Blog by Valerie
A friend brought this question to me, and I thought it a good one to take on. For some, being ‘spiritual’ is like the U.S. Supreme Court decision about porn – ‘I know it when I see it’. For some it’s intertwined with religious rites. For me, spirit is an animating energy exhibited through an act or a relational dynamic that connects all of us beings on Earth. For example, the spirit of my relationship with my daughter is characterised by a lot of joy, and the spirit of my relationship with my dog is primarily one of companionship. Spirituality is cultural, and mine is Indigenous, based on an animistic understanding of the world. I see all beings on Earth, including rocks and even manmade plastic toys, as having spirit, some kind of animating energy.
(Typical image of ‘spirituality’ from here)
Spirit with a capital S to me refers to a big creative and destructive energy that is more than any identity I can hold, of which I am a small part. Some say Great Spirit, some say God. Spirits plural to me refers to beings that I see in dreams or visions, or experience through the four invisible clair-senses (clairvoyance – seeing, clairsentience – feeling, clairaudience – hearing, claircognisance – knowing – described by Diné Elder Wally Brown as the counterparts to our five physical senses represented by our five fingers and the four spaces between them.)
So if this is what spiritual, Spirit, and spirits mean to me, what does it mean to ‘be spiritual’? First, it means acknowledging some energies/forces/beings that are too vast to be encompassed by an individual, or even our collective, human identity. Second, it means openness and awareness of the invisible clair-senses, and to experiences that are not explainable, or sometimes even experienceable, in materialist, physical terms.
My view is that children naturally see the world in an animistic way, and that through teachings begin to close their mind (and obscure their clair-senses) to other inputs. Recently a four year old asked me to read her a story about werewolves, then asked me if they were real. I said, I don’t know, what do you think? Have you seen one before? But her mother quickly jumped in to say that no, they’re not real. Of course she is entitled to teach her daughter that and presumably she believes that to be true. I have not personally encountered a werewolf in my dreams or visions (or the material world) but I tend to think that if such beings loom large in our collective human psyche, and even across cultures, that there is likely something to it.
How do we know the difference between a spiritual experience and our imagination? I have seen a lot of people struggle with this – with their minds tricking them into thinking they have encountered a Spirit, for example. For me the difference is in embodiment. And when in doubt, see if and how changes occur in your everyday life as a result of the insight or guidance you got. (Image from here)
That spiritual experiences are grounded in the land and embodied in everyday life is a foundation of Indigenous spirituality. In an Indigenous worldview, an identity is commonly seen as a collection of relational dynamics, including relationships with humans and non-humans. This interdependence is often honoured through totemic relationships and responsibilities to do rituals and ceremonies. If I see my identity and my very existence as tied to the water in a river nearby and the fish in it, then it makes sense to fight for their survival and even put my own life on the line. See this recent example from California regarding the centrality of salmon to Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Valley tribes.
This may seem extreme to Westerners, even environmentalists willing to put their lives on the line for Mother Earth, because it’s not just about how humans need water or fish to survive, it’s the particular patch of earth (or sea or sky) and relational responsibilities there that matter to your very existence. If those fish die, you die; there is no supermarket to run to for other food. If you have to leave your land, you may get killed by others when you go onto their lands, or you may die not knowing how to survive there and live in a sustainable healthy way there.
(Art by Cheryl Davison, Yuin woman, of the pregnant mother spirit of Gulaga mountain, protector of the land we are now grateful to call home, from this site)
(A photo of me in front of Gulaga taken a few years ago by Lukas before we knew we would be moving onto her country)
Western counsellors talk a lot about attachment theory. Right now when my baby cries (or is about to cry) I feel such pain inside, and such an urge to help her, I have to respond. Imagine feeling pain like that when a sacred site you’re responsible for is threatened with mining, and the urge to prevent it. Imagine the pain when it’s blown up and doesn’t exist in physical form anymore, just spirit and memory. Maybe you don’t need to imagine that – maybe you have tapped into that well of pain most of us are carrying in our ancestral roots. Maybe on your traditional lands, or like me, on lands you are spiritually adopting and feel are adopting you and your family too.
