Deep Listening: While You WAIT

Words shape the sacred space of spiritual direction, but so does silence. In a previous post, W.A.I.T.: Why Am I Talking, I explored how intentional restraint helps companions create spaciousness for Spirit. This post is the other side of that practice: what happens while you wait.

If W.A.I.T. teaches us when and why to speak, Deep Listening teaches us how and to what we attend.

Listening Beneath the Words

Deep listening is more than hearing. It is a contemplative posture, receiving another’s story with heart, body, and spirit. It invites us to notice tone, rhythm, silence, gesture, and what stirs within ourselves as we listen.

In Buddhist mindfulness, this is “listening with beginner’s mind.”
In the Christian contemplative tradition, Benedict calls it “listening with the ear of the heart.”
Indigenous and Pagan wisdom remind us to listen to wind, water, stone, and silence as teachers.
In Quaker practice, we “listen beneath the words” for the movement of Spirit.

Each path points toward the same truth: listening itself can be prayer.

Drawing by Hawthorne Post

Listening With Your Whole Self

When you are fully present, your body participates in the listening. Breath slows. Muscles soften. Attention widens.

Before speaking,  or even forming a question, pause to notice:

• What sensations arise as your explorer speaks?

• What emotions ripple through you?

• What happens in your breath and belly as silence deepens?

Your body’s wisdom helps you discern whether a response serves the seeker or your own comfort. This is deep listening in action: grounded, embodied awareness that keeps your voice aligned with sacred purpose.

The Threefold Attention

As you listen, you are attending on three levels:

1. To the Explorer: their words, emotions, and unfolding meaning.

2. To Yourself: your interior reactions, intuitions, and resonances.

3. To the Holy: the subtle movement of Spirit within and between you both.

Holding awareness of all three creates a living triangle of presence. None are ignored; all are received with reverence.

Practice: Listening Beneath the Words

During your next session, experiment with this contemplative practice:

1. Take three deep breaths before your explorer begins to speak.

2. As they share, silently repeat, “I am listening.”

3. Attend to your body as well as their words.

4. When you notice silence, let it expand instead of filling it.

5. Afterward, reflect:

   • What did I hear from my explorer?

   • What did I hear from within?

   • What did I hear from Spirit?

Listening this way is active, though it may appear still. It builds the inner spaciousness that W.A.I.T. protects. Together, these two practices, W.A.I.T. and Deep Listening, create a rhythm of speaking and silence, giving and receiving, that allows the sacred to emerge naturally.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy.

— Rev. Amy

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See Also These Posts

• W.A.I.T.: Why Am I Talking – Explores common pitfalls in spiritual direction and how to cultivate presence instead. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/05/wait-common-pitfalls-in-spiritual.html

• Communication Theory in Spiritual Direction – A deeper dive into the psychological and spiritual foundations of listening and presence.
    https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2024/01/communication-theory-in-spiritual.html

• The Heart of Spiritual Direction – Introduces the foundations of spiritual direction, highlighting presence, sacred listening, and the call to honor seekers as whole and holy. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-heart-of-spiritual-direction.html

• I-Thou: Pronouns and Invitation in Spiritual Companioning – Offers reflection on relational language and its impact in spiritual direction. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/05/i-thou-pronouns-and-invitation-in.html

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For Further Exploration

• Oliveros, Pauline – Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice – A contemplative and creative approach to awareness through sound, silence, and presence.
https://deeplistening.rpi.edu

• Palmer, Parker – Let Your Life Speak – Explores how deep listening to self and Spirit reveals authentic vocation.
https://couragerenewal.org/let-your-life-speak

• Palmer, Parker – A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life – On creating “circles of trust” where deep listening, silence, and inner wisdom can emerge.
https://couragerenewal.org/a-hidden-wholeness

• May, Gerald G. – Care of Mind, Care of Spirit – A classic text on the director’s inner stance: silence, presence, and discernment.

• Barry, William A. & Connolly, William J. – The Practice of Spiritual Direction – Explores how silence and the director’s interior response open the way for divine encounter.

• Harrow, Judy – Spiritual Mentoring: A Pagan Guide – Grounded wisdom on compassionate language and presence within Pagan and earth-based traditions.

