Animism and the Natural World: Reading + Listening Guide
This reading and listening guide is meant to provide you with resources for learning about animism, land + place connection, and the natural world. The Nourishing Kin community is full of avid readers and researchers, and we want to share all the goodness we find with anyone who is interested. This list is not comprehensive; it is curated. This means that we have encountered many more resources than what is listed here. For a resource to be included on our guide, it must meet the following requirements:
the content faithfully centers the culture/practice/people it claims to represent;
the resource and its authors do not condone racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, colonization, etc;
the resource has been reviewed by one of our facilitator team members.
We will continue to read and tend to this list. For reference, this collection was last updated: November 5, 2024
General Animism
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday by Sharon Blackie
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More than Human World by David Abram
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
The Lost Words and Spell Songs by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris
Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up: Connect with Totems in Your Ecosystem by Lupa
Ecofeminism and the Sacred by Carol J. Adams, editor. (specifically A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on Ecofeminist Spiritualities by Karen J. Warren; Ecofeminist Consciousness and the Transforming Power of Symbols by L. Teal Willoughby; and Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic of Shamanism and the Sacred by Gloria F. Orenstein)
Animate Beings
How To Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature by Stephen H. Buhner
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Handicrafts and Embodied Practices
Rituals for Life: A Guide to Creating Meaningful Rituals Inspired by Nature by Isla Macleod
The Wander Society by Keri Smith
We are the ARK: Returning Our Gardens to Their True Nature with Acts of Restorative Kindness by Mary Reynolds
Land + Place Connection
An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field by Terry Tempest Williams
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
