Why The West Needs Grounded Spirituality Now
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In a world of infinite belief systems and sacred pathways, how do you begin your spiritual journey?
For Westerners much of Western spirituality lacks groundedness. Much of what is said about spirituality in the mainstream is about hopping from one experience, teacher, pill, puff, drink, Tarot pull, or healing modality to the next and feeling like you’re supposed to be on cloud nine forever. If you want to begin your spiritual practice in the West your experience may be fractalized and whimsical.
Grounded Spirituality anchors you into reality as you navigate the profoundness of the supernatural within your day-to-day life. Grounded spirituality honors the reality of life’s innate challenges (it doesn’t suppress them), and it requires your honesty, courage, and embodiment. So, how do you get there?
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When I used to teach World History in Los Angeles, I loved doing a particular visualization exercise for my middle school students. The main assignment was a timed essay, and I used this exercise to anchor them into an empowered state of mind before they wrote.
Students got comfortable on the floor (if they wanted to), closed their eyes, and imagined another time with the guidance of my voice. Across each continent, I described scenarios that their ancestors survived and overcame that made it possible for my students to thrive in modernity. Lions and wild beasts, disease and persecution, brutality and war, droughts and famine.
The aim was a gentle reminder, a nod to their lineage who made it possible for them to be present in the room. It was another tactic to develop a sense of gratitude, and to bring forward an awareness of the past — to look deeply into the wisdom of their families, and to find the fault in calling these ancients savages.
Awakening to Spiritual Hunger
Westerners are awakening to their deep spiritual hunger. It’s a hunger that has been suppressed for such a long time. You can see this awakening happening because of the decline in religious participation and the rise in interest for spirituality. But there’s one major issue facing Westerners that the late Malidoma Patrice Some cautions in his work, The Healing Wisdom of Africa:
“The West is hungry for Spirit, for the contact with unseen forces that brings healing. The West’s hunger for Spirit, however, comes with cultural constraints. People want to experience the Spirit, the Other World, but they want to experience it on their own terms. People are quick to misunderstand or reject teachings that offer them a world they don’t recognize.”
One of the major issues with Western spirituality is that the ancient wisdom and practices of the past were de-legitimized and cut out of the culture long ago due to colonization. So, the West has largely forgotten the Other World(s), and it has crucified its own deep ancient practices. In the search to find and reconnect, the Western mind may respond in ways that are too juvenile or too critical or as was my case, too romantic — to embrace and open into experiencing Spirit.
We have forgotten.
We need to remember.
The Destruction of Ancestral Wisdom
The decimation of the early earth-based religions and spiritual practices and rituals of Europe helped to form and support Western thought and the dominance of the Abrahamic faiths across the world. This cut away ancient spiritual practices that kept humans grounded and reverent for Earth and life of all forms.
This destruction led to acts of religious ecocide in Europe where sacred trees and patches of forests were burned away or cut down in order to restrict and dominate. (See Donar’s Oak — a sacred tree that Saint Boniface felled, and others.).
Other destructive acts included the witch hunts across Europe, where witches, healers, herbalists, and tree-huggers were lassoed together as the Devil’s comrades and by association with the Devil, justifiably murdered. It was just another means that sought to control individual spiritual practices. But it seeded fear and weakened the path of developing a uniquely personal relationship with Spirit (i.e., The Source, Creator, Higher Power, etc…) outside of organized religion.
The survivors of these practices took their spirituality underground. Persecution and intolerance became the norm, and as we know today, these destructive forces weren’t collectively addressed. Those that survived persecution fled Europe but the memory of that brutality came with them into the Americas, and spread around the rest of the world through colonization, which further cut away the ancient wisdom of other cultures by deeming their practices unworthy of existence, let alone discussion.
Spirituality in the West is ungrounded because it was made to be delegitimized. Today, powerful ancient and indigenous spiritual practices are mostly still viewed as ill-legitimate — even savage in our modern world. This disconnect from those who have kept the wisdom of our past is a real tragedy because indigenous and ancient wisdom offer so much in the form of healing, guidance, and opportunity to center and ground ourselves in our daily lives.
So, if you’re someone who wishes to embark on a spiritual journey you may be struggling with the narratives that the traditional world has attached to spirituality. That’s natural, and part of the layers that will be gently peeled back along this process.
The Need for Grounded Spirituality
As the West awakens to their spiritual hunger, ungrounded spirituality may lead to all manner of beauty and tragedy — I want the former for you because I’ve experienced the tragedy.
My own family’s lineage of wisdom was cut off, muted, and scattered which has required me to take a radical approach to reconnect, reclaim, and connect to that which is bigger than me, within my lifetime. Grounded spirituality isn’t about returning to the indigenous or ancestral past, it’s about honoring the wisdom of that past as you construct your journey and those of your own family, forward.
What the West is hungry for is not some rigid fear-based relationship with a higher power. Each of us deserves a more loving and profoundly deep connection that will satiate this spell of hunger. While it might seem surprising, this does require your intelligence and critical thinking in lieu of blind obedience. But it also requires the softness of your heart.
If this message resonates with you then I invite you to join the waitlist for my upcoming 5-week course, Be Courageous: Upgrade Your Worldview where I will provide you with the insights to embark on your own spiritual journey from a place of groundedness. It’s all of the material that I wish I had been given before I began my own journey over a decade ago.