Ethics & Philosophy

“This is a moment of ‘the spiritual entrepreneur’ and what I want from folks to never forget is that what capitalism does is reduce. Reduce, package, and promote.” - Jade T. Perry

 

Inspired by the wisdom of Jade T. Perry, I felt it was important for me to be very explicit about my approach and the roots of my ethics and philosophy within the context of my work and spiritual offerings.

 

My Ethics

My Spiritual Lineages

I carry with me the complex colonial and spiritual legacies of the Roman Catholic Church. I reject and denounce the Church’s history, theologies, and perpetuations of violence, oppression, and bigotry. I honor the beauty and the transformative role it has played in my spiritual life.

I carry with me the ancestral spiritual legacies of Celtic and Basque folk religion and witchcraft. I honor my ancestors by holding a nature-centered spiritual practice and maintain my connection to the Earth & support ecological justice movements and the collective Indigenous movements for sovereignty.

I carry with me the complex and nuanced queer spiritual legacies of the radical faeries, transgender spiritual leaders, and disabled lesbian witches. I reject their cultural appropriations and I maintain my connection and tend to their radical imaginations.

I carry with me the academic theological traditions of Theopoetics, Queer & Trans Theology, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology, Womanist Theology, Disability Theology, and Apophatic Radical Theology.

I stand in solidarity with the spiritual and religious legacies that are closed systems and are not for my hands to carry. The spiritual legacies and traditions of the African Diaspora, of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and these continents known as America, of the East Asian and South Asian Diaspora, of the Indigenous peoples of Pacific Islands, and of those who’s names I do not know, will probably never know, and who’s traditions are still not for my hands to carry.

The Spiritual Technologies I study:

  • Tarot

  • Whole Sign Western Astrology

  • Contemplative Practice

    • Meditation, prayer, Adoration, writing, listening, Spiritual Direction, cooking, reading

  • Witchcraft

    • Sigil crafting, candle work, and ritual/liturgy work

  • Ancestral Reconnection: Primarily Celtic and Basque pre-Christian spiritualities

    • Following the Celtic Wheel of the Year

    • Studying Myths and the Histories of Pre-Christianization

    • Learning about my own family history through story-telling

My Teachers:

What communities am I accountable to?

I am accountable to those affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic. I currently serve as a Grief Support volunteer for the Covid Grief Network.

I am accountable to a community of Spiritual Care providers. I am in spiritual direction myself, I also work as the Co-Director of Still Harbor, and participate in an emerging dream tank of spiritual care providers. Being in connection with other providers helps hold my practice to a set of standards. Especially as, outside of chaplaincy, spiritual care is an non-regulated industry.

I am accountable to the community of activists in my life. I discovered tarot in a community of queer and trans activists and artists, using the cards to support each other as we started our journey towards liberation. I have since realized my role in movement spaces is a care role. To create sustainable movements, we need to have systems of care for our activists communities, I provide that care. In part through being the resident spiritual director for the Unitarian Universalist Association “Grounded and Resilient Organizers Workshop” Fellowship.

I am accountable to those harmed by the oppressive and violent systems and structures of our world. As a spiritual care provider, it is my responsibility to make sure I resist oppressive systems such as: white supremacy, capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, Christian supremacy, colonialism, ecological destruction, and ableism. So that I do not recreate those structures within my work. It is my responsibility as a conscious and connected person of this moment to disrupt these oppressive evils that are steeped within the Spiritual Care industry.

I am accountable to my family, both of origin and chosen. I am accountable to my friendships, my communities of faith, my traditions, and my ancestors.

 

My Philosophy

Ten things I believe about Spiritual Care:

  1. I believe spiritual care must be financially accessible. All of my offerings are offered at a sliding scale with an openness to bartering and trading.

  2. I believe spiritual care must uphold the client’s agency. It is not my place to force my perspective of the spiritual world onto another person. I hold space and witness the spiritual reality as it is unfolding within the life of my client.

  3. I believe spiritual care is about liberation. If your spiritual care is perpetuating oppressive ideologies and systems of harm, then it is not care. It is abuse. Any spiritual tradition, just like people, can do harm and perpetuate violence. We must be mindful practitioners oriented towards collective liberation.

  4. I believe spiritual care feels therapeutic, but it is not a substitute for therapy. Spiritual care can be an experience of healing for many people. But it is not therapy, nor should it be used as a replacement for therapy. Though it is a compliment.

  5. I believe spiritual care holds a critical conversation around “healing.” I do not call myself a healer because that is not a word used in the traditions I carry, and I have immense respect for healers who continue to build the lineages and legacies of their traditions. I am also skeptical of the ableist, misogynistic, queerphobic, transphobic, racist, and fatphobic histories of “spiritual healing.” So, when I use the word “healing,” I am talking about the integration of one’s life experiences with their body, mind, and soul, that roots them in resiliency. I am not talking about “perfection,” “true self,” or “who we are suppose to be.”

  6. I believe spiritual care is about connection. Spirituality, as it’s been studied thus far, is proven to connect us to our sense of self, to others in our lives, to the collective reality, and to that which is larger than everything else (that which we might call “the Universe,” “Energy,” “God,” “Spirit,” or “the Divine”).

  7. I believe spiritual care does not require a belief in “God.” To find healing and empowerment through vulnerability and connection does not require a certain ascription to an organized religion. Many of the folks I serve don’t have a rigid or firm belief in any organized system of faith.

  8. I believe spiritual care can be joyful and absurd and queer! Often times, spiritual care conversations arrive out of moments of loss, grief, death, and trauma and that is true. Spiritual care, historically, has been the container for the emotions and experiences that are deemed “too much” by the secular world. And to that point, there is also joy, laughter, absurdity, and celebration in moments of spiritual care. Spiritual care is a paradox of “too much” emotions Grief-filled Joy, Laughing Sorrow, Celebration in the midst of Trauma and Pain. This paradox is just one of the mysteries of this work. Spiritual care is also queer in that it often opens the doors to the unexpected, the bizarre, the vulnerable, the horizons that we can never quite catch. It defies easy definitions and provides us with mystery.

  9. I believe spiritual care is about witnessing one’s life, not solving problems. In our capitalist world, we are taught to be problem solvers, and to solve problems as fast as possible. Spirituality does not seek to solve our problems. Spirituality, and spiritual care, is about witnessing our life, acknowledging and meeting the challenges and problems, and reflecting on our journeys as we move with them at whatever pace we move at.

  10. I believe spiritual care is an ever changing, twisting, turning, and unfolding journey, where the moment you think you have the path figured out the world twists and turns like a kaleidoscope. And you have to find your path all over again.