Spiritual Cultivation for a Western Practitioner
Some tailored advice for how to cultivate spiritually without appropriation, while applying the same foundational cosmology I described previously. This is not an exhaustive list, of course. Youâll note that a good portion of these are thought exercises, do not underestimate their importance though!
Your ancestors are almost always a first choice for spiritual allies, because you share an intrinsic bond with them. Stretching all the way back to the first ancestor, they are innumerable. Your DNA is a literal taglock for them, your body would not exist without them. They have a great impact on your current life, for good or ill. Regardless, they can be powerful allies. Many of them will love you and wish you well. For those that were terrible in life, death may have changed their perspective. If not, close the door upon harmful ancestors, and invite the kind ones in.
Make regular offerings for your ancestors. Incense, candlelight and water are good staples. Cooked food, especially traditional foods of your culture, especially foods they liked, especially cooked by you with the intention of caring for them, impart so much nourishment. Feed your dead as often as possible.Â
If you are a beginner in ancestor work, it is advised to state your name, date & place of birth, address, and names of your parents and grandparents before giving offerings or speaking with ancestors!
Pray for your ancestors. The notion that the spirits of the dead can continue to suffer after their passing exists in many cultures. Itâs especially helpful to pray to a benevolent deity to help them on your behalf, but even if you have not formed a connection with one yet, pray for your ancestors nonetheless. They need you.
Find a visualisation or thought exercise that really connects you to your ancestors. You can imagine your ancestral line as branches of a tree or as rivers and deltas extending from you. You can imagine a place specifically meant for connecting with them. Some of us are born with a weaker connection and need to cultivate this before greater blessings can flow from our ancestry. Pair this with plenty of ancestral and self healing, because very often blockages and negative consequences from your ancestorsâ lives can also flow through this connection.
Learn all you can about your ancestors, where they lived, how they lived. Try to incorporate the traditions of their culture into your veneration. Learn their language if you can. This helps improve the connection.Â
Live in harmony with your spirit neighbours. Pick up litter, get rid of invasives, use and dispose of chemicals responsibly. Spend time visiting landmarks and giving offerings and well-wishes to the spirits there. Educate yourself on ecology and the interdependence of all things. Take care of and tidy your home, tend your garden according to what local pollinators and vulnerable native wildlife need. Clear a space for well-intentioned travelling spirits to rest.
With permission from the land, take a small jar of soil or water from a local landmark. Take it home and place it upon your altar or a clean, well-lit space. As often as you can, use this vessel to invoke your spirit neighbours, speak to them, wish them well. Place offerings next to the vessel. Understand that the land has been hurt and may take time to warm up to you. Perhaps its pain runs so deep that it never will, but kindnesses paid have a chance to be returned. On a regular basis (weekly, monthly, etc) return the soil or water back to where you collected it, give it back to the land and tell the spirits you hope they benefit from the energies you charged the soil/water with, and repeat the whole process.
Decide on a particular object or concept of any kind. Flowers, clouds, tophats, the colour purple, a peeler, mushrooms, rice, the night sky, shoes, raspberries, toilet paper, fishing nets. Anything at all. Now spend time connecting with it. Attune to it. When/where/how is it good or bad? Helpful or unhelpful? Powerful or weak? What can it do, what can it not do? How does it feel? What empowers it? What weakens it? This is how correspondences are born.
Sometimes, when you want to do it least, is when prayer and offerings are the most helpful. The exchange of gifts strengthens both sides, whether you are the giver or the receiver. Go, reach out. Connect.
Sometimes your relationship with something will be greatly improved just by treating it as sacred.
A healthy spiritual lifestyle depends on a healthy physical lifestyle.Â
A healthy spirit depends on a healthy body and mind.
Spiritual health also depends greatly on your surroundings. Adjust your environment if you can, or work to get somewhere better. Caring for your space, and the people around you, is a way of caring for yourself.
Do practices such as deep breath work and energy feeding to energise your spirit body. Through visualisation/intent, ensure that you circulate fresh energy all around your body. This is the basic principle of developing a healthier energy system.
