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To put it overly-simplified but in a Whiteheadian way: In a mechanism, the parts organize the whole; in an organism, the whole organizes the parts.
Whitehead’s metaphysic is a philosophy of organism because it is all about the whole organizing the parts, so no particular part (actual occasions/entities) can exist in isolation without the whole.
Physicist David Bohm, with his quantum vision of Wholeness, has said that quantum theory should never have been called Quantum Mechanics, but instead Quantum Organics, because the universe acts like an organism rather a mechanism.

I think my wife has Braiding Sweetgrass in our library so I will have take a look at it. It sounds like Kimmerer makes some interesting observations and points. It also sounds like “enter into the deep reciprocity that renews the world” is becoming Indigenous even if you don’t feel it initially. I would think that if you can come to experience that, feeling Indigenous won’t be far behind. Initially we may need guidance because we are not used to relating with the world in that way, but eventually the land itself becomes the teacher. Like in any relationship, however, the “all-in commitment” is what leads to deeper connection that requires respect, reciprocity, and a sense of responsibility to come to full fruition.

I think restoring, reclaiming, and minimizing the impacts of chemical pollution on land and water could be seen as important steps toward acting in an Indigenous way, even if initially the reasons are too often economic rather than sincere concern. I also think, like I talk about in one of the articles, that Indigenous peoples are telling us all the time how to respect the land and reciprocate in a sustainable way. We just have to learn to listen and understand what they are saying. And starting small and letting the ripples expand is part of that lesson I think.

If you are willing to slog through a doctoral thesis than that is likely the best place to start because it will give you all the references to follow up on if you want and find a particular topic interesting. The first sections are situating it in Religious Studies so I talk a lot about John Cobb Jr.’s position on Religious Diversity, and then a rather complex chapter on Whitehead, and my Theory and Method chapter on the issues surrounding researching Indigenous thought. But if you are able to get through all that rather academic stuff, the subsequent chapters are the comparative parts that get to be easier reading. I drew a lot on Griffin’s work on Parapsychology because that is where he talks most on “retro-prehensive cognition,” but I am sure his position is scattered throughout his many books and articles. I summarize his take on it in the thesis though so that may be all you need. He has a book and article on it if you can get hold of them:

Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1997.

“Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective.” The Journal of the American Society for Pyschical Research 87, no. 3 (1993).

Experience, and complexity of experience, and subjectivity are major themes in Whitehead,however, so I am sure there are many books and articles out there that take very deep dives on that topic. In my thesis I expand possible subjectivity a little further than Whitehead does, into the possibility of composites like plants and rocks (mountains), although I limit it to natural objects rather than things like chairs, because the way Indigenous peoples understand it makes sense to me given Whiteheads cosmology. Anyway, I talk a bit about that and make my position clear in the thesis I think. I hope that helps.

Just out of interest… can you tell me where you found and download my thesis?

Bill. Your words show a really deep understanding, not only of what I was talking about, but the Whiteheadian concepts that relate to it. There is a big difference between merely understanding the philosophy and fully realizing how it relates and manifests in our own experience of the world. You have done a deep dive into a realization of the consequences and ramifications of this worldview and lifeway that is extremely thoughtful, personal, and inspiring. Experiencing rather than merely contemplating, as important as that can be. Thank you very much for sharing your extraordinary experience-based insight.

Thank you for your words Alexandre. I am very happy to hear that it may help you understand things better, and enhance your own relationships with our First Nations. In the opening paragraphs of my Ph.D thesis on this subject I call Whiteheadian Process Relational philosophy a “translative device” to better understand the Indigenous experience and what they have been telling us, and helping cross the bridge you speak of. I once asked my sister-in-law who worked many years in BC with First Nations communities for the government, what was the most difficult “nut to crack” in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the government workers. She said that there were actually two. One was that the government and corporate people really, really, did not understand what First Nations were saying and meaning. But, she said, the most difficult one was…They thought they did.
I think many Indigenous people will and do push back as you suggest. I think this is a reflection of their own experience and how difficult it has been to have ownership of their own lives and destiny. I think under those circumstances it must be very difficult to share the wisdom they have held with outsiders that have done such damage. But I have found many Elders and scholars that recognize that our ancestors were once Indigenous, but also know we were separated from that many centuries ago, in another land, and it would be a good thing if we were able to re-connect in that way. It is not just Jeanette Armstrong from BC that understands Indigeneity from a wider social aspect. John Mohawk, one of the most famous Indigenous writers and thinkers, has also talked about re-Indigenization as more than just being possible in the Native community (which is often what it is limited to) because of the disconnect it has suffered, but also for non-natives. An perhaps the most famous Indigenous scholar Vine Deloria Jr. once talked about this. Native American Scholar Emily Cousins says that Deloria encouraged people to think about the extent non-Native Americans have become Indigenous if they have “responded to the rhythms of the land.” This is, she notes, based on a definition of ‘becoming Indigenous’ that does not mean becoming Native, but rather “knowing the land where we live and showing it respect.” I believe he talked about some farmers and ranchers as possibly in that category.

