Biocentrism and Ecocentrism as a Core Part of Nature Spirituality

Once you begin walking the path of nature spirituality, things begin shifting. A tree is not just a tree, an insect is not just an insect–they are beings in their own right, with stories to share, lessons to offer, and a right to live freely and in a healthy ecosystem. You realize the boundaries between you and other life, boundaries that have been culturally imposed upon you, aren’t actually boundaries at all. You realize that you are just an animal in nature like every other animal, and that gives you a deeper sense of connection, purpose, and of joy.  You even realize that everything has a spirit–stones, rivers, trees, and even human-created things (that derive themselves from nature). What I’m describing is essentially something I’ve seen take place not only in myself but in so many people I’ve mentored in the druid spiritual tradition: a shift from a human-centric (anthropocentric) view to a biocentric view.  In today’s post, I’m going to explore these terms and some spiritual strategies you can use to help deepen your connection to nature.

From Anthropocentrism to Biocentrism/Ecocentrism

Anthropocentrism is the philosophical stance that places human life above all other life on earth, privileges humans and their needs, and places humanity in center stage. Most people have this view, but they may not call it or recognize it as such. In this view, human life is seen as more important or valuable than other forms of life. In an Anthropocentric view, humans have the right to do whatever they want to earth (e.g. if you own property, you can do whatever you like to that property), choices are made based on what is best/most convenient to humanity, and humans are the prime driving force in all decisions.  In an Anthropocentric view, the “news” is all about humans, the focus is all on humans, and how we spend our time is human-focused (which includes most of the social media, tv, radio, etc). This results in at least three issues:

• Without an intrinsic belief in the value of all life, the land is depleted, ecosystems are degraded, and the earth is seen as a resource to extract. This view has created systems that have caused extensive damage and loss of life to happen and has ultimately resulted in the 6th mass extinction event taking place right now.
• Animals and other life are not given the same sovereignty or care given to other life; they are less important and their lives are less valuable. We can see this clearly from everything from the acceptance of medical testing on animals to factory farming animal operations. Or even the phrase, “I was treated like an animal..”.
• Humans are seen as somehow more highly “evolved” than other life, and thus, deserving of more right to live and take up space than others.

Most modern humans living in industrialized nations often don’t even recognize that they carry this human-dominated perspective; it is just the way things are and have been, and it is subconscious or semi-conscious within us. And these beliefs run very, very deep and can impact every interaction and decision about nature and our relationship with it.

Biocentrism and Ecocentrism offer more life-affirming views that recognize that humanity is but one form of many on life on earth. Biocentrism places all life–the tree, the bird, the insect–at the same level as human life. This view recognizes that we are all equal, all deserving of life and that humans need to recognize the sovereignty and right of all beings to live.  Ecocentrism takes this a step further by placing the ecosystem and larger earth equal to human life, recognizing that the ecosystem as a whole has a right to sovereignty and life.

We know from ethnographic and historical research that many human cultures have held biocentric views and also lived in balance with their ecosystems.  For example in Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe, Bradford Keeney describes the African Bushman tribe’s innate connections with their surroundings. Keeney has a number of works on the Kalahari Bushman peoples, and they all are fascinating accounts of people who clearly recognize the equality of themselves and all life and who work to build spiritual connections to that larger world. We can see many more examples of these in the new Graeber and Wengrow book,The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (where they explore the concept of human freedom, among others). In fact, the idea of a biocentric society is so threatening to those carrying anthropocentric views that indigenous cultures carrying such views are often the tragic subject of mass genocide.

There appear to be many root causes of anthropocentrism, some stretching so far back into history that they have been with Western Civilization for millennia. And some of it has to do with our basic interaction of how we eat, live, and inhabit an ecosystem. I think that part of the reason that so many indigenous cultures could maintain strong biocentric views is that hunter-gatherer societies required that they live close to the land and in balance. Hunting a wild animal is inherently different than butchering an animal raised for that purpose, and it puts you in a different relationship with the living earth. You are not in control of the deer; the deer is a sovereign being and it is your relationship with the hunt and the deer that impacts whether or not you have a meal. You are likewise not in control of the stinging nettle patch, the nettle grows (and defends itself from you); you might help cultivate it further, but the nettle is a sovereign being. Domestication radically changes that relationship. Agrarian societies that focused on domestication first came into being with the stabilization of the climate 8000 years ago at the start of the Holocene. With domestication, humans are put in a “higher” position than those plants, animals, and land that are domesticated, and the seeds of anthropocentrism are planted. We are now seeing the tragic results of domestication wildly out of balance: factory farms, industrial agriculture, and extraction of resources being primary expressions of how to feed more people.  Religion also has a lot to do with it–many of the dominant world religions put nature in a subservient role to humans, but most modern religions came about after domestication.  I do think that if you go far enough back in time, into prehistory, biocentrism was likely present in nearly all cultures…but for some cultures, it may have been millennia since these views were accepted or expressed.

