Ignite Your Light
... and then commit to tending it and growing it, so that our collective light can completely overwhelm the darkness
You’ve been hearing from me lately about rooting in…
…about grounding…
…about owning your sovereignty.
These are not just nice ideas.
This is not “fluff.”
This is not something you might get around to if you have a few extra moments after you finish your “real life” stuff.
The world around us is getting gnarly.
Life is getting more chaotic by the day.
If you don’t start, and commit to, a spiritual practice — as soon as possible — you are going to be finding yourself whipped around like you’re on a storm-tossed ship.
You can’t afford that.
You need to care for yourself…
… and your loved ones…
… and your community.
You need to be present.
You need to see clearly.
You need to have your wits about you.
You need to be grounded.
For yourself…
… and for this world, and its people, that you love.
Need more convincing?
Read on…
Why Commit to a Spiritual Practice?
A spiritual practice is a couple things: 1) spiritual, or beyond the material world we can see and touch, and addressing the energy that animates your own being and everything around you, and 2) a practice, which means a commitment to consistently doing something with the intention of making progress over time.
I know you might be wondering:
How is a spiritual practice related to philanthropy?
As we’ve talked about here, philanthropy — or caring for our fellow humans — is about one of the most human things we can do.
So.
How can we do that well… if we are disconnected from our own humanity?
And how are we going to be anything but disconnected from our own humanity… if we are not regularly, consciously connecting with the deeper levels of our beings… especially when we are living through especially dark and chaotic periods, which by nature cause us to spin in anxiety, and/or sink into depression, and/or swing from hyper-aroused states to lethargic or frozen states with so much speed and unpredictability that we don’t know which end is up?
A spiritual practice is our anchor.
A spiritual practice provides us rootedness.
A spiritual practice provides a well of wisdom — like a spring bubbling up from the ground and quenching whatever thirsts — that guides us through every kind of struggle, storm, stressor.
You need a spiritual practice.
Especially now.
Especially for this work we do.
Especially if we want to birth a whole new world.
What a Spiritual Practice Can Birth
A spiritual practice is powerful.
A spiritual practice helps you own the sovereignty you have over yourself and over the worlds that you create within and around you.
A spiritual practice helps you not be beholden to knee-jerk reactions to everything you see, or hear, or experience in your human life.
A spiritual practice calms your entire system: body, mind, spirit.
Once your system has calmed from the spinning and chaos to which it has become accustomed, a spiritual practice allows your creativity to emerge.
Your creativity helps you see new possibilities, new approaches, new visions — and new means by which you can achieve them.
When you are calm and creative, you are also curious… and compassionate… and clear… and courageous… and connected… and confident.
(FYI, these qualities are the ones of your “true Self,” as taught by Dr. Dick Schwartz in his Internal Family Systems model — and also understood within many different mystical spiritual traditions, including the one in which I was taught.)
You need these qualities, if you are going to birth love. Or peace. Or justice. Or truth. Or light. Or joy.
You need these qualities, if you are going to help create the world that all of us who are committed to philanthropy have been talking about and working towards for decades. Because here’s the thing. Has all of that work — over SO many decades — gotten us to our goals yet?
Nope.
How many more decades do we want to keep doing the same things… and expecting different results? Isn’t that somebody’s definition of insanity?
I believe the chaos and darkness we’re experiencing right now has the potential to serve as enough of a wake-up call that it shakes us all out of our zombie-like stupor.
Enough of us may wake up.
Enough of us may become the kinds of actors that can actually change things.
Enough of us may ignite our inner light… that our radiant beings completely swallow the darkness whole.
I sure hope so.
So.
What is your spiritual practice going to be?
Minute by minute?
Hour by hour?
Day by day?
Week by week?
Decide.
And commit to it.
What are you waiting for?
A better world is not only possible.
She is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.1
Are you ready to birth her?
Together?
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Thank you for being here!
💗
Gratitude to the brilliant Arundhati Roy for this wisdom.