simple ritual yes, but it felt remarkably empowering - and its intent - to help create a 'pagan cluster' to get involved with the forthcoming G8 Summit protest has been effective. This approach to ritual is quite different in character/feeling from the styles that dominate the Western Esoteric tradition, as Adrian points out:

"Despite its apparent differences from mainstream thought, Traditional Western magic remains rooted in a philosophical tradition that goes back beyond Aristotle. This tradition is profoundly cerebral and is founded on the notion that we are separate entities defined by individual egos. Instinct and nature become defined as a treataining ‘otherness’ which must be tamed.

It’s no coincidence that modern science evolved from this essentially rationalistic magical worldview: The science of magic is concerned with which causes will bring which results, and the very existence of formal spells reveals a belief in a conformity to given rules. One definition of magic from within this tradition is "control over meaning:" It's an evocative phrase that encapsulates a whole history of analytic magic philosophy.

But from the perspective of eco-magic there are problems with these foundations. Western magical technique enhances the will of the magician and generally strenthens the ego, which tends to emphasise the distinction between the self and the cosmos. In the process the magician can become increasingly alienated from nature and less able to sense the flow of Spirit."

Quoted from A personal perspective on ecomagic

Also of interest - review of Starhawk's Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising

thoughts?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:13 / 03.09.04
Western magical technique enhances the will of the magician and generally strenthens the ego, which tends to emphasise the distinction between the self and the cosmos. In the process the magician can become increasingly alienated from nature and less able to sense the flow of Spirit

I find that this fairly prevalent western conceptual basis for magic has been quite strongly undermined by the model of ancestor worship that's been underpinning my practices for the last few years. I operate from a working theory where a person is physically connected to their ancestors when viewed from a position outside of time. You are part of a single fleshy continuum and an aspect of the same physical object as your parents, grandparents, and so on. This goes all the way back through time, and expands outwards in a tree like shape connecting family lines to family lines, all the way back to the earliest ancestors. Making us all essentially a part of the same being. The roots of the tree contains our genetic heritage, connecting us physically to the animal kingdom, marine life, dinosaurs, microbes, ameoba, and – at some level – all organic matter. In the process providing a reasonably plausible physical basis for concepts such as Spare's atavistic resurgence, past life memories, shamanic power animals, and sympathetic magic – due to the interconnectivity of all things.

Individual consciousness is just the tips of the branches of this Tree of Being reaching outwards. Working with an ancestral altar, making regular offerings of food and drink and so on, can be looked on as a way of strengthening your connection to the Tree. Everytime you work with the altar, it reaffirms this sense of your self as a part of a larger whole. It feeds and nourishes the roots and branches of this tree, and gives some of the identified problematic aspects of the self/other divide a bit of a kicking.
 
 
illmatic
10:30 / 03.09.04
What a great piece of writing.

I particularly liked this: Alternative healing is based on the principle that the body knows best, and enabling self-healing is better than intrusion. I think that's very much the philosophy of eco-magic. The Earth can heal given time, and our role is to assist that process.

Gets me out of my more apocalyptic mindset – which if I’m being honest with myself, I indulge in, ‘cos I get so fucking angry with our selfisness, shortsighedness and stupidity. I want it all to end to serve us right, gratifying for my ego/self-righteousness maybe but not much help to anyone else.

To go back to Seamus’s question above re. practical action. Well, I’d say it’s a long term process. We can orientate our lives so we have some space for these values – whether it’s your lifes work or your working in other creative ways that allow for the promotion of aligned values – but this is never going to be a quick fix process. This reminds me of some comments I was going to make in the “Magick and Martial Arts” thread re. “orders” of desires – one of the ideas that’s mentioned a lot with regards to contemporary practice is the statement of intent. I was wondering if having an S of I (that can be enchanted for etc) doesn’t limit us sometimes. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having clear intentions but some of the bigger questions in our life can’t be summed up in these simple formulations – higher orders of desires such as health, meaningful work, healthy relationships and so on take a lot of work with input and feedback from all areas of our life. Perhaps we should move away from the “action a = result b” way of talking about things and try and get a handle of the complexity of these processes. I feel I’ve gone very off topic here but feeling that your life/work/activity is contributing in some way to a “positive current” re. ecology could be one of those higher order intentions, as it’s a long term goal, and this seems to me to be almost an ecological metaphor in itself

I read Karen McCarthy Brown’s excellent “Mama Lola” recently. She characterised all the magick she did as healing which I thought was quite a telling statement. IIRC, the example where this came up was in the blessing of some land led to ensure it’s sale, led to her to make interventions into the life and marriage of her client. I found it interesting because it showed a sophisticated grasp of the complexity of the inter-related areas of the life of her client.