I have found there are many Elders and Knowledge Keepers that are willing to share their knowledge and experience so that we may be able to understand it better. Perhaps not all their wisdom, if there is some that is too deeply connected to their own peoples, or not appropriate to be talked about rather than experienced, but enough to help us understand and re-connect. That is probably how it should be and the most we can hope for.

You are very welcome. I enjoyed the talk very much.

Thank you so much for your words Brian. I found them deeply moving. I can’t think of anything more a writer and educator could ask for than to have made a difference in understanding in the way you describe. I am also humbled by your description of your work in the world and the mission you have taken on. In these trying times I can only think of persons like you, doing such work, as those who sincerely make a difference for the better in the world… for the Common Good as John Cobb Jr. would say. You have made my day and life brighter, and more hopeful, just knowing such efforts exist and continue.

Very insightful Roni! I would say that is totally true. Mother Earth is all around and underneath us whether it is in the little patch of dirt in our backyard, the park down the street, or underneath our driveway. I know of a group of Blackfoot First Nations that travel up to Calgary from a small city to the south of us to do ceremony in the parking lot of a Safeway because that is where that particular ceremony was traditionally held. It was still sacred ground even though we paved paradise to put up a parking lot.
The point is to connect to whatever you have available to you. That is not to say it may be a little more difficult in an apartment in the middle of a city, but the plants with the most energy for life are the “weeds” that have forced their way up through the cracks of a sidewalk. Can you imagine what it took to do that, and how strong their medicine must be?
And we must never bifurcate nature and separate the two legged from the rest of nature. All My Relations means all the humans in our lives as well as the non-humans. Connecting with one connects with all.

The only two things I would add to our discussion yesterday is that while it is true that once you have the skill in creating and sustaining these types of relationships you can do it anywhere, like any relationship the longer one nurtures them the deeper they become. And although they may fade with distance and become less relevant, they can be maintained to some degree if the disconnect is not absolute. Relationships do tend to fade with distance in time and space unfortunately, unless extraordinary effort is put into it, and conditions allow for it. Always easier close-up and in person. And remember that in an interconnected relational universe, the locality may determine HOW your relationship manifests, but the connection with the greater reality through those dynamic relationships as new ones are formed in new contexts, is the same.
Also, I think the whole Zoom and online community thing is a new experience we are navigating. In my wife’s healing practice, that is based in indigneous-style “energy” and “spirit” healing, the Covid situation propelled far more “distance” healing sessions, as well as ceremonies. The “internal relationships” of the relational web is time and space independent so if it is based on entering into, and gaining knowledge from our primary mode of perception (prehending our past actual world) then online communities can still thrive if desired. The “secondary mode of perception” of our senses that supply “presentational immediacy” (the computer and screen) can give us vital information and is an experience in itself, and helps us connect in many ways, but it doesn’t have to stop there necessarily if we maintain the internal relationships that get developed.
Since Covid my wife has done many ceremonies over Zoom, with worldwide attendance at times, with great results that many have found deeply rewarding even though they would prefer to be there in person, of course. It can be done I think.