But thankfully, the rise of many new movements, work, and philosophies are slowly bringing us back into alignment (such as nature spirituality, druidry, permaculture, herbalism, earth/ancestral skills, natural building, etc).  That is, a lot of people are working very hard to realign our views and come to a more biocentric and ecocentric view of life. And I believe once we have the philosophy in alignment, the actions can flow forth. This realignment work is necessary if we are going to create a better vision for the future and fight for the right of all life on this planet to thrive. I think that nature spirituality has something powerful to offer this conversation.  So, from the perspective of nature spirituality, what does this shift towards bio/ecocentrism look like in practice?

Towards Biocentrism and Ecocentrism in Spiritual Practice

There are many, many ways we can make the shift away from anthropocentrism.  The following seven suggestions are one way to consider this approach, and I plan on returning to these in later blog posts to provide more details.

Adopting an Animistic Philosophy

At the core of a bio/ecocentric view is animism. Animism is a belief in the spirit of all things. Animistic views recognize that rivers, stones, trees, animals, and people all have spirits and that those spirits can be worked with, learned from, and honored in various ways.  Animism is not only a big part of nearly all indigenous peoples’ beliefs (regardless of where they are in the world), but it is also emerging as an incredibly important thread in nature-based spiritual traditions like druidry and other adjacent traditions like herbalism.  While specific forms of animism will vary based on the culture, it often manifests as the following:

• Recognizing and honoring the spirits present in all life and inanimate things
• Recognizing the importance of interacting in a respectful way with those spirits; building right relationships and connections with them, and learning from them as teachers and guides
• Recognizing that we are part of nature, like any other animal, and that we have natural skills like instincts and intuition
• Recognizing that we have to cultivate our own intuition, observation, and listening skills (inner and outer) so that we might effectively communicate with the spirit present in all things.
• Recognizing that our actions have a significant impact on others and that we can engage in right actions to behave in ways that honor the sovereignty of all being

I see animism as the prerequisite for a lot of the other resulting practices I’m sharing here. Animism opens you up to the world of spirit, which in turn, allows you to connect, interact, and engage. Being an animist does not preclude you from also being anything else (polytheist, monotheist), but it does put you in a really different relationship with nature, and that relationship has major implications for how you interact with the world. I’ll be posting more on how druids practice animism and suggestions for animistic practices in a range of other activities in forthcoming posts later this year.

Observing and Interacting with Nature

Part of building a biocentric and animistic view of nature requires you to spend a great deal of time in nature–learning, observing, and growing.  A technique I’ve shared here before is the Druid’s Anchor Spot, where you pick a spot that you can visit every day, do deep work with, observe, and interact.  Learning how to deeply observe nature in her different seasons builds the first-hand knowledge and skills that will help you shift your value and emphasis to the natural world.  Use all of your senses when observing and interacting–make it an embodied experience.  Books, teachers, and classes are great supplements to help you learn and grow in your knowledge, but they should never be used as a substitute for actually being outside!  The more you understand nature, the more value nature holds.

Working with the Spirits of Nature

The animistic view of the world changes how your spiritual and everyday life takes place.  One of the big shifts is that this opens you up to developing relationships with the spirits of nature–the spirits of individual trees, plants, stones, insects, and animals as well as the larger spirits of the land (Genuis Loci), or even the spirits in human-created things.  If everything has a spirit, then your first order of business is to learn how to effectively communicate with that spirit, learn some etiquette for how you can act respectfully, and most importantly, recognize the sovereignty of nature (see next point). This may include plant or animal spirit communication and journeying, taking up the practice of magical herbalism, finding and developing plant and animal allies and learning from them as teachers, and much more.  Sometimes, this may also mean that there are things that are easier for you to do as a human being–and so you might be asked to do some work on behalf of the land spirits, such as land healing.  In rituals, it is appropriate to always make offerings and acknowledge the land and her spirits.

