Tag Archives: spiritual activism

Apolitical Spirituality is an Oxymoron

Subtitle: Turning Off the News is Hurting People and What You Can Do Instead.

If we continue to separate politics from our spiritual life, we will wake one day and find we are being persecuted for our spirituality. It happened to shamans all over the world. The witches were persecuted. The monks in Tibet. The Uhygurs in China. The list goes on. Why do we think we are different? Even more poignant, why shouldn’t we care about others?

Pagan/shamanic cultural world view is that everything has a soul. Our entire experience of the world is about being in relationship with everything around us. We honor the collective soul. Cutting ourselves off from the collective is harmful to ourselves and to the collective.

But I am Preserving My Mental Health by Ignoring the News!

No one said that paying attention meant you had to run the woes of the world through your energetic system. That will make a person sick. It is perfectly alright to bracket your concerns and focus on key issues. 

We must weigh the mental stress the news causes us against the persecution that will happen if we stay idle. Also, take into consideration that taking action – in any form – is moving energy. Stagnant energy twists, degrades, sickens. Emotional response is grist for the mill. Moving energy is life, a salve to depression.

Think of the people that cannot ignore the news because they are already suffering under the harmful governmental policies. Yes, I am talking to the middle-class white part of my audience. Not acting in defense of the other is how Nazi Germany happened. Othering has been going on too long in this country already. We have been gaslit and psychologically traumatized into silent apathy, and we must fight to win our souls back.

Think of all that awareness we push underground to avoid the news. It has been growing in a deep storehouse of emotional energy, love and concern, fear and anger waiting for you to tap into it. When it comes out, it will be HUGE! Use it for whatever you see is fit for you in this time, in your life. To be fully yourself, show your colors, to honor and support others, to stand strong, to express your rage, your sorrow, to MOVE the energy. Create relationships with people not like you. Defeat Otherism.

The Writing on the Wall Couldn’t Be Clearer. Fascism is Very Near.

We are not immune. Our legal protections are diminishing every day. We cannot meditate or pray our way to freedom and true democracy. The whole notion of democracy is participatory governing. Living and acting in the mundane world!

We already have witnessed:

  • women traveling across states for critical medical treatment
  • state laws that require the 10 commandments be posted in schools
  •  children ripped from their parents at the border
  • our lives surveilled through the wires and cameras in almost every corner of public life
  • people losing their jobs because they publicly oppose genocide in Gaza
  • humans and animals dying from the overheated planet    

And now the supreme court has flipped our presidency into a kingship with the stroke of a pen. 

Democracy itself is about to crumble. Where will we be then?

Trump is not making threats. He is making promises, 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/04/politics/trump-campaign-promises-dg

and his language is scary:

root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country….”

What Can I Do? What Power Do I Have?

Plenty, and I’m sure you can do one thing in each of these categories without a lot of effort.

Power with the Spirits of Kindness 

Root yourself in your purest intentions and values and use your spiritual skills to find direction. Here are some ideas for shamanic journey intentions:

  • How can I stay awake to what is happening and use the energy, rather than be harmed by it?
  •  What is my role in this world at this time in history?
  • How can I shift my world perspective to be ‘us’ and never ‘them’?
  • How can I make people around me feel included?
  • How can I support the issues that are dear to my heart?

The Spirits of Kindness want to help us, but they cannot help us if we do not go to them!

There are lots of things you can do on the spiritual plane but that is covered in another article. [link] This is about our spiritual work on the beloved, messy mundane plane of existence.

Power of Being Fully You

Corporate culture has overcome human, non-work culture. This has caused homogenization and contrary-opinion policing. 

I miss the days when you could walk down the street and see people wearing their freak flags, expressing loudly in public their views, getting a little obnoxious and laughing out loud.

Things have gotten so bad, it is revolutionary to voice your opinion, to appear out of the norm, to attend non-consumer gatherings of people.

This is not a time to hide who we are. There has been a creeping pressure over the past 10-15 years to ‘fit in’, to ‘appear normal’. Our freak flags have been discarded or stuffed in closets. We are wild creatures. We are shamanic, pagan, witches, aligned with the spirits and the land and moon and stars, the sun, the rocks the rivers. We are non-binary, gay, straight, neuro-divergent, from many many cultures and subcultures, economic backgrounds and when we do not show it, the overculture mows us over.

There has been a creeping pressure to not talk about politics, to not rock the boat. There has been a subtle fear in the air, supported by the fact that we know we are being surveilled.

Without diversity we all start to think the same. Or at least think we should think the same. Homogeneity is bad for creativity and it’s no fun at all. Express your unique self.

  •  Put a sticker on your car (gasp!) that reveals something about yourself that you wouldn’t share at a corporate job. It’ll make a lot of people feel good and make some other people’s mind spin a little.
  • Wear clothes that you really like even though other people may not.
  • Find an open mic and revel in the humanity. You don’t need to agree with everyone. Just let their thoughts blend with yours and see what happens.

Money is Power

Don’t think your $5 $25 $50 $200 doesn’t count. It most certainly does. Candidates using the anti-corporate funding-raising model have done plenty fine working with millions of small donations. 

  •  Decide who is doing work that makes your heart sing and give them some money. Done.

Voice is Power

Speak to the government, to our neighbors, family and friends. It changes minds. It changes culture. 

  •  Write to your representatives and sign petitions. Look for petitions that you wish were out there. They probably are.
  • VOTE! You know the voting records are dismal. Voting is the one big power that can change the face of our futures – IF PEOPLE VOTE. If you were on a sinking ship and you had the choice between burning it down and fighting over the life raft or installing a mediocre captain who can at least get the holes patched before we all die, which would you choose? Would you choose?
  • Look up letter-writing campaigns to voters in swing states

Here is an ACLU petition calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the ruinous Supreme Court decision.

When we don’t speak up, our representatives are even more swayed by other forces. When they hear we are behind them, they can be brave. When they hear we are watching, they have to keep themselves somewhat in line. That’s how democracy works.

Information is Power

New information that is received by the mind changes the mind. Educate people. Educate yourself. Read books, even ones you don’t agree with.

Collective Action and Culture Is Power

  • Refuse to be isolated. People are good and some of us have forgotten it.
  • Refuse to stagnate. One way to get moving is to ask yourself what the questions are inside yourself and then go find the answers. Rinse and repeat.
  • Find ways to forge relationships with other humans from backgrounds you do not understand.
  • Learn about nonviolent communication.
  • Seek out other perspectives online and learn about the new progressive movements going on. What are you curious about?

That’s What I Got

Spirituality and politics have something important in common; they are both rooted in our deepest values. The values are the same.

I wouldn’t ask you to do these things if I wasn’t doing them myself. We all have a gift and there is no time to wait. Whatever it is that makes you shine, please, SHINE.

And yes, put your thoughts in the comments.

Tasara