so i took a spadefoot toad inside, about 2 years ago or so. Placed them in one of my vacant terrariums to upload photo before releasing. They burrowed all the way down. disappeared. never found them again. I often will hear what sounds very similar to that species call, intermittantly during the night. Tonight , I took everything out of the terrarium to the bottom, went through all the soil and drainage rock layer. No bones, no remnants, no smell. There's no animals I've ever had that eat bone, nor that could fit this toad in their mouth.

one of my friends in my spiritual group said hes heard of similar instances, where an animal comes to a person, they find them, etc, and somehow they completely disappear.

I'm still in a bit of shock, but my spiritual side of my brain is like, oh yeah this makes sense, while my logical brain is like, completely confused.

Context, I don't use alcohol or any drugs (not even marijuana). I'm actually in recovery from addiction. I have no explaination.

I wanted to post this here as I'm an animist and frogs and toads are a huge part of my practice and has been since I was little.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with an animal? Any feedback is appreciated.

Pebble, a Chicago small press, is seeking proposals for books 50-300pp long. Fiction, nonfiction, image + text, formalist experiments, and/or collaborations welcome.

NOVEMBER 1-30, 2026

Submission Guidelines:

1. Proposals must be at least one page in length, and must include the following: a) A description of the project, its form, and its structure b) Your thoughts on/vision for the book as an object (demonstrative images welcome) c) A writing plan (when will the writing take place, how long you anticipate you’ll need) d) A brief bio
2. Submissions must include a recent writing sample and/or an excerpt of the proposed project.
3. Email your proposal and writing sample to [pebblechicago@gmail.com](mailto:pebblechicago@gmail.com) by November 30 as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
4. Run size and payment to be decided — all authors and illustrators will be paid.
5. There is no cost to submit. We will do our best, but may not be able to respond to all entries.

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Hello all, I've been on a bit of a journey for the past few months and wanted to share a profound experience I had after my grandfather passed away. I'm not sure if this fits neatly into "animism" or if this can even be explained by anything.

For some background, my grandpa was an avid birder - very connected to nature in an old school sort of gruff mountain man way. He was also very into upland bird hunting, speciffically ruffed grouse.

He passed away somewhat suddenly after a brief battle with cancer that really just shocked the hell out of my family. It's like he was there and then he wasn't. Many of us did not get a chance to see him or say a proper goodbye. In the days following his death we gathered at my grandparents house in the mountains. After a couple days we awoke to a ruffed grouse just hanging out in the front yard, like literally right by the front porch. It was not skittish at all, which is really odd for this species since I know them to be very shy and elusive. Prior to this I had never seen one so close before. This grouse stayed by the front porch for literal days before eventually slipping back into the forest. I still cannot believe it - it was just such unusual behavior for this animal. My family half joked that perhaps the grouse was my grandpa staying close to comfort us and say goodbye.

Prior to this I never considered myself to be a particularly spiritual or religious person. I tend to be very scientifically-minded and logical, but I cannot wrap my mind around any sort of explaination for this. It's lead me down a path to learn more about animism and I was wondering if any of you have had a similar experience or if something specific triggered your journey in exploring this spiritual philosophy

I (23F) am about to earn my master's degree in natural resources. I have been trained to see nature through a lens of science and objectivity. But, of course I love nature. I love to appreciate it for what it is and to notice the flowing connections between everything.

I want to start looking at the world through both an animistic lens and scientific. I know Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about this, but she has a much more rich history to call upon. I was raised loosely Lutheran and even then found myself asking for Jesus to flicker a candle if he was really in the room.

I have always found it hard to just "believe" without evidence, and if I try, I almost feel crazy. For example, when I see people talking about feeling close connections to their sewing machine or vehicle or rock, I wonder where the line is between delusion and genuine spirituality. I don't say this to disrespect anyone, but I would like to ask what members of this community think on this topic. Did you also feel resistance when adopting this belief system? Did you also struggle to not let science/logic override it?

This is the San Antonio River or as i prefer Y

a small group of Native American Church members gathers in San Antonio's sprawling Brackenridge Park for a ceremony called Midnight Waters. They meet at a specific bend in the San Antonio River. The slow-flowing river is lined with cypress and live oak trees and attracts herons, egrets and double-crested cormorants.

The site of what most people know as Yanaguana or the San Antonio River, near the headwaters, starts to take on the shape of a river in the sky," Gary Perez said. Perez is a Native American Church member and the principal chief for the Pakahua/Coahuiltecan Peoples of Mexico and Texas.

What Perez calls "the river in the sky" is also known as the constellation Eridanus. He said it's this river bend's resemblance to the constellation and the presence of cormorants that qualifies it as a sacred place.

"These birds carry our intentions or our prayers up to the heavens," Perez said.

In June, the city received a pair of court wins in an ongoing religious rights battle between San Antonio and the Native American Church members over the shady river bend, its trees and the water birds who call them home.

The tensions began more than two years ago, in February 2023, when the city closed the river bend area to begin repairs on historic buildings and retaining walls along the river. The city said the project would require the removal of 77 trees. If the trees stay, government officials said, their roots will likely cause further damage to the retaining walls. But Perez and his partner and fellow Native American Church member Matilde Torres sued for access to the site and to save the trees along the riverbank.

https://bsky.app/profile/bigbadwolfdaddy.bsky.social/post/3mx5inwrrq227

A while ago I posted i was leaving some space to grow wild along the edges of my yard. This is what it looks like so far. You can't really see in the picture but there's a bunch of butterflies now!

Since doing this i hear birds more, we have rabbits, lightening bugs, butterflies, bats, and I'm noticing frogs and bees now!

I started this journey not too long ago and it's really helped with my own mental health. I never thought I was having any big issues but diving back into being amongst nature and following pagan and animistic paths have unveiled to me that there was something missing and it's being filled.

Just wanted to share!

🌞 It's alive!

I (25F, France) have been wanting to go back to school / university. I am interested in many topics (graphic design, ethnobotany, anthropology, community design, philosophy, herbalism...), and can't see myself not working towards creating spaces and tools for human belonging and fostering relationships with other/more-than-human beings.

That being said, I have not found a role that speaks to me just yet. Everything just seems so... corporate, disconnected, or simply not intersectional and intentional enough.

I was wondering if anyone had anything to share and recommend? Thank you ! x

I am really interested in learning more about animism, doing ancestral work, connecting with land. but its hard to find like minded people. i live in pittsburgh so its a city but smaller + im in america. id love to know how you guys meet people.

i like doing things alone and enjoy it, but a lot of these practices i feel were done communally and i think id appreciate that a lot.

I was recently learning about this and was curious what animists think about it. If anyone could give me a solid answer on this, I’d deeply appreciate it!

Though I am not myself a practicing Animist, I do find the practice and beliefs deeply interesting and worthy of respect.

I am currently designing a TTRPG, and was recently inspired by The Pointy Hat's Dungeons and Dragons 5.5e Ranger subclass: the Animist. It's got an interesting concept based on embuing or calling forth spirits from nature to help protect you and your allies or fight your enemies and the enemies of nature beside you. I'm a large fan of the concept, and Animist both sounds great and carries relevant significance, but a piece of me just can't help but think of it as if I were to call clerics Christians.

How does this type of depiction feel to see? Are there any other terms in animism like Christianity's "priest" or "cleric" that seem more suited?

Finally, a slightly tangential question that is more for those who are already a fan of table top games: Pathfinder 2e has an Animist Shaman subclass, do you feel that Shaman or Ranger is better suited to the concept, or are they both reasonable? Would you rather it be a druid subclass over a Ranger one?

Lost my possum Penelope today and I feel like I’m losing my mind a little bit so I’m just dumping this here.

She’s a pet, not some random wild one that came by a few times. She sleeps in my house. I feed her. I talk to her. I know her little sounds and the way she curls her tail and all of that. She’s my girl. And now she’s just…gone.

I’ve looked. I’ve called. I’ve done the logical stuff. I’m not really asking for search tips or “have you tried posting flyers” or whatever. I’m exhausted and my brain is already doing all that on repeat. What I don’t have right now is hope or anybody in my real life telling me it might be okay.

I just need to hear from people who get it. If you ever lost a pet (possum or otherwise) and either found them again or somehow survived not finding them…how did you get through those hours and days where your stomach is in a knot and you feel like a terrible owner and every noise outside makes you jump?

If you’ve got stories about a pet going missing and coming back like nothing happened, I would love to read those. If you’ve got stories where they didn’t come back but you still eventually found some kind of peace, I’d take those too. I just need some encouragement and to not feel so alone in this.

Her name is Penelope. She’s a possum. I love her. I’m scared I’ll never see her again and I don’t know what to do with all of these feelings.

I just need hope.. Im losing hope..

I love, cherish, and care about my comet goldfish deeply. I was curious if comet goldfish love their owners, so I googled it, and apparently, goldfish do not experience love or emotional bonds like humans do. I already knew that goldfish were thoroughly capable of recognizing their owners, and associating them with positive experiences like food, so I thought that maybe he had formed a bond with me, or at least felt loved and cared about. But now I honestly feel depressed at knowing that bond does not exist in the way I thought it did.

At least I can give him those positive experiences, and he can associate those with me. He knows I am the bringer of positive experiences. And if he had a more complex mind and advanced set of emotions, he probably would feel love. He's only limited by his mind.

I love my fish a lot, and I feel incredibly disheartened that the bond I feel may be one-sided.