Very thoughtful questions yinying. To your first point: We have to always keep in mind that our own interpersonal relationships are dynamic and ever-changing to adapt to new times and conditions, so relating to the “land” would be the same. As you pointed out, unlike how it is often thought of, “traditional” does not mean static, and in a process-relational world we must always recognize this ongoing fluidity. Otherwise we commit what Whitehead called the “fallacy of simple location” and even “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness” which mistakes something conceptual with something concrete by putting a process into concrete “boxlike” categories.
Second question: There is a difference between understanding data and having it become “knowledge.” It is not that in Indigenous cultures something can’t be explained or understood as information same as in Western culture. But in typical Indigenous ways-of-knowing “knowledge” and “wisdom” come from lived experience, so until that happens the data is provisional. In some Indigenous languages here in Canada even how one gained information is built into the speech. So when asked they might say “yes the plane has arrived” if they saw it happen. But they might also phrase it as “I heard from my brother that he saw the plane arrive” or I heard from my brother, that he heard from X that the plane has arrived. What you KNOW is what you experienced directly. I might only be a change in syntax to make those distinctions.
So, as non-indigenous people we can understand how it becomes knowledge, and we can understand the information itself, but we can’t understand it as lived experiential knowledge unless we live it ourselves. And even then we won’t understand it as knowledge the way they do, only as we do, because we do not come from the same context. Data may be objective, but knowledge and wisdom are subjective. Whitehead himself had very little regard for “mere facts”. Everyone experiences these things differently so the knowledge gained will always be slightly different. If 10 people go into the same ceremony there will be 10 different understandings that come out of it. There may be commonalities, but everyone’s perspective is different so the lived experience and the knowledge you gain from it, will be different. This is largely recognized in Indigenous thought whereas in Western thought we assume that if we have the same info, and do the same things, our “knowledge” of it will be the same. Strange.
So, if you were to go to an Elder and ask how a question about how and where to pick plants or “medicines”, they would likely just say something like “come along with me for the day” and you would go out and do it. It makes you realize why Indigenous peoples say their kids need a different indigenous education system for their kids to learn properly. I know as a professor that I could tell right away when I got a paper from a First Nations student because of how it was usually written in the first person about their own experience with their families and communities. Not usually recognized as “academic”, so they often got poor marks from other teachers, but invariable had the equivalent or better insight and understanding, and Always very interesting.
I hope that helps.

David Ray Griffin gave a talk and wrote a paper on Bohm and Whitehead called “Bohm and Whitehead on Wholeness, Freedom, Causality, and Time” from his edited book “Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time: Bohm, Prigogine, and Process Philosophy” which you may be able to find as an article as well. It is from 1985. I think he is a bit strong in his critique of Bohm because of his own philosophical rigorousness which doesn’t allow for some of Bohm’s lumping together of concepts and rather loose and off-the-cuff statements that sometimes seem inconsistent with his stated position, but it lays out the discrepancies really well.

That is actually the rabbit hole I have been going down the last couple of years with attending many of the zoom conferences and talks from the Pari Center. I would mostly agree with everything said. The only thing would be to keep in mind that Whitehead also considered his philosophy open-ended in that experience was primary so if human experience, or new discovery, was not accommodated in his philosophy he was totally up for revision. He thought that neither he nor anyone else had the final word on it, and neither did Bohm. In general Whiteheadians have a problem with Bohm because even though he, and Basil Hiley, have said that their position is not ontologically deterministic, from things he has said it still appears to be so from a rigorous philosophical perspective. In particular Whiteheadians are fiercely defensve on novel choice and free will, and the linear cause-and-effect of time in a novel way (a “growing block” universe vision) so if anything undermines that it is inconsistent with his most basic of principles (the Ultimate Category of Creativity). Hiley told me at a conference Q&A that ontological novelty is covered in Bohm’s “generative orders”, which I mostly agree with now as well as I study it more. I think, with his less systematic philosophy Bohm lumps a few of Whitehead’s principles and categories together under his concept of the unfolding and enfolding of the “Implicate Order” which Whitehead would understand as the dipolar process entailing both physical and mental aspects in novel ways. If you read it that way and not worry about that particular discrepancy or the less philosophically rigorous things Bohm says, I think it can be reconciled and seen as complementary.
I hope that helps a little. I haven’t quite worked it out yet but I am hopeful.

My favorite translation of Wankan Tanka (Sioux language group) and other names such as Gichi Manitou (Algonquin language group) is the “Great Mysterious” rather than “Mystery”, which seems to remove it from being noun based and gives it even more movement toward process. (Joseph Epes Brown)
Many traditions (especially some Indigenous) that have been labeled “polytheism” seem to me to be less about multiple gods and more about the mysterious force that pervades all things as you suggest. If any manifestations are then related to on a personal level, and given respect and reverence, they get labelled “gods” by Western culture, whether the term fits or not.

Well said Jamie! Whitehead definitely thought of radical relationality as an ontological reality rather than a metaphor. And with the realization of quantum entanglement, many recent physicists, such as F. David Peat, David Bohm and Basil Hiley, have urged us to remember that if there was a Big Bang, it means that all reality was entangled in that singular quantum event, resulting in an interconnected wholeness to the universe.
(Sorry- definitely not as poetic as your beautiful post)

Wow Bill! Can’t add anything to THAT.