This Heart of Sacred Tending series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live: 

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources, are available at http://www.AmyBeltaine.info

Ethics: The Heart of Trust in Spiritual Companionship

Ethical Foundations in Spirit Tending

Spiritual direction rests on sacred trust. A seeker invites us into the tender landscape of their spirit, and our response must be both reverent and responsible. Ethics is not about fear of doing something wrong; it’s about love made visible through respect, boundaries, and consent.

When we offer direction without attention to ethics, even with the best intentions, we can cause harm. When we ground our companionship in ethical awareness, we offer safety, a space where seekers can risk honesty, vulnerability, and growth. Ethics becomes a form of spiritual hospitality.

Particular Focuses

1. Consent Is Ongoing

Consent is more than a signature on an intake form. It’s a continual invitation to mutual clarity. Before beginning direction, we discuss what the relationship is and what it isn’t. We name limits: confidentiality, scope of practice, session structure, fees or donations, and how to end the relationship when the time comes.
Throughout the journey, we keep checking in. “Is this kind of reflection helpful?” “Would you like to pause here?” “Are you comfortable with this kind of question?” These small acts of consent keep the work sacred and safe.

2. Boundaries Hold the Container

Boundaries are not walls; they are vessels. They hold the relationship’s purpose and protect its integrity.
We are not therapists, pastors, or best friends. We are companions who witness, listen, and discern alongside.
Boundaries also include clear communication: we set expectations about contact between sessions, confidentiality, and what happens when ethical lines blur. For instance, if we feel strong attraction, pity, or a desire to fix, we name these movements within ourselves. Naming these realities is not shameful; it’s responsible.

3. Accountability Is a Form of Love

No one practices ethically in isolation. Supervision, peer reflection, and continuing education are our lifelines. They help us see our denial or when we've missed the mark without noticing. They help us remain responsive to the people we serve.
Supervision isn’t punishment for mistakes; it’s part of the discipline of humility. A supervisor provides compassionate support. In supervision we can say, “Something felt off,” or “What is going on with me that I want to cry after every appointment with this person,” and together we discern the next faithful step.

4. Power and Transparency

Whether we name it or not, we hold power. We are the ones a seeker looks to for guidance, recognition, or reflection. The ethical task is not to deny that power but to use it with integrity: never coercing, never manipulating, never claiming authority over another’s truth.
Transparency helps balance power: we can explain our process, our training, and our limits. We can acknowledge mistakes. We can model what it looks like to remain teachable and human.

Try It

Spend a few minutes journaling or reflecting on these questions:

• When have I experienced someone’s ethical care as sacred? What made it feel that way?

• What boundaries or practices help me offer spiritual conpanioning with consent and safety?

• How do I respond when I realize I’ve made an ethical misstep?

Then, find one concrete way to strengthen your container — perhaps scheduling regular supervision, revisiting your disclosure statement, or practicing how you’ll talk about consent at intake.

For Further Exploration

• Embracing Consent: A Foundation for Ethical Spiritual Tending and Human Connection- https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/04/embracing-consent-foundation-for.html
• Spiritual Directors International: Guidelines for Ethical Conduct: A concise, widely used framework for ethical reflection. https://www.sdicompanions.org/ethicalguidelines
• Carol Gilligan - The Ethics of Care - Carol Gilligan's Contributions. https://philosophynest.com/details-3408000-the-ethics-of-care---carol-gilligans-contributions.html
• adrienne maree brown - Awe. Liberation. Pleasure. https://adriennemareebrown.net/
• Starhawk - Regenerative Culture. Earth-Based Spirituality. https://starhawk.org/
• Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness - Reflections on integrity, community, and the hidden teacher within.
• Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK - Though not about direction specifically, this book models deep presence without fixing or rescuing.

Author’s Note: The Ground Beneath These Ethics

This chapter rests on a living tradition of relational and liberationist ethics, ways of practicing care that honor agency, mutuality, and justice. Rather than focusing on fixed rules or outcomes, these approaches invite us to stay in right relationship: with self, with seeker, and with the Sacred.

Key influences include:

• Ethics of Care - Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Margaret Farley. These writers describe ethics as responsiveness to real people in real relationships.

• Consent and Trauma Awareness - Staci Haines, Resmaa Menakem, Adrienne Maree Brown. Their work teaches that safety and agency are the foundations of healing and trust.

• Liberation and Decolonial Ethics - Gustavo Gutiérrez, James Cone, bell hooks, and Indigenous scholars who remind us that power, privilege, and justice are spiritual matters.

• Covenantal and Communal Ethics - Parker Palmer, Howard Thurman, and many Pagan and animist traditions frame ethics as an ongoing covenant of right relationship within the web of life.

Together, these streams form a relational, consent-centered, liberation-informed ethics of care — one that roots spiritual direction in humility, accountability, and reverence for individual sovereignty in community.

Spiritual Tending for Mortals: Attending to Death, Dying, and Loss

Attending to Death, Dying, and Loss

How we meet death shapes how we live. Death is a certainty of human life, yet many cultures treat it as unspeakable. Those facing their mortality often find themselves isolated, and those grieving may be pressured to move on too quickly. As spiritual companions, we are called to hold space for the realities of death, dying, and loss and support seekers in finding meaning within their spiritual traditions.

This post offers a practical framework for accompanying people through three key experiences: grappling with mortality, preparing for death, and navigating bereavement. Ritual, tradition, and compassionate presence can help people move through these profound transitions.

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons, Photo User HORIZON

Grappling with Mortality

Some seekers arrive in spiritual companionship when they begin to face their mortality—through aging, illness, or an awareness of life’s fragility. These conversations can bring deep existential questions:

What is my life’s meaning? What happens after I die? How do I prepare?

Try These Ways to Support Seekers

• Inviting open, spiritually grounded conversation: Many have never spoken openly about death. Acknowledging fears, hopes, and uncertainties can be profoundly freeing. Whether they frame mortality through reincarnation, heaven, ancestral connection, or mystery, companions can help seekers explore their beliefs with depth and clarity.
• Encouraging life review: Reflecting on one’s journey, values, and relationships can bring peace. Practices like storytelling, letter-writing, or compiling a spiritual autobiography can be meaningful. This can lead to the question posed by the poet Mary Oliver: “What do you wish to do with your one precious life?”

Many seekers will also ask, “Where is the Divine in this?” ...especially as they encounter suffering, fear, or grief. This is a question to hold with great care. A companion does not need to provide an answer but can gently explore this longing, inviting the seeker’s own wisdom and experience to emerge.

Preparing for Death: Accompanying Those Nearing the End

Spiritual companionship brings sacred presence. The focus shifts from seeking answers to finding comfort, closure, and connection. Often, the companion’s role also extends to those close to the dying person—offering guidance and support to loved ones.

Ways to Accompany Someone Nearing Death

• Attuning to their needs: Some may wish to reflect on their lives; others may simply want quiet companionship. Compassionate presence is key.
• Engaging in ritual: Ritual can provide grounding and peace. This may include reciting prayers, offering blessings, or drawing from the seeker’s tradition—such as a Wiccan passing ritual, Christian last rites, or Tibetan Buddhist death meditations.
• Supporting goodbyes:  Helping a person express final words to loved ones or engage in symbolic acts (like passing on meaningful objects) can bring resolution.

Ring Theory by Susan Silk, Illustration by Wes Bausmith/LA Times

Bereavement: Anticipatory Loss and Coping with Grief

Grief often begins before a loved one has died, and it does not follow a predictable course. Companions can support people from anticipatory grief through the long journey of loss.

Key Ways to Accompany the Bereaved:

• Breaking the taboo of grief: Many feel pressure to “move on” or grieve a certain way. Companions affirm that grief is not a problem to be solved but a process to be honored. Consider attending a Death Café or facilitating similar discussions in your community.
• Holding space for mourning rituals: Sitting Shiva, ancestor altars, lighting candles, and writing letters to the deceased are just a few ways different traditions support the grieving. Exploring or creating personalized rituals can help seekers find solace.
• Encouraging self-compassion: Grief is unpredictable; waves of sorrow, moments of peace, and unexpected emotions are all natural. Companions can affirm that whatever arises is part of the process.

