Always, approaching Spring Equinox, we’re called to dig deep to excavate our resources.
Coming out of the dark depths of winter we reach deep up our sleeves for emotional survival skills, for creative energy, for fresh food to fuel renewal.
Needless to say, coming out of an energetic winter that lasted an entire year, that’s even more true.
In isolation, many of us have made contact with parts of ourselves that we’ve managed to avoid looking at in the busy rush of life. Therapists have long waitlists. Many of us have been left to fend for ourselves, to rely on our own inner resources.
I’ve reached deep into my toolkit of inner resources myself—countless meditation and yoga practices, daily walks and a sunlamp to keep my body and mind both energized and at ease; herbs, stones and houseplants to connect me with the energy of the earth while it’s covered in snow; divination decks and ancestral healing practices to guide me through the descent of the dark months; writing and circle work to process it all.
I’m extraordinarily grateful to have had the resources that allowed me to gather all of these tools over the past twenty years, and am gratified by the chance to share them with my clients.
But this brings me to an important point — that emotional and spiritual resources are most accessible to those who already have other kinds of resource — money to pay for trainings; time and space to dedicate to those trainings and to ongoing practice.
During this year when those of us with the tools to navigate difficult times have dug into our toolkits, many have come to see these resources by a new name: privilege.
Whether we’re talking about financial resources, educational opportunity, time for training and practice, or even more so, the chance to grow up without the trauma of systemic, intergenerational oppression, many who hadn’t before have come to understand it’s all part of the big P, which perpetuates an elaborate system of inequality.
The work of investigating our privilege and the systemic oppression it supports is not for me to guide — I can only name the teachers I follow for this work, especially Trudi LeBron and Weeze Duran, who help me incorporate equity, justice and anti-racism into my coaching and consulting work; Rachel Ricketts and Christina Cleveland, Ph.D, who challenge me to investigate these value from the lens of spiritual growth.
A few organizations that support therapy, healing arts and liberatory spiritual work for those for who it’s most needed are:
