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THE COMMUNITY

THE PERSON

THE WORK

BEING, IN RELATION →

a spiritual trap disarming kit for the modern mystic

the spiritual rogue

We live with our feet in the oil-slick waters of simulacral knowing

—the runoff of the colonized mind—

where a single spark sets the whole thing ablaze.

But you gotta get your mind and heart straight, baby,

or you're just going to be pouring fuel on the fire.

We live with our feet in the oil-slick waters of simulacral knowing

—the runoff of the colonized mind—

where a single spark sets the whole thing ablaze.

But you gotta get your mind and heart straight, baby,

or you're just going to be pouring fuel on the fire.

DISPATCH FROM THE HEADWATERS

THIS IS AN INVITATION TO THE WESTERN MIND

This is the work of the Spiritual Rogue—the unapologetic rigor of someone unwilling to sate their hunger on the scraps of colonial leftovers; to question if good intentions and genuine longing are enough to put us back into the arms of a benevolent god, or if we are doomed to looping around the distortions of a desperate mind ad nauseum.

This is the answer to a call placed lifetimes ago, letting the ask make and remake you according to the needs of now. This is the call that asks us to know ourselves so intimately it makes us afraid, but that fear is the very thing that lights us up and makes us know we're alive, we're human, we're doing this.

And so we do it without really doing much at all—be ourselves, radically and unapologetically, and in harmonious melody with a world becoming as we become.

This is the responsibility of the animist, the mystic, the rebel:

KNOW YOURSELF, so that the World can know itself through you.

I am Her, She is Me: Reclaiming Relationship with Body as Earth

Photo by USGS on Unsplash As I began the descent into my body, I found dirt, I found feathers, I found fur and root-slime. I found ground up bits of bone and rock, slugs and bugs, mycelium, detritus; worm-holes and worn paths. I didn’t find a Better Than, a Holier Than, a More Acceptable. Instead, each part spoke of a wilding, a Union with the feral and untamed; each piece sang the song of ages past, knowledges lost, wisdoms known and unknown. And in coming closer to myself,

When Blue Needs a New Name, Part I: Cultural Appropriation and the Epistemology of Perception

Cultural appropriation is not a moral failure, but an epistemological one. Let's get into it. -- hi, I'm Thyia River North. If you're new here, I write about where western consciousness goes wrong even in its most well-meaning attempts at repair—pulling at the threads to find what's actually fraying underneath. Check out "Why I Don't Believe in Animism" to get a primer on my work. First, let's talk epistemology and what I mean by that. When I wrote the Animism article, I wa

Vintage botanical illustration by Maria Sibylla Merian showing snails, slug, and beetle among flowering plants and soil — ecological imagery for a blog post on the heart as topsoil and inner spiritual landscape.

The Mystic Heart: Letting It Do What the Head Cannot

I don't know if you all have been feeling a bit extra heavy this week, but I've been feeling pretty murky minded and a bit weighty in the body. It's been a bit of trudging through thick mud as I move through my world, both outer and inner. And, to be fair, there is a large shift I think we are all grappling with, no matter the historical precedent of such world events, that leaves us feeling a touch unmoored. I want to speak a bit on this, to cast out a line and anchor us i

THE LANDSCAPE

COMMUNITY & PRACTICE

THE IMAGINAL COLLECTIVE

a living community of practice that is intimate, rigorous, and actively guided; this is companionship on the path, with the focus on communal growth and sharing together. [JOIN THE COLLECTIVE →]

THE PERSON BEHIND THE WORK

THYIA RIVER NORTH

a scholar-practitioner, writer, and founder of The Imaginal Collective; coming from the lineage of Akbarian Sufism, Paracelsian cosmology and practice, and relational animism, her work is organized around a single purpose: to truly know yourself is to know the nature of reality itself.

[ABOUT RIVER →]

JOURNEY IN THE ISTHMUS

COURSES ON SPIRITUAL PRACTICE & CONCEPT

self-study entry points into the living curriculum—explorations of cosmology and metaphysics, remembrance practice, relational animism, and self-knowledge as spiritual discipline.

[EXPLORE COURSES →] (Coming soon!)

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