Defending the World Tree: A Journal of Animist Awakening, Volume 1

Defending the World Tree: A Journal of Animist Awakening, Volume 1, Winter Solstice 2025 is the inaugural issue of a bi-annual journal published by Severed Branches Press.

This 112-page collection explores place-based spirituality, relationships to land, and the reclamation of ancestral, animist ways of being. Contributors reflect on the question “Where is our church?”—weaving personal essays, poetry, and reflections that challenge colonial derangements of spirit and reweave connections to the living world.

Featuring work by Arnold Schroder, Ocean, ClayAir, and others, it’s a hand-numbered, limited first edition (400 copies) that blends eco-poetics, ritual, and bioregional awakening. A cornerstone of Severed Branches’ solstice releases, rooted in South Salish Sea animism and land defense.