As we continue trying to live through this time of multiple genocides, climate crisis, and the destructiveness of imperialism, I’ve been reflecting a lot on spirituality and spiritual practices. Specifically what role spiritual practices, leaders, and community can take during this time to help us on the path of liberation. As well as the harmful role I more often see it taking instead.
I was raised with a very loose mix of secular traditions, Catholicism (non-practicing), and Buddhism (appropriated, also non-practicing). None of it made sense to me. All I knew was that I loved nature and understood that all spirits lived in nature, that everything around us is alive and has a spirit, and that no one around me understood my experience of spirituality. Consequently, I learned it was not something that was safe (at the time) to talk about widely.
As I grew up I tried many different spiritual communities, looking for belonging. I was seeking community, a place and history, my legacy. Instead I found communities riddled with abuses of power, privilege, whitewashed appropriated practices, and cult-like leadership structures and belief systems. I even eventually fell for it. Joining a community felt like a protective balm against the suffering of the world and my experiences. A place where everything finally had meaning. Yet of course this led to a painful and destructive spiritual awakening, and consequent crash into my own humanity.
What is spirituality that leads us away from the realities of life, after all, if not a desperate fantasy?
Spirituality and Silence
It seems like spirituality has become a path to justify turning away from humanity. To turn instead towards perceived enlightenment. The “light”. A watered down and fragile version of ”love”. Exceptionalism hiding behind the oppressive idea of “high and low vibes”. Permission to refrain from collective care and action. Or a hierarchy in which there is no accountability and a whole lot of -isms dressed up as spiritual teachings.
As we continue to bearing witness to the genocides and escalating destruction, I have been looking to the spiritual communities to see how they would respond. On the whole I have seen – silence. Or somtimes quiet, fragile statements of wanting “peace”. I have rarely seen the courage to grapple with these times, with the strength and steadfastness spiritual practices can offer.
Spirituality without reality, accountability, humanity, engaged community care, and discernment is dangerous. How can we expect a spiritual leader or community to guide us through the immensely challenging realms of the soul and spirit – if they cannot themselves even speak out during genocide? If they cannot openly grapple with the realities of humanity, how can they possible guide us within it? If our spirituality cannot see how there can truly be no peace without justice – how can we expect them to lead us through conflict and repair? If our spiritual communities are not able to face the horrors of humanity, how can they possibly guide us through the traumas of our own lives?
When our spiritual practices are divorced from the realities of humanity. When they are silent during the most traumatic and global world crises of our time. Then what are they actually teaching us?
Spirituality and Humanity
As I continue to look for the roots and histories of my own spiritual practices, trying to connect with long lost ways of being, I have returned to the spirit of nature all around me. To the trees. The ocean. The tides of the moon, and our being. To the truth of humanity – in both its most joyous, liberated forms, and its most harmful, soul-destructive forms. And everything in between. To sit with what it means to hold space - for all of it. To not turn away.
Instead, I call upon my spirituality to help me to stay. To help expand my capacity, within myself and community. I call upon my spiritual practices to help me feel held, supported, brave, and not alone. I ask to expand my ability to offer care, and receive care. To be with me every moment where I breathe, heal, learn, and use my power to take a stance. When I take action. I call upon the spirits of the land all around me to guide me, and my healed and trusted ancestors to hold me.
I call upon my spirituality to guide me on the path of true liberation. Of spirit. Of humanity.
Prompt
This week I invite you to reflect on your own relationship to spirituality. This may be informed by religion, or it may be informed by a deep inner knowing – a calling – to something else. Additionally, for those who religion and spiritual communities have abused or traumatized – please, please move cautiously. Use these prompts sparingly. You do not need to go further into your healing then you are ready and supported to do. Check in with your loved ones if you do engage with these questions.
Hold these prompts with breath, spirit, and ground. You may wish to walk through, move with, or journal for these prompts. Allow yourself to return to the holding of the earth as you explore the following:
- What was I taught about spirituality and/or religion through my family? Community? Ancestry?
- What is my relationship to spirituality and/or religion now? Do I feel nourished, held, and made more brave and more human by my practice? If not, why not?
- Who benefits from the silence of my spiritual leaders during a genocide? If they are speaking out – what values are allowing them to lead us through this time? What can I learn from their practice?
- What does a justice-informed, liberation-focused spiritual practice look like?
As always, if you would like support on your healing journey as a joyful, radical empath, intuitive, or highly sensitive person, I am here for you. Please reach out. Additionally, you are welcome to join the waitlist for Soul Sanctuary, my new ecospiritual and expressive arts group for LGBTQ empaths, intuitives, and magic makers on the path to liberation. As a queer, enby, empath, and highly sensitive therapist, I deeply understand the challenges of this journey. I would be honored to support you.
In Healing,
Phoenix
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