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.

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.

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