Seems to me there some link here to the community thread – networks of relations, interrelationships. More later when I’m thinking clearer.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:21 / 03.09.04
there’s nothing wrong with having clear intentions but some of the bigger questions in our life can’t be summed up in these simple formulations – higher orders of desires such as health, meaningful work, healthy relationships and so on

Interesting that you should bring up Mama Lola in relation to this, as I was about to talk about how cultivating good relationships with the Powers in traditions such as Vodou and Santeria, seems to provide an alternative and broader model to the more narrowly defined "statement of intent" model of sorcery. If there was a problem in a particular area of your life, rather than doing a bit of focussed self-serving magic for yourself to swing a specific result, you might instead speak to the Power that rules over that area and see what's up, see what needs to be done to make things cool, find out what's out of balance and what can be done about it. It's a very magico-religious response, but it approaches religion as a living practical day-to-day method of relating to the principles that shape our experience of reality, rather than religion in the pejorative sense that it tends to be understood by many people involved in western magic.

I'm more and more coming round to the idea that performing focused sorcery for yourself, in a lot of cases, might not be the best use of energy and resources. This sort of thing does appear to be more effective when performed on behalf of other people, rather than done on your own behalf, which I think closely feeds into the themes of community mentioned elsewhere. This is perhaps getting off the subject a bit, but it might be worthwhile not drawing too much of a distinction between relating magic to the ecological environment that we live in, and relating magic to the human communities that we live in.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
12:15 / 03.09.04
Perhaps we should move away from the "action a = result b" way of talking about things and try and get a handle of the complexity of these processes.

IMO you're very much 'on topic' with this comment, Illmatic - a great deal of contemporary magical thinking seems to revolve around the idea that it provides a "quick fix" solution, without IMO, acknowledging or even allowing for the complexities of life processes. Again, rather reflective, one might say, of Western culture's general approach of applying "quick fixes" rather than addressing long-term issues. I'm not saying that results-directed magic (sorcery) is necessarily based on a simplistic world-view - indeed, I would argue that the practice of sorcery can lead the practitioner towards an understanding of the complexity of real-life situations & processes.

Reflecting back on the ecomagic ritual I participated in - as I said, the 'intention' was to encourage pagans to get involved with the G8 summit process, and I also said that this was effective. But it wasn't like random pagans all over the UK suddenly 'deciding' to find out more about the Dissent Network. The ritual was immediately effective as it 'revved up' the participants so that we went away and spread the message, and have been communicating since about setting up training seminars, discussing what kind of roles we can play, etc. A moment sticks in my mind - just after we'd collectively 'projected' our intent into the bindrune, there was a moment of quiet. I was lying on the grass, temporarily exhausted. A woman next to me turned to me with a blissed-out smile on her face and pulled me into a long, tender hug. A priceless moment. The immediate impact of this ritual for me was that I felt connected with the other participants, felt both my own empowerment and recognised the empowerment of the other people, clearly visible on faces, through bodies. It inspired me to go out and do stuff.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
19:29 / 03.09.04
If anything, the nuts-n-bolts magical practice (the stuff that works) has given me an extremely intense of being a cellular unit processing and exchanging what it must. Individuality becomes a tool. But this is off-topic. The point being that, even when you recognize the fundamental depth of connection you possess - from your ancestors to the entire earth-organism itself - it informs the way you live in a very subtle way. This is powerful indeed, but on a long-term scale. Are there short-term bursts, things that create more immediate changes?
I recognize this being a very Western question, and it's not one I entirely believe in. More of a devil's advocate thing. But in terms of the original "what the hell we do?" question, is it simply a matter of manymanymany small-scale changes in local circles, or do we take some Action as well?
 
  
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