The Green Wolf

Be aware that this Tumblr frequently includes pictures of art made with animal remains, as well as rampant feminist opinions, corgis and bats, and lush landscapes.

Artist, author, (neo)shaman, and wannabe polymath living in the Pacific Northwe(s)t.

I discovered neopaganism in the mid-1990s, and shortly thereafter began my work with animal totems and neoshamanism. Over the years I've wandered through various paths, ranging from Wicca-flavored neopaganism to Chaos magic, but for the past few years I've been creating Therioshamanism, a post-industrial neo-shamanic path. I've also been creating various neopagan ritual tools and other sacred art from hides, bones, beads and other such things since about the same time. And I've written several nonfiction books on totemism, animal magic, and related topics. Currently working on "New Paths to Plant and Fungus Totems".

A few places to find me, as I'm all over the internet:

http://www.thegreenwolf.com
http://thegreenwolf.etsy.com
http://therioshamanism.com
http://paganbookreviews.net
https://www.facebook.com/TheGreenWolfLupa

Ask me anything

6th June 2012

Therioshamanism: Taking the Plants and Fungi For Granted →

I was sharing around the link to my last post about working with Black Morel as a totem. While choosing tags for it on my Tumblr, I had a bit of a chuckle thinking of how disappointed some people might be when searching for “mushrooms” and “totem”, and getting thoughts on a rather choosy, wrinkled edible rather than stories of far-out psilocybin trips.

It got me thinking about our biases as humans and spiritual practitioners engaging with the world around us. With animal totems we have a tendency to privilege those wild beings that we consider most charismatic and “powerful”–Gray Wolf and Bald Eagle and American Elk and so forth—though I and other totemists have worked to expand awareness and spiritual work to the totems of other species. People still don’t work with the totems of “mundane” domestic animals much, other than sometimes Dog or Cat, probably in part because we don’t feel they’re “special” enough.

With plants and fungi, most of the spiritual writings and work seems to be with those that benefit us the most, physically or emotionally. The majority of books on plants and fungi in spirituality are herbals that tell how to use the physical plants, some druidic and other writings on trees (which are big and charismatic), and a handful of texts on connecting with the spirits of psychedelic plants (because they can get us high, man!). We value them according to their uses and attractiveness, not necessarily their spirits. So again our biases are showing.

Read the rest here.

Tagged: totem plants fungus trees shamanism paganism animism spirits ecospirituality