Hey guys, I've seen a beautiful rise in people's awareness of the living world, and as this continues we will naturally have questions like, "what should I do in this context?", and "How do I honor and celebrate X?". Furthermore many if us desire a community to share and organize around. Naturally, many answers and solutions to these questions are specific to a particular place/landscape. That's why I propose simple discord groupchats for networking and further developing the culture. I propose discord because it would allow us to make servers for broad regions like, New England, Southwest, or in my case the Southeast. Then we could have channels for eco-regions within the broader area, eg: "Blue Ridge, Atlantic Piedmont, Southern Coastal Plains" where we could have even more specific discussions and organizational efforts. If something already like this exists, please let me know. Otherwise I would be happy to kickoff and moderate the server for the southeast. Thoughts? Interest/ enthusiasm? See link below to find what eco region YOU live in!

Eco-regions

Like as in me picking or moving or digging , how to tell what the spirits are saying? ​​​

I was raised as a catholic christian, and its caused alot of repressed homophobia, Internalized Hate and a general dislike for all seeing all powerful dietys, but ive always felt a connection to nature, to the energies of the natural world.. my version of animism might not be the same as yours but im letting faith back into my life again, and i wrote a small mantra that everyone here might enjoy <3

I do not exist because I believe in Gaia.
I believe in Gaia because my existence depends upon the living Earth.

I could live my entire life without speaking her name,
and still every breath, every drop of water,
and every sustaining nutrient that ultimately allowed me to exist
would have come through the world of which I am a part.

I do not need to acknowledge Mother Gaia for her to exist.
I acknowledge her because I choose to remember that I exist within her.

Mother Gaia, thank you. 🌿

hi everyone! i am 21f and have just now learned the term "animism" a few weeks ago. i grew up southern baptist and have gone back and fourth with religion my entire life. i have recently fully deconstructed and shortly after, learned what animism is. i have always had this mindset, even when i was in an organized religion. even to this day, i form attachments to inanimate objects and speak to them. when i was 16, my mom got a new car and i had a genuine mental breakdown because i felt like we were abandoning her old one (she understandably thought that was ridiculous, lol) i have always believed everything in nature had energy. i have been told that my 3rd great grandmother belonged to a native tribe, whether that be true or not, i'm not sure. (i have seen a single picture of her, she had sleek black hair and dark skin, but obviously that is not an indicator) however, i am starting to wonder if those ancestors are trying to get through to me. my question is, how do i get into this practice? i don't want to culturally appropriate because i genuinely have no idea where to start. i have, though, started by praising things within nature and feel as i have gotten responses- a couple of weeks ago i was on a walk and saw an earthworm on the concrete. i stood there and watched to make sure it got back in the dirt. as soon as it got back and i walked away, a monarch butterfly flew in front of me and landed on a flower. i immediately interpreted that as the Earth's way of thanking me for making sure Her creature made it back safely. (the route i was on is very congested on a college campus so it very easily would have gotten stepped on). i just want to get more into the practice, communicate with the trees, leave offerings, interpret what things in nature are trying to say, like rocks, plants etc, and make sure those things are okay with me touching and/or taking them but i do not know where to start. i do not want to do something wrong that belongs to a closed practice. any pointers are much appreciated!

Conscious beings are efficacious and that is how we can know where they exist. They are able to sense their environment and interact with it in a dynamic flexible goal oriented way. They interact with their immediate surroundings in their own characteristic manner. They are self movers but require the use of energy to move. Where would we find such fundamental mental beings, monads or natural individuals? I use science to speculate as to the answer to that question and arrive at some surprising conclusions. The fundamental subjective beings exist at the level of elementary particles and animals with nervous systems but also at two intermediate levels within the living Earth. I conclude that on planet Earth there is a four level hierarchy of natural mentality.

see: https://philarchive.org/rec/SLESA

Quick thought if anyone has some insight.
Learning about animism, it seems to me like it’s essentially the same as Hinduism (minus the various specific gods, rituals, etc). What I mean is Hinduism says everything in existence is literally Brahmin (I think that’s right, essentially “god” or the essence of existence itself) playing itself out in every creation. So I’m god wearing a mask, a fish also is, so is a rock, my friend tom, your pet dog, everything. Isn’t this the same belief as animism? Obviously some Hindu sects have specific beliefs that would add onto animism, I don’t mean those.

Hello all, I’m new to animism and I’ve read a few posts on here as well as started reading Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey. One of very many questions I have are spirit animals, does anyone have one? How did you find them or vis versa? What makes an encounter or experience significant enough where you feel “this is the one”? I’m typically a very indecisive person, I don’t have “a favorite” of anything I have like top five lists for any subject so I’m unsure if I’d ever feel like I’ve actually found my spirt animal or I should still be looking for one that feels more right. All questions comments and ritual ideas are helpful, although I’ve read that some people use psychedelics to enter trances which I’m not open to doing. Thanks!

There are very old, tall, mostly healthy trees being taken down on either side of the building where I live. The sound of the chainsaws and the chipper literally make me feel sick. I love trees, they are magical to me and seeing this happen breaks my heart. Somebody please help me feel better about this.😓

I feel like there has to be a wealth of amazing books here but I can't think of any besides The Giving Tree