Defining Polycrisis, Reindigenizing, Animism and more….
Polycrisis: Multiple interdependent crises of 21st century
Polycrisis was a Eurocentric construct but I have made it colonization-, race- and trauma-informed. Most folks define it as “a cluster of interdependent global risks and crises that create a compounding effect, such that their overall impact exceeds the sum of the individual parts”. For me, polycrisis includes but is not limited to increasingly frequent and devastating events generated by climate crisis, water shortages, industrial agriculture, loss of clean air, forests, and biodiversity; genocidal violence towards human and more-than-human relatives arising from geopolitical conflict, economic insecurity, ideological extremism, polarization, and declining institutional legitimacy; as well as the volatility in food and energy markets, escalating socio-economic inequities across race, religion and gender, refugee crisis and acute and ever deepening spiritual-health crisis. Read more here.
Reindigenizing: Process of taking our seat in the web of life
Reindigenizing is an antidote to root causes of Polycrisis. Our collective survival depends on Indigenous wisdom and Indigenous technologies. Of course, reindigenizing includes Indigenous tribes regaining their sovereignty over lands and ecosystems that they were keystone, inextricable and sacred parts of, and that were forcibly taken from them. For Kritee’s work, reindigenizing also encompasses a spiritual, psychological, cultural and socio-economic knowing that humans, regardless of our ancestry, belong to and can communicate with a sacred and beautiful web of life. It includes embracing of animism and shamanism. The process of reindigenizing asks that we uphold the sacredness of relationships (i.e., kinship) and communicate with 1) our sacred body and hurting parts of our mind 2) our human communities 3) the local ecosystems and 4) the more-than-human realms. In this process, non-indigenous individuals or communities also seek to reconnect with and help revitalize indigenous languages, spirituality, ecological knowledge systems, governance traditions, and ways of life that were suppressed due to colonialism, starting from where they are right now. This journey includes spiritual healing, rediscovery, empowerment and joy.
Keystone species: Helps define and regulate an entire ecosystem
A keystone species is any species that acts as a glue to hold an ecosystem together. It helps define an entire ecosystem. A keystone species has a disproportionate effect on its ecosystem relative to its abundance. This influence is exerted through important interactions and relationships within the community, rather than just through dominance, power, aggression or high population size. Without a keystone species, an entire ecosystem could radically change or cease to exist. Beavers are known as ecosystem engineers of the forest because they alter the natural environment to create wetlands and ponds, which increase water flow, trap sediments, process nutrients, and filter water and ultimately provide habitat many other species including insects, birds, fish and animals.
In contrast with modern human communities which extract and harm their natural environements for financial gain, Indigenous tribes saw themselves as keystone species of their ecosystems.
Nonviolence: Insistence on truth with (agape) love
A strategic and principled commitment to truth, justice, and love that involves the deliberate pursuit of change with deepest possible spiritual love (Agape) for all beings. Facing the worsening polycrisis can be daunting, enraging and depressing. Along with healing of our past trauma, meditation, Ecodharma practices to belong (i.e., re-inhabit the web of life), we need to strategically assert our truths with Agape love in the social, political and economic realms. Gandhi called Nonviolent movements for justice and peace that are rooted in Agape Love “Satyagraha” (Insistence on truth). Satyagraha, for Gandhi, was another name for “the law of self-suffering”. King further developed several key principles of Nonviolence: resist harmful actions (not people) without resorting to violence to change the heart of the opponent (not humiliate/shame them) with patient willingness to suffer without retaliation or spiritual/psychological hatred. Self-suffering is the key: it can be redemptive. One cannot engage in Nonviolence movement without deep trauma healing and trusting our seat in the web of life.
Ecodharma: Dharma revitalized for polycrisis
The fusion of traditional Buddhist principles with contemporary ecological awareness, offering guidance and practices for navigating the complex challenges of the 21st-century socio-ecological crisis. Dharma is a Sanskrit term often used to refer to the ancient lineage of non-dual teachings of Eastern spiritual traditions, including but not limited to Buddhism, which support the unfolding of ever greater levels of wisdom and compassion to alleviate suffering for all beings. Like many indigenous traditions around the world, Zen Buddhism celebrates the fundamental inter-connectedness and Interbeing of all phenomena. “Eco” in Ecodharma also highlights the fact that humans are embedded in ecosystems and belong to the web of life. The ‘Eco’ paradigm can help us make the shift from ways of living based on hierarchy, control and oppression to those based on co-intelligence, co-operation, mutuality and partnership. Thus, "Ecodharma" encompasses revitalized teachings, insights, frameworks and practices of contemplative traditions, especially Buddhism, through which we can act in these times of polycrisis, a large part of which is ecological-climate crisis. See more here and here.
Ceremony: Sacred community altars for honoring exiled emotions
In modern contexts, ceremony is usually defined as a set of formal fixed and traditional acts, performed on important social/religious occasions or rites of passage such as birth, baptism/naming, coming of age, marriage, retirement, and/or death. Ancestral indigenous ceremonies are place-based, often in relationship with the natural world, seek to strengthen a person's connection to the spiritual world as well as the local ecosystems, provide healing or clarity and bring the focus back to the harmony among a vast network of relationships. Kritee facilitates ceremonies that are sacred rituals for and with human (and increasingly more-than-human) communities, to draw together past, present, and future into a space in which transformations of personal and collective traumas can occur. These ceremonies include acknowledging, verbalizing, singing, chanting, drumming, wailing, angering, swaying and shaking out our exiled emotions of grief, rage, shame and fear.
Animism and Shamanism
Animistic worldviews and shamanic practices are central to Indigenous spiritual, cultural, political and economic life. Animism is a belief system that sees all elements of the natural world—animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and even objects—as alive, sentient, and imbued with a consciousness. Shamanism is a practice where individuals, i.e. shamans, act as intermediaries between the spiritual and physical worlds, communicating with spirits, for healing and guidance. Examples from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings below illustrates the blend of animism (belief in the intelligence and aliveness of natural forces) with shamanism (active engagement with and manipulation of those forces).
Can you recall when Gandalf whispered a message to the Eagles through a moth and got rescued from Saruman’s Tower? Or when Gandalf and Elrond spoke to the river to seek its help to keep out the Ringwraiths and enable the safe arrival of Frodo to Rivendell? Or when Saruman used spells to bring a snowstorm down the mountain to stop the Fellowship of the Ring on their journey?