hey this is cool, reminds me of two things that's happened in my life recently.

one, how I've been breaking out my favorite phrase a lot to help friends in need: "I practice moderation in moderation"

and... I don't remember the other one, how's that for balance?

Hey --

I agree with you totally Bill... as I was reading and you posed the question that is EXACTLY what went through my head....

Add to that... once the perception switched into a dicotomous mode, well, that makes things a whole lot easier when your goal is control over the world. It's a whole lot easier to think in terms of balance, of good and bad and so forth than it is to think in systems. Maybe that is why my own approach to animism (although I think I prefer the term monist for myself, because of the differences in my 'theology') has paralleled my intuitive grasping of systemic thinking

Janene

Sounds like the words that are being looked for are 'dynamic equalibrium'.

Your 'State A, State B' idea sounds very Claude Levi-Straus, which while occasionally interesting, he seems to miss the mark more often than not.  Not everybody thinks in diachotomies, or if they do, not everything they think about is put in those terms.  Well maybe corn farmers are like that, since corn is such a 'fire and forget' crop, but I always hear from the farmers I work with "Well now its time to do this, and soon ill have to do another thing." 

I tend to cringe when i'm around other pagans for long enough.  Why is this?  Its probably because for a group of people who expose the idea that the world is a sacred place, many of them either lack fundimental knowledge about where their stuff comes from, or ignorantly continue activities that flagrantly and obviously destructive to the self and destructive to the world around them.  All this while they talk about universal love and light and if we had enough 'light workers' that things would just turn around. 

 dammit man, why can't we live closer to one another. ) :

there is a large (dur hur hur Salem) pagan community here, and it is very much as you describe it in your homeplace. 

but it's new england. farming was big here back in the day. it is still seen as the ultimate 'escape' for people who want to live 'off the land'. ... but there are no more acres left.  the fish are so full of mercury that i can safely eat about 8 oz. a month.

when i learned about animism clearly (thanks to Story of B), i did suddenly hear all those things about mother grain, harvest and planting and fertility. it is actually disruptive for me in ritual... but i can't say much. i'm the odd one out, and their entire religion depends on the grain (even if figuratively and not literally).

once, i got to host (acting priestess) a large gathering of my pagan friends from a coven we had going. i mixed the two ways effectively, i think.  Hawk even came while we looked at the heavens, grounding. I asked the (regular/high) priestess if she had anything more to add. she asked a very pagan raised child if they wanted to say anything... the child replied by pointing at hawk, and saying "go away". 

 i know, it's just out of the mouth of babes... but the priestess then echoed it. "Go Away".

pained, i left the group a month later, and it dissolved shortly after that.  

i guess what i'm saying is, it's so lonely being 'animist', unless you've a group ie. 'tribe' to be in. if you must be in a group (and i am now), pagans are likely the most accepting. they won't push their particular way upon you, but universally, they still speak of the agricultural 'givens' of balance, good and evil, worshipping this to be saved from that....

 GF

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Look, Ishmael... are you sore at me or something?