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How to Find — and Savor — San Francisco’s Animist Trail
I must begin with a confession. There is no official animist trail in San Francisco. But in running throughout the city over the last 30 years, I’ve informally mapped my favorite soul-stirring stopovers.
To be clear, I’m not speaking of religious shrines like those to St. Francis. Nor am I hinting at healing vortices, similar to Sedona’s, or dips into bubbling pools, a la Manitou Springs. Indeed, if I’ve learned anything about animism, which has as many nuanced definitions as sharks have teeth, it’s that altars, altered states, and soothing waters aren’t required. What’s most important is a mind open to natural wonder and feelings of spiritual essence, which everyone — no matter their faith or lack thereof — can embrace.
Still, it’s important to appreciate a few academic distinctions. In their attempt to define and explain animism, philosophers and anthropologists parse animism into different categories. There’s the modernist camp, which considers animism an adaptive survival strategy. Enactivists prefer to describe the major tenet of animism as being alive to the world and a participant with it. The social relationists, on the other hand, focus on the animists’ respect for and commitment to non-humans.
For generalists like me who simply want to look out at the greater world and see more than their…
