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Animist practice is often framed as connection: listening, dialogue, relationship. But connection can slide into projection. This essay explores a different starting point. One grounded in discipline, restraint, and training attention before interpretation, so that whatever responds does so on its own terms.

For a long time, I was satisfied with the idea of agency. New materialist thinking helped loosen the human habit of treating the world as inert, reminding us that action is shared and distributed. But lately, agency has felt incomplete. Animacy names something quieter and more fundamental: the tendency of things to act, persist, and express themselves according to their own nature, whether I’m paying attention or not.

Summer in Tasmania brings fire, heat, long evenings — and the sound of lawn mowers drifting through the valley. What used to be background noise has become an invitation: a way of listening that shifts how the world feels and how I inhabit it. This piece explores attention as participation, spirit as presence, and the subtle animacy that reveals itself when we lean in.

I didn’t expect to spend my afternoon sitting with a light pole, but here we are. A chat about new materialism somehow turned into me, a park bench, and a very patient pole trying to see what “co-presence” feels like. No flickering lights, no mystical 'woo', just a surprising sense that the pole and I had… something. And now I’m wondering if this weird little experiment actually scales.

A rediscovered garage on a city street sent me spiralling into questions of agency and sentience. Does a building act? Can a doorway want to return? Somewhere between “mashed potato and fuck you”, I found a reminder that words shape how we meet the living world — and sometimes, how the world meets us back.

What does it mean to live in a world that is fully alive? For me, affirming animism as the core of my worldview was both overwhelming and clarifying. Every action ripples outward, touching land, beings, and futures. The realization brought grief and despair, but also a sense of direction and hope. Animism isn’t theory — it’s relationship. Once you know the world is alive, you can’t unknow it. The question becomes: so now what?

There is no distance. Not between us, not between our past and future selves, not between the living world and the spirits that shape it. Floods, mycelium, and city corners all reveal the same thing: connection isn’t made, it’s recognized. What looks like empty space is already alive with relationship.

Urban animism sees cities as living reefs: ecosystems where humans, spirits, and places interact. This essay explores the shift from stewardship to custodianship, arguing that we’re not managers of urban life but participants with responsibility for the whole. From struggling neighbourhoods to thriving laneways, what does it mean to live as co-inhabitants in a city that’s alive?

A few weeks ago, something was thinking through me - intense, all-consuming creative collaboration with something Other. Now it's paused, and I'm managing the come-down. The doubt, the emptiness, the loneliness after spiritual highs. The unglamorous side nobody talks about when they romanticize connection with the Other.

Pacific gull circling the city at sunset Yesterday, I watched a Pacific Gull circle the taller buildings of the CBD ('central business...

I feel ill. Excited, humbled, in awe. I feel trepidation. A small glimmer of hope but also fear that what's happening to me isn't real. Gods I hope I'm right. And there's a little, reserved part of me that hopes I'm wrong. I'm going to try and explain this to you in the hope it becomes a little clearer to me. And also because it might help someone else if they end up grappling with the same thing

Confused about 'the work' in spiritual circles? You're not alone. This guide breaks down the three different meanings - from personal practice to collective transformation to the alchemical Great Work - that get casually dropped in occult conversations without explanation

Your city is alive. Not in some wishy-washy metaphorical sense. Actually. Fucking. Alive. While we've been exposed to many practitioners...

Last week, I caught myself apologizing to a parking meter. Not the casual "sorry" you mutter when you bump into furniture. A full-on,...

Discover how a chaotic linen cupboard becomes the perfect metaphor for spiritual inspiration in this personal exploration of urban animism. Join the Esoteric Potato journey as unexpected insights overflow and a new blog series takes shape, examining the spirits that inhabit our concrete landscapes

Many years ago, I used to walk to work, past an abandoned house with a mesh-covered garage opening that framed a view into a wild...

Can you remember the first time you were overcome with wonder? When you came across something unexpected that just stopped you in your...

I hadn't planned on this - an introductory post. These things usually feel like those mind-numbing workshop icebreakers where everyone...