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Recently Lukas and I welcomed our daughter into this wild world. We won’t be posting any photos of her to protect her privacy, but here is one of us with her in my womb. More people are becoming familiar with the concept of a spirit baby (often through 
And I got messages from her throughout the pregnancy; for example, I knew to 
Sometimes it’s tough to accept that the best gift we can give is to prevent the passing on of painful experiences and confused projections – and not by withholding or denying, which just buries the energy – but by expressing, 
Some years ago while working with practicing Jews and Christians, I realised the underlying process many of them were continually going through: judge an act as righteously right or wrong, confront moral failings within oneself and others, then forgive and let go by giving anger to God or Jesus. The depth of potential existential judgment is so intense (e.g. eternal damnation and social ostracisation), that it can be very hard for people to acknowledge ‘wrong’ behaviours. I have experienced numerous instances of trickery of someone intending to forgive and let go (or deciding to avoid an issue), resulting in hurtful and confusing passive-aggressive behaviours. Often the underlying issue emerges years later after so much resentment has built up and trust eroded that the relationship becomes very hard to repair. (Image from 
Though it may at times seem more painful in the moment, I find loving acceptance brings me immeasurably more ease and peace than judging. I then discern what, if anything, I need to say or do when I experience hurt or realise I have caused hurt in another being. I remember Tom saying to me once that even when he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, if someone tells him that his actions have hurt them, he chooses to apologise because it is not his intention to hurt anyone. I appreciate the humility in that, and that it also helps hurting hearts to remain open to an ongoing relationship. (Image from _-_Bette_and_Joan.png/250px-Feud_(Season_1)_-_Bette_and_Joan.png)
Now that the Western justice system has criminalised the payback ceremony, many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory struggle to reach forgiveness with their Indigenous science of justice. I heard about someone who had been in prison for years as ‘Western justice’ who was released and immediately had to face spearing if he wanted to see his family and community again. I heard about family members of an offender being beaten up until someone agreed to be speared in place of the offender in prison. I heard about decades-long violent feuds involving multiple generations where many people didn’t even know how the feud had started, but no one felt justice had been satisfied. I even heard about someone trying to sue someone else for using sorcery against their family as payback instead of spearing. It’s a mess. (Image from 
Though we may not be able to ceremonially heal with the people who hurt us or people we have hurt, we can do spiritual ceremonies on our own to change the way we hold people and what we project. Shifting our perspective requires us to hold paradox and avoid binary and judgmental thinking. In traditional Hawaiian culture, people use “Ho’oponopono, the traditional conflict resolution process…[to] create a network between opposing viewpoints…that allows dualistic consciousness to stand while becoming fully embodied by the ecstatic love of Aloha”
Trauma’s meaning, causes and methods of healing differ by culture and 
Reconnecting to the Earth
Our task as healers is to allow alchemy to occur so that sh*t we are carrying in our hearts, minds, bodies and spirits can instead turn into fertiliser for ourselves and others. By consciously choosing to move into terror and aversion/disgust when we are in a safe space, we can reconnect with lost soul parts. In doing so, we gain knowledge that expands our individual and collective understanding of ourselves and our world. This is seen as the sacred calling underlying a ‘shaman’s illness’. Trauma is seen as a spiritual offering of a huge amount of energy that can redirect us into a new identity like a phoenix rising out of ashes. Indigenous healers are called ‘medicine people’ or ‘shamans’ because through healing trauma we embody medicine by living in a wiser way and offering support to others who are struggling through similar wounds.
The dialogue of that name was with my friend 
Shona (Zimbabwean) Australian woman 
This “mere existence” of Aboriginal people as humans worthy of dignity collapses the entire ‘legal’ foundation of the Australian nation. The High Court overturned 
When I hear 
I was raised to hold family sacred, and so processing the initial childhood betrayals, followed by the adult estrangements, has been incredibly painful. It felt like a sudden orphaning that was out of my control, a genocidal loss of everyone I deeply knew, had learned to rely on and share my life with. I am still in touch with one friend from childhood, one from middle school, and my nanny’s daughter who knew me as a baby. Though I am not close with them, it feels quite precious to me that they are still in my life and knew me when I was young. My husband and a few friends have walked with me through my estrangement and have met some of my family members, but hearing stories and seeing photos isn’t the same as having witnessed me as a child in the context of my family and seeing how far I’ve come as an adult.
