Origins
It turns out that origins are pretty important in animism.
We aren't just us as individuals; we're the growing end of a metaphorical plant, reaching out into the unknown future time and space, from roots and branches that have come before...and are still present with and within us...and will continue on into the future.
That's not a common view among people in modern WEIRD society, though. In America especially, people view themselves as individuals, isolated in time and space from all other individuals, with no history and mostly no significant impact on the future.
But in animism, one of the main focuses is on our relationship with all our kin: our immediate human ancestors, of course; but as we look further and further back in time, we find that we evolved, and that our kinfolk now inhabit the world around us in a multitude of forms.
And it works forward, too, into what legacy we leave for both our direct descendants (if any) and all those kinfolk who come later.
I didn't start to think much about ancestry and origins until in my middle 30s. I guess I'd always recognized that everyone and everything was related in some sense, but it wasn't until the 1990s that I started to really investigate. Where did my family come from, and who were their relatives?
Where did their ancestors come from, and what about their relatives?
Where did humans come from, and their relatives?
Where did life come from, and how are we related to all the other life on Earth?
Where did the cosmos come from, and is there other life elsewhere? Deep questions...
Read on to learn what I've found...
It turns out that origins are pretty important in animism.
We aren't just us as individuals; we're the growing end of a metaphorical plant, reaching out into the unknown future time and space, from roots and branches that have come before...and are still present with and within us...and will continue on into the future.
That's not a common view among people in modern WEIRD society, though. In America especially, people view themselves as individuals, isolated in time and space from all other individuals, with no history and mostly no significant impact on the future.
But in animism, one of the main focuses is on our relationship with all our kin: our immediate human ancestors, of course; but as we look further and further back in time, we find that we evolved, and that our kinfolk now inhabit the world around us in a multitude of forms.
And it works forward, too, into what legacy we leave for both our direct descendants (if any) and all those kinfolk who come later.
I didn't start to think much about ancestry and origins until in my middle 30s. I guess I'd always recognized that everyone and everything was related in some sense, but it wasn't until the 1990s that I started to really investigate. Where did my family come from, and who were their relatives?
Where did their ancestors come from, and what about their relatives?
Where did humans come from, and their relatives?
Where did life come from, and how are we related to all the other life on Earth?
Where did the cosmos come from, and is there other life elsewhere? Deep questions...
Read on to learn what I've found...