Divining Moon Island: spirits and deities in contemporary Australian ecopoetry

<p dir="ltr">Recent research in ecopoetics emphasises the importance of challenging anthropocentrism by writing about more-than-human dimensions of nature. For many, spirituality informs perceptions of the more-than-human, yet contemporary Australian ecopoetry rarely includes spirits or deities of place. My research applies a Pagan lens to writing ecopoetry in the Lake Macquarie / Awaba region of NSW, viewing Indigenous sites and stories as ecopoetic features of place. I use divination techniques to examine my role on the land, interact with its resident spirits, and attempt to represent its ecospiritual dimensions in a collection of poetry. Among other tensions, the poems and exegesis interrogate Eurocentric assumptions inherent in ecopoetry and Paganism. By expanding the more-than-human to include spirits and deities of place, I contend that ecospirituality can enhance contemporary Australian ecopoetry praxis.</p><p dir="ltr">The collection, Moon Island Spells, tests human and more-than-human boundaries by interrogating ideas of identity and form. The poems explore spirit and deity forms, linguistic forms, forms of place, and forms of self. Perceiving place as multitemporal allows a metaphysical yet ecomimetic approach to poetic forms. My research reflects my beliefs: that nature and divinity are one; that indigenous peoples including my pagan ancestors have always perceived this oneness through embodied impressions of place and enacted it through ritual and poetry; that contemporary religions derive from ecospirituality; and that, therefore, spirits and deities continue to influence ecopoetry. As a result, Moon Island Spells assembles its localised poems as interactions with a vast and responsive ecosystem of more-than-human spirit beings.</p>