In every culture there are structures of 
It is a big deal to estrange, and I have counselled people who have told me they were considering it that it’s like the guy who got stuck in a crevice while rock-climbing and had to saw off his arm to survive – it’s drastic and changes your life forever, and sometimes just has to be done. There’s little accurate Western scientific research about estrangement, with 
As with any loss, my experience of estrangement has created opportunities for a lot of self-knowledge and spiritual growth. It has given me the time and desire to do gift economy work supporting people’s healing, as well as community-building, knowledge-sharing, and our other humble activities through Earth Ethos. If I had family obligations and relationships taking up my time and energy, I would not be able to serve in this way. So you can thank my family for estranging from me, as it has gifted these insights to you today. And if you know anyone who is estranged, don’t assume that their situation can, will, or should change.
Valerie recently asked me why space exploration so captivated me as a child and still evokes strong emotion for me today. I’ve realised it’s got something to do with the safety of collective achievement.
I chuckle at the impotence of today’s individualistic and self-aggrandising efforts. For example, all of the 
Of course the collective achievements of this era have a massive dark side. The Space Race was just another front in the Cold War. The bedrock of the technology and indeed the scientists who advanced it were from the German rocket program of the Second World War. (If this is new to you, check out
Today Bezos wants us to be impressed with his relatively meagre achievements precisely because he has done it without communal dreaming, though he thanked all Amazon customers for funding his personal vision. Materialist, consumerist individualism put Bezos into space, and he wants us to be wowed and entranced by the power of putting massive amounts of power and resources in the hands of a few. He doesn’t want us to worry about communal dreaming, just keep to following our individualist dreams where we fill our lives with goods and services and very few of us may go on to join him amongst the pantheon of the super-elite. (Image from 
There are a number of challenges today waiting for us to approach them communally. I predict that when things get bad enough, the power of collective dreaming will become clearer and more appealing to us. But it is sad if only desperation and an existential war footing can prompt us to recognise what I consider a truth: there is inherent value in collective and communal dreaming, for our internal and external worlds.
Three cyclists were riding down a neighbourhood road when an older guy in sports car drove by and yelled, “Get off the road, assholes!”. Of course, cyclists are legally allowed to be on the road. The female in the group gave him the middle finger, angering the driver more and he turned his car towards her, then veered onto another street and into a carpark of a private club. She almost fell off her bike, scared and filled with rage. She blasted through the private club gate past the security guard while her fellow cyclists followed and called the police. You might be thinking that she was trying to get the driver’s plates, but she already got a photo of that. When he stepped out of his car she screamed in his face how wrong his actions were and how terrified she felt. He pushed her out of his way, and she raged even more and threatened to press charges for touching her. By this time her companions had gotten through the security gate. The security guard initially threatened to call the police and report the cyclists for trespass, but changed his mind when he saw the scene. Police arrived and explained to the driver that cyclists are allowed on the roads as much as he is, and told the cyclists they can’t charge the driver with anything but simple battery for pushing her because he veered his car away and didn’t hurt anyone. No one was happy with this outcome.
think about a lion competing to be king of the hill 
The security guard started out competing but then accommodated the cyclists, represented by a chameleon changing its colours to fit the situation. The other two cyclists are collaborating with their friend, like a school of fish sticking together, and the police officer is 
compromising by offering to charge the driver with something since the cyclists want him to be punished. Compromise is represented well by a zebra with its dual-coloured stripes. 
When we do choose to avoid a conflict, it helps to be aware of the Cycle of Indecision: ‘I feel bad. I should do something. Nothing will change. I gotta let it go. But I feel bad…’ I find when I avoid a conflict but over time it keeps coming up inside me, then I do need to do something to address it. That may involve talking to someone, creating art to express my emotions and tell my story, doing something ceremonial to keep the energy flowing without endangering myself, or finding a passion to advocate out in the world. For example, if I have a conflict with someone close to me, I tend to try to collaborate and talk it through when we are both less emotionally charged. But when I have a conflict with someone I don’t trust to collaborate with, I often write them a letter, leave it on my altar, and burn it so that the energy gets sent out in spirit.
The driver’s interest is (likely) not being criminally charged and being able to express anger that cyclists are not riding single file (which they don’t have to). Maybe he has an interest in trying to change that law or have cycling lanes built on the road so he doesn’t have to share, or maybe he’s just interested in expressing anger, but his position seems to be ‘get out of my way’. We’d need to talk to everyone to unpack their underlying interests and potentially resolve the conflict in a more mutually beneficial way, but that’s not the job of the police officer. That’s something we could do through an Earth Ethos 
Earth Ethos 