The Book
The primary areas that are explored in this book:
A broad, yet inclusive, look at ancestry that goes beyond our individual family lines, and even extends beyond humans. From here, we will look into the archetypal ancestors, and will place them into a relationship with the multi-billion-year history of life on this planet and beyond. From there, we draw out useful practices relevant to being a 21st-century Homo sapiens.
We will touch upon our relationship to movement, and that will open the door to primal and ancestral movement forms. We will also discuss how we might play and dance with these ideas in our own lives.
Then, we will chew on and look at the human condition through the lens of food, ancestral nutrition, and how one might go about being a modern hunter-gatherer.
Finally, we saunter into the smoky and shadowy domain of animism, technologies of consciousness, ancestral veneration, and our relationship with the dead.
To Be Found in the Book…
The Explicit Nature of The Ancestral World
The primal world, the very birthing ground of our species, radiates a reality that stands in stark contrast to the industrialized and civilized societies we find ourselves in. The ancestral world is deeply explicit. It is raw and pulsating with an immense vividness that inspires the senses and animates our aliveness on a consistent basis. We are starved for it; hungry and in desperate need of knowing ourselves through the natural world that birthed us.
Unearthing Ancestral Support
We can do it alone, but the spirits of our ancestors are whispering their support and are willing to show us a part of the way if we put an ear to the ground and listen. The earth is vibrating with their bones, and if we pay attention, we can feel them rumbling.
Experiencing Life in Movement
Could the impulse for life, or the raw consciousness, of a jellyfish be said to be significantly different from that of a human? Both are alive, both experience life… yet the jellyfish experiences life through its unique body, its unique senses, and its gelatinous movement patterns. We experience it through our bodies, human senses, and our diverse movement capacity.
Animism as Relational and Immersive Awareness
Interaction with the environment is where we can begin to explore the world in a way that is immersive and relationship-based. In my experience, immersion, consciousness and relationship are at the root of animism. You are immersed in the world and it is immersed in you. All forces, objects, and subjects extend into and are part of one another. You are alive; the world is alive.