Permission and Rights of Nature

A bio/ecocentric view recognizes the rights and sovereignty of all life, including trees, insects, and other natural features like rivers, stones, and mountains. By sovereignty, I mean the right for an individual to have control over one’s body or life, rather than have some external control imposed.  There is a balance here. Like any other animal in nature, you need to eat and need nature to provide for your basic needs. There is nothing wrong with harvesting from nature for this purpose as long as it is done intentionally, respectfully, and with gratitude. On the basic level, this means that if you are going to take a part of nature for your use (e.g. foraging for a meal, foraging for spiritual tools) or you need to remove part of nature (weeding, establishing a new garden, cutting a tree for firewood, etc) you need to directly ask permission and explain what you are going to do.  If the plant says no, you need to honor that request (sometimes this is a test to see if you WILL honor the request; other times, the plant wants to be left alone). On larger tracts of land, such as a garden where you need to weed, it is best to establish some larger permissions that cover a variety of practices (e.g. get permission to establish the garden and maintain it, which takes care of permission for weeding).  I’ll describe this more later, and I’ve shared some thoughts about clearing weeds and clearing land here.

If you grew up in a dominant Western culture, chances are you have a different set of indoctrinated practices and that requires an intention to shift and a period of learning while you do.  Sometimes, you may take and forget yourself, but it’s okay to ask for forgiveness.  It takes time and effort to cultivate these practices so that they become second nature–remember you’ve had a lifetime of indoctrination in another direction.  But these shifts can happen and be very beneficial to your relationship with the land–the spirits know you are serious about your path and will work with you on the deepest levels.

In order to continue to habituate my practices in this direction, I always grow my own herbal offering blend, and anytime I’m out of the house, I have some with me (along with my tools in my crane bag). At a minimum, I carry my offering blend around my neck in a small bag; having easy access to the offering blend allows me not to forget to treat the land and her spirits with the proper respect that is due.

Considering Symbolism

Another part of this shift away from anthropocentric thinking surrounds the symbolism and ideas that we surround ourselves with–artwork, divination tools, and other things that express concepts to us. A big motivation for me in developing the Tarot of Trees was that I didn’t want to work with human-based symbolism in the Tarot. I wanted a biocentric divination tool. Hence, in the Tarot of Trees, you won’t see a single person (but you will see plenty of trees, stones, seeds, flowers, squirrels, and more).  You might think carefully about how much “human-centered” symbols you work with and if it is appropriate to shift some of those symbols and tools into more nature-oriented ones.  The ideas here are simple–if you are constantly surrounded by human-dominated imagery and symbols, it will become hard for other kinds of imagery and symbols to have as much importance.

Embracing Your Inner Wildness

If you are on equal footing with all life, and if you accept that you are just another animal on this planet, this gives you the potential for freedom and joy.  Thus, another spiritual practice is to embrace your inner animal.  This can mean different things to different people, but there are lots of options.  The first is to learn from animals through mimicry (also practiced by the Bushmen and other indigenous cultures) and behave as the animals do.  Spend time with your own pet and mimic their behavior.  Build a fire and dance around it as the bear, the hawk, or the stag.  Observe animals in nature.  Learn animal tracking, where you can connect deeply with animals and their movements. Pay attention to what the animals do or eat and mimic their behavior, sounds, and activities.

Another option is to embrace your own wildness as a human animal.  Go barefoot and feel the earth beneath you.  Practice forest bathing.  Frolilck naked in a rainstorm.  Run with abandon through the forest. Yell, hoot, and shout out to the heavens.  Just be wild and be free.  Let go of the societal chains that hold you back.  Practice joy.

Balancing your Time in Human/Technology Dominated vs. Natural Settings

A final practice that I think is really important to this overall shift is to consider the amount of time you spend in human-dominated and technology-dominated spaces with the amount of time you spend in natural settings. Humans–cities, technology, gadgets, houses, etc–can create such a bubble that we forget the natural world is there. We know from statistics here in the United States (pre-pandemic) that the typical human spends 87% of time indoors and another 6% of time enclosed in a vehicle (that leaves only 6% time outside–and how much of that is spent on a lawnmower?). And of that time, over seven hours a day is spent looking at screens. How much of  It is no wonder that we have such challenges today with protecting nature–if people don’t interact with nature, they don’t value it.  Part of this shift moves us out of human-dominated and tech-dominated settings and back to nature.

Pay attention to how you spend your time–how much of it is outdoors, in nature?  How much of it is truly just in nature, with no technology, cell phones, or other devices?  I have found real value in getting completely away from everything, to a place where my cell phone has no signal, and where I can truly just be present in nature.  If you have children, make sure they are also getting the opportunity to experience nature without the mediation of technology.

Concluding Thoughts

Taking the first steps from an anthropocentric to a bio/ecocentric philosophy and way of life is the work of a lifetime.  But it is critical work for us to do now and in the future.  I’d love to hear from you, readers–how do you navigate these perspectives? What practices have been most helpful to you as you work to make these shifts?  What has been challenging?