Complicated Grief: Sudden Death, Child Loss, and Other Deep Wounds

Some losses carry a unique weight: losing a child, experiencing a sudden or violent death, or enduring a miscarriage or stillbirth. These kinds of grief can be especially complex, bringing profound sorrow, anger, guilt, or shock.

In Rochester, NY, nurses created a gentle ritual for families grieving infant loss, offering time, touch, and keepsakes to honor the child’s life.

When offering such rituals, consent is essential. Not every grieving person will want to engage in these practices, and no one should be pressured. The role of a spiritual companion is to offer, not impose—to listen deeply and respond with care to the needs of the seeker.

Additionally, some seekers may come to you because they themselves are struggling with wanting to die, or because they love someone who is suicidal or who has chosen to die. These are tender and difficult realities that require deep presence and often professional collaboration. I address them more fully in another post [https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/05/traveling-with-despair-consent.html].

Addressing Misunderstandings

There’s no “right” way to grieve. People often feel pressured to grieve quickly or loudly or in a particular way. Companions affirm that every grief journey is unique, and there is no timeline for healing.

“The Stages of Grief are not Stages”, art by Beth Erlander

Self-Care for Spiritual Companions

Companioning others through death and grief is sacred work, but it can also be emotionally taxing. To sustain this work, have your own companion, seek supervision, honor your limits. Consent works both ways. If a conversation is too emotionally heavy, it’s okay to pause or refer the seeker to additional support.

Final Thoughts

Spiritual companions play a vital role in making space for death, dying, and grief by breaking silence, offering ritual, attending to the presence of the sacred, and honoring each person’s unique journey. By showing up with care and presence, we help seekers navigate one of life’s greatest transitions with dignity and meaning. Attending to death is an act of deep love for life itself.

You are whole, holy, and worthy.

Rev. Amy

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Further Reading & Resources

• Death Café – A global movement normalizing conversations about death.
• The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller – A deep dive into grief and ritual.
• The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski – Lessons from a Buddhist hospice pioneer.
• It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine – A compassionate guide for grievers.
• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization – Hospice resources and end-of-life planning.

How have you witnessed or participated in meaningful end-of-life rituals? I invite you to share reflections in the comments.

This Heart of Spiritual Direction series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live:

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources are available at http://www.AmyBeltaine.info

Ancestral River: Guided Meditation on a Lineage of Care

Guided Meditation: Held in the Lineage of Care

For the reader: Speak slowly, with warmth and steadiness. Pause between paragraphs. Let your voice feel like a safe, protective presence. Approximately 12-15 minutes. (Allow spaciousness during the breaks.)

Image created by Hawthorne Post with the assistance of ChatGPT

Settling into Presence

Everything offered in this grounding is an invitation. Please engage in whatever way feels right to you. You are the sacred steward of your own experience.

Let's begin by arriving. Not in some imagined place of strength, but right here, with whatever this moment brings.

Take three slow breaths. (Pause for breaths)

Notice the places where your body meets support: perhaps the floor beneath your feet, your chair, the air touching your skin.

If tuning into your body isn't accessible today, you might bring awareness to your surroundings—the quality of light, sounds around you, or a presence that feels safe or sacred.

Begin with simply being… present.

Present with the now.
Present with the person that you are.

There's nowhere you need to be but here.
Nothing you need to fix or become.

Here. Now.

With this skin.
These bones.
This heart.

Let yourself arrive more fully.

The Journey Back

And now, with gentleness... let your awareness travel back through time.
Back to when you were small.
Perhaps to a moment of being held—
or simply to the knowledge that someone, somewhere, cared enough for you to be here now.

It might be a memory—or just something imagined.
Perhaps a time when you were held in someone's arms.
In a loving way.

Let yourself rest there for a moment.

Now remember: there were people who survived.
Long enough to create you.

Their lives were stories.
Their lives reached back through the years.
A connected line… from you, back through those who nurtured you, or brought you into being.

Let yourself follow that line—like watching a film moving backward through time.
Each frame: a person who was once a child.
Each child: held in loving arms.

All the way back to when those people—those ancestors or caregivers—were children themselves.

Just pick one.
That person was a baby once.
That person was held with care—in someone's arms.

And the person who held them…
Maybe it was a grandparent.
Maybe someone else.
But someone who survived, who cared enough, to hold that child.

Go back farther.
Feel the links.
The connections.
Each child, once held by someone who cared enough to bring them forward.

Back through grandparents and great-grandparents…
Or nurturers and their nurturers.

As you go back, notice how the world changes.

You may sense shifts in landscape... in climate... in the rhythm of daily life.
Different hands.
Different lullabies.
The same human need for connection.

You may find yourself moving through time and across place—
Back through North America…
Across the sea…
Through the European, African, Asian continents…
And back farther still…

A long line of people, each one holding a child.

Let the movie move faster if it wants.
All the way back…

To the African continent.
To deep time.

Each person, surviving.
Each one caring enough to hold an infant in their arms.

The Return Journey

Now let the movie slow.
Be with this one small child, held in the arms of an ancestor.

And now… begin to move forward again.
Noticing each person's story.
Their strength.
Their mistakes.
Their courage.
Their complexity.

Strength flowing through time.
Flowing from ancestor to ancestor.
From nurturer to nurturer.
From arm to arm, from heart to heart…

All the way forward… to you.

Feel that love.
Feel that determination.
Feel the fullness of those stories.

You can breathe with them.

Choosing What to Carry

And you can choose:
What do you want to hold onto?
What might you set aside, for another time?

As all this strength flows toward you...
Notice what feels nourishing.
What feels true.

Some gifts you can receive fully.
Others you might acknowledge with respect, then set down.

You are not required to carry everything.
You get to choose.

What wisdom wants to come forward with you? (Longer pause)

What can rest here, honored but released? (Longer pause)

What arrives as a gift?
What stirs your curiosity or wonder?

What meets a boundary—you can acknowledge it, and let it stay behind.

Now choose one or two things…
That you want to carry with you, just for today.

Returning Home

And then… gently, gently return.
To your skin.
Your bones.
Your breath.
Your heart.

Perhaps place a hand on your heart.
Feeling yourself—this person, in this time—
Connected to all who came before, yet wholly yourself.

You.

Here.
Now.

If there's anything you'd like to write down or share, you are welcome to.

Authoritarianism Thrives on Brittle Spirits: the Profitable Manufacture of Fear

The Profitable Manufacture of Fear: And the Critical Work of Spirit Tending

Why are we seeing a rise of fascism and authoritarianism across the world, especially in the United States? It's tempting to point to a single cause, but the truth is more complex. Economic inequality and dislocation, cultural backlash, disinformation, and climate instability all converge into one central outcome: fear.

Some fear is reasonable, especially for those most marginalized, who live under real and immediate threat. But much fear is deliberately engineered. Fear is profitable. It is used to divide communities, undermine solidarity, and keep people vulnerable to manipulation.

In this context, spiritual tending is not a luxury. It is critical. Because authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits, while thriving communities are rooted, resilient, and alive.

The Roots of Rising Fascism

First, we name what is. Getting real is essential to re-membering our wholeness. Fascism is now, and has in the past, arisen in particular contexts.

Economic Dislocation and Inequality. Generations of wage stagnation and wealth concentration leave many people feeling powerless and disposable.

Social and Cultural Backlash. Expanding rights for women, queer and trans folks, Black and Brown communities, and migrants generates reactionary resistance from those invested in dominance.

Psychological and Tribal Dynamics. Fear easily flips into scapegoating; humans are wired to seek safety in "us vs. them" categories.

Environmental and Existential Stressors. Climate disruption and ecological collapse create widespread anxiety, uncertainty, and scarcity.

Disinformation and Media Ecosystems. News silos and manipulative platforms amplify outrage, fear, and conspiracy thinking.

Historical Patterns. Authoritarian movements often arise in periods of upheaval—what we are seeing is tragically familiar.

Together, these dynamics converge into a cycle of fear + inequality, weaponized by those who profit from division.

Water drop over parched land, Photo by Stockcake

The Engineered Fear Model

Engineered fear follows a predictable pattern:

Isolate people → from each other, from community trust, from nature, from their own sense of agency.

Flood them with crisis → so they feel powerless and dependent on "strong" leaders or controlling systems.

Break trust in the sacred → whether that's God, gods, the web of life, or inner wisdom. A person who knows they are whole and connected is much harder to control.

This model isn't abstract. It plays out in the profiteering we saw during COVID-19, in how media cycles keep us in crisis mode, and in political projects that thrive on keeping communities fragmented and afraid.

Discernment, Not Denial: The Role of Healthy Fear

Authentic spiritual practice doesn't bypass real dangers or systemic harm—it strengthens our ability to distinguish between manufactured panic and genuine threats that require action. When we're grounded in our values and connected to community, we can respond to climate crisis, political violence, or personal safety concerns from a place of clarity rather than reactivity.

This isn't spiritual bypassing. This is spiritual preparation for sustained, effective engagement with difficult realities. The goal isn't to eliminate fear. The goal is to cultivate the discernment that allows us to act from wisdom rather than being paralyzed by overwhelm or manipulated by those who profit from our terror.

Fear becomes healthy when it connects us to what we love and moves us toward protection and care: for ourselves, our communities, and the living world. It becomes toxic when it isolates us, makes us smaller, or hands our agency over to systems that don't serve life.

Pride Parade, Rawpixel CC0

A Counter-Practice of Spirit Tending

The work of spiritual direction and tending offers a radical, necessary counter-practice:

Reweaving Connection

Creating safe, intentional spaces where people explore meaning, belonging, and sacredness on their own terms. But this isn't just individual work. The work is about building networks of mutual care that are harder to divide and exploit. When people know they belong to something larger than themselves, they're less vulnerable to the false promises of authoritarian movements.

Restoring Agency

Helping seekers trust their own discernment, values, and choices instead of outsourcing them to fear-based systems. This includes strengthening our capacity to regulate our nervous systems under stress: work I explore more deeply in other posts about embodiment and trauma-informed spirituality. When we can stay present in our bodies even during difficulty, we make decisions from clarity rather than panic.

Cultivating Resilience

Equipping people with inner resources so that even in crisis, they respond from compassion and wisdom instead of reactivity. This resilience isn't built in isolation—it emerges from relationships. We need communities that practice together, share resources, and commit to each other's well-being across difference.

Lessons from History: When Spirit Tending Resisted Tyranny

Throughout history, spiritual communities rooted in authentic practice have provided crucial resistance to authoritarian movements.

During World War II, Quaker communities across Europe created underground networks that saved thousands of Jewish lives. Their commitment to "that of God in everyone" wasn't abstract theology—it translated into concrete action. They opened their homes, forged documents, and risked their lives because their spiritual practice had cultivated an unshakeable commitment to human dignity. Crucially, their decentralized structure made them harder for Nazi authorities to infiltrate or destroy.

Buddhist communities in Tibet and Burma have sustained resistance to occupation and military rule through practices that maintain inner freedom even under extreme oppression. Their emphasis on interconnection and compassion provided alternatives to the us-versus-them thinking that authoritarian systems depend on.

Indigenous land defenders across the Americas draw strength from spiritual connections to place that colonizers cannot fully comprehend or co-opt. At Standing Rock and countless other sites, ceremony and prayer become acts of resistance because they affirm relationships that capitalism seeks to sever.

Liberation theology movements in Latin America demonstrated how spiritual practice could challenge economic oppression and political violence while maintaining commitment to love and justice.

These examples share common threads: deep rootedness in practice, commitment to community beyond the self, and spiritual foundations that couldn't be shaken by external pressure.

Treeroots, CC0

The Trap of Spiritual Bubbles

But we must also acknowledge how spiritual communities can become complicit in the very dynamics they claim to resist. When spiritual practice becomes about comfort rather than transformation, or when communities become insular echo chambers, they lose their power to challenge systems of oppression.

Social media algorithms can turn spiritual hashtags into just another form of consumption, where profound practices get reduced to performance and spiritual bypassing. Similarly, spiritual communities that focus only on individual enlightenment while ignoring systemic harm can inadvertently serve as what Marx called "the opiate of the masses"—keeping people pacified rather than engaged.

The antidote is spiritual practice that consistently asks: How does this practice serve life? How does it connect me more deeply to the struggles and joys of my neighbors? How does it strengthen my capacity for sustained action on behalf of justice?

Find spiritual mentors, guides, and companions with ethical commitments you know and agree with. Do your individual work with people who practice consent and are willing to acknowledge what is real. 

The Choice Before Us

They win by keeping people spiritually brittle. We heal by becoming spiritually flexible, grounded, and unshakable.

Or in other words:

In an era when fear is deliberately manufactured to keep people small, disconnected, and reactive, my work tends the opposite soil. I accompany people as they deepen trust in their sacred wisdom, reweave bonds of community, and cultivate resilience rooted in what they hold most holy. Authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits; my calling is to help grow spirits that bend but do not break.

Try It

Notice the places in your life where fear is pressing on you right now. Is it the news? Your community? Family tensions? Ecological uncertainty? Place your hand over your heart and whisper: Fear is not the whole of me.

Ask yourself: Where do I feel most alive, most rooted, most connected? What practice, place, or relationship brings you back to that sense of wholeness? Make time to nourish it this week.

Then ask: How might this groundedness serve not just my own well-being, but my capacity to show up for others? What would it look like to let my spiritual practice fuel sustained engagement rather than retreat from the world's pain?

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,
Rev. Amy
Companioning soul-weary change-makers becoming rooted, aligned, and alive again.

A Meditation on Fierce Love and Inner Strength

For the reader: Speak slowly, with warmth and quiet strength. Pause between paragraphs. Let your voice feel like a safe, protective presence. Approximately 6–7 minutes.

Settling into Presence

Everything offered in this grounding is an invitation. Please engage in whatever way feels right to you. You are the sacred steward of your own experience.

Let’s begin by arriving. Not in some imagined place of strength, but right here, with whatever this moment brings.

Feel the contact between your body and what supports you: perhaps the floor beneath your feet, your chair, the air touching your skin.

If tuning into your body isn’t accessible today, you might bring awareness to your surroundings, the quality of light, sounds around you, or a presence that feels safe or sacred.

Mother and Baby Elephant, CC0

Rooting into Your Natural Strength

Now, I invite you to shift awareness to the quiet ways your body is alive. You might notice your heartbeat, not necessarily its sound, but its steady rhythm. Or the weight of your limbs, reminding you of your substance, your presence.

Maybe you feel the warmth of your skin, or the air moving in and out of your lungs: gentle reminders that you are here, you are breathing, you are enough.

Let your awareness settle there. You don’t need to change anything. Your work right now is only presence.

Connecting to Your Protective Wisdom

In this grounded awareness, I invite curiosity: Is there a quality of strength, perhaps fierce or gentle, that feels familiar to you? Maybe it’s the protective love of a parent or caregiver. Maybe it’s the quiet endurance you’ve discovered in yourself. Maybe it’s the courage of an ancestor or animal guide.

You don’t need to name it or understand why. Whatever arises is enough. Just let that connection move through you, like warmth spreading through your chest, or roots growing deeper, or a quiet knowing settling in your bones.

You might not perceive anything specific, just a feeling, a presence, a sense of your own resilience. That is enough.

Polar bear mother and cub, PickPik

Inviting Your Animal Presence

If it feels right, you might invite an animal presence into this space. Perhaps a bear comes to mind, or a wolf, a lion, a hawk, or another creature that embodies fierce love. This is the kind of love that protects what it treasures, that knows both gentleness and power.

If an animal appears in your awareness, notice how it wants to be with you. Does it want to travel alongside you on this journey? To curl up in your belly, warm and solid? To rest in your heart, a quiet guardian? To stand behind you, lending you its strength?

There’s no right way. Simply witness what unfolds and allow this animal companion to be present in whatever way feels most supportive. Feel the qualities it brings: perhaps steadiness, fierceness, courage, or unwavering loyalty. Let those qualities become available to you, woven into your own being.

If no animal comes, that’s perfectly fine. You might simply sense a quality of protective love, or you might explore this invitation another time.

Honoring Both Tenderness and Fierceness

Let yourself feel held by this strength, as something you already carry rather than something you must perform. You are both tender and fierce. Both vulnerable and powerful. Both deserving protection and capable of protecting.

This is the wisdom of the wild heart: to know when to be gentle and when to defend what you love. This is love with boundaries. This is tenderness that remains whole.

If anything feels overwhelming, return to your anchor: your heartbeat, your breath, your connection to what supports you.

Emerging in Wholeness

You are held, by gravity, by community, by the quiet wisdom of your own being. In times of uncertainty, this strength remains. In moments of fear, this fierce love endures.

When you’re ready, begin to reawaken gently. Come back to this moment. To the sensation of your seat or your feet. To your heartbeat. To this body, this place, this now.

Wiggle your fingers or roll your shoulders. Notice the space around you. Observe a sound, a color, the presence of others if you’re in a gathering.

Let this grounded strength be your companion in the moments to come.

---

May you travel through your days knowing both your tenderness and your fierce protection. May you witness your own resilience and honor the wild wisdom that lives within you.

---

If you’re seeking a place of care, clarity, and spiritual support — I’ve created a sanctuary for you.

Visit http://AmyBeltaine.info to find resources, reflections, and companionship for the journey.

Fierce Love in Fragmented Times: A Homily for the Bear Goddess Within

Reclaiming spiritual practice as revolutionary resistance

I've been thinking about ancient Bear deities: Ursel, Artio, even the Paleolithic bear worship... Now, at a time when the world seems to demand we choose between being afraid or being naive, the wisdom of the bear offers us a third way: the path of fierce love.

This was first written as a homily, and I offer it to you here for your reflection. Bear deities figure in many indigenous traditions. Ursel is a Slavic goddess of the moon and bears. Kaiti is a bear goddess of the Haida of the Pacific NW of North America. Artio is the mother bear goddess of the Celts and Gauls. Kamuy is a bear figure revered by the Ainu in Japan. They are all revered as guardians, protectors and guides.

The Profitable Manufacture of Fear

Let me name what we're all feeling: we live in a time when fear is deliberately manufactured and sold to us. Economic inequality leaves people feeling powerless. Cultural backlash creates division. Environmental crisis breeds anxiety. And all of this gets amplified by media systems that profit from our terror and outrage.

This isn't accidental. Fear is profitable. It keeps us isolated, reactive, and dependent on systems that promise safety in exchange for our agency. The pattern is predictable: isolate people from community and nature, flood them with crisis so they feel powerless, and break their trust in the sacred—in their own wisdom, in the web of life, in whatever they hold holy.

A person who knows they are whole and connected is much harder to control.

Cave bears loomed large in the Cro-Magnon mind as shown in this Chauvet cave painting. Jean Clottes

When Fear Becomes Toxic

Not all fear is manufactured. Some of our fear is entirely reasonable, especially for those living under real and immediate threat. The question isn't how to eliminate fear, but how to distinguish between the fear that connects us to what we love and the fear that makes us smaller.

Healthy fear moves us toward protection and care. It says: "This matters to me, so I will act." Toxic fear isolates us, hands our power over to others, and convinces us we are helpless.

The bear knows this difference. A mother bear doesn't become fierce out of hatred. She becomes fierce out of love. Her power comes not from anger but from an unshakeable commitment to protecting what is precious.

The Wisdom of the Bear Goddess

In Slavic tradition, Ursel embodies this sacred fierceness that emerges not from aggression but from deep love. She shows us that strength and tenderness are not opposites. They are partners.

The bear hibernates, but she also defends her cubs with everything she has. She nurtures, but she also sets boundaries that cannot be crossed. She knows when to rest and when to act, when to be gentle and when to be formidable.

This is the wisdom we need now: fierce love. Love that has boundaries. Tenderness that will not be diminished. Compassion that refuses to be complicit in systems that harm.

"Bear" carving by Haida artist Bill Reid, Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, photo by D. Gordon E Robertson CC3.0

Spiritual Practice as Resistance

In times like these, spiritual practice is not a luxury or an escape. It is critical resistance work. Because authoritarianism thrives on brittle spirits, while thriving communities are rooted, resilient, and alive.

When we tend our spirits, we are doing political work. When we stay connected to what makes us feel most alive and grounded, we become harder to manipulate. When we gather in circles, sharing our questions and our wisdom, we are reweaving the social fabric that fear tries to tear apart.

History shows us this truth. During World War II, Quaker communities saved thousands of Jewish lives not because they were warriors, but because their spiritual practice had cultivated an unshakeable commitment to human dignity. Buddhist communities have sustained resistance