ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how some practitioners identify with nature. Historically, there is no pristine Nature ‘out there’; nature has meant different things to people at various periods in time. The Enlightenment view of nature as an affirmation of an objective reality was not the same as that of the Romantics who, a century or so later, experienced nature through the feelings that it inspired. Ecophilosopher Warwick Fox sees the need to establish what he terms a ‘transpersonal ecology’ through a personal identification of commonality with family, friends, pets, homes, football teams, etc. Bias and possessiveness, leading to attachment and proprietorship, are negative aspects of personal identification. Drumming groups, where participants can practise shamanic techniques, are a by-product of the growth and popularity of Michael Harner’s Core Shamanism. The chapter comprises a series of glimpses into some of the ways in which practitioners seek to engage with nature.