If you know what your energy system is like in terms of alignment and elemental composition, base your diet on foods associated with what you see in your energy system. For example, if you have a lot of fire in your energy system, mindfully consume warming and spicy foods. If you have a lot of earthen energy, mindfully consume root vegetables. This can strengthen those energy structures in your system. If you have too much of an element, consume its corresponding foods less. If you need more of an element, etc.Â
Meditate. If you struggle, my best advice is to find your aesthetic, and dive fully into it. If you enjoy watery aesthetics, contemplate water in all its forms, hold a jar of water, wear watery colours and symbols. If you enjoy the night sky, meditate in darkness, think of the night sky, wear jewellery resembling the moon and stars. Connect completely with it. Find your aesthetic, and let it be your doorway to meditation; that is, peace and stillness through focus.Â
If you feel a negative emotion or sensation, find where it is in your body. Ensure it is treated with the right medical approach. Thereafter, imagine its appearance, colour, texture. Endeavour to understand fully where it comes from and why, but if youâre not ready for that psyche-dive, move on to imagining yourself getting rid of it. Pull it out, burn it, grind it to dust, have wolves eat it and ravens peck it, have rivers wash it away. Do this every time you need to.
Visit beautiful places and energetically draw the beauty of their energy inside you.
Wisdom is the ability to achieve the best outcome with the knowledge and choices you have. Compassion is the ability to desire wellness upon another person and help them attain it, no matter who they are.
It is very helpful to cultivate these things, because it is generally true that in this regard, like attracts like. Benevolent gods and spirits are more likely to help and form closer relationships with benevolent humans, while wisdom helps you make the most out of this relationship.
Practice open-mindedness, but with discernment. Understand that every idea and opinion is a work in progress, that even the beliefs which you cling to with absolute faith will have limits and boundaries.
Educate yourself on subjects you actively disagree with. Educate yourself on criticisms of things you do agree with. Educate yourself on things you donât know, and on things you do know. Challenge your preconceptions. Trace their origin. Understand that the instinct of the mind is to simplify, yet the nature of the world is complex.
You are the person you are not only because of what you have suffered, but also what you have enjoyed. The people in your life, good and bad, have all done their part to inform you of what you now think is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable. Your truth is not the whole truth; the whole truth is not your truth.
Understand that someone in conflict with you or your ideas may simply be lacking patience, compassion, wisdom, or knowledge. You may help them if you are able to, or you may not be the right person to help. It is important to know which is the case.
Understand that you might be the person lacking patience, compassion, wisdom, or knowledge. Know that taking responsibility is not the same as taking guilt and shame.
Understand that certain things may only be true or helpful within a certain context, place or time. This is what allows opposite things to be true. The world is vast and multi-layered and does not always offer its secrets readily.Â
Reflect on various aspects of your life, and try to discern exactly what impact it had on you, your mentality, and the choices youâve made. The fact that you were born human, and not an animal. That you live in a certain country. That you experienced rejection from a person. That this person was a parent/sibling/teacher/lover. That you are able to have hot showers everyday. That you can (or canât) see the colour red. That you grew up with the food you eat. That you must eat. That you feel anger. That you know you will experience pain again.
Practice humility and patience. Practice showing deference to those who are more experienced and knowledgeable than you. Practice knowing your worth in the presence of what appears to be greater. Practice humility in the presence of what appears to be lesser. Practice gratitude over apology. Practice feeling inspired over feeling threatened. Practice living fully in the present moment.
All emotions are interconnected. Hate is connected to love is connected to anger is connected to jealousy is connected to fear is connected to hope is connected to sadness. A great spiderweb. Pick apart the threads. Transform and alchemise emotions. Practice channeling them in healthy and productive ways.
Find something you disagree with or dislike. Now come up with a context where this thing is agreeable and desirable. Now do the opposite, something you like and agree with, but come up with a context where it is disagreeable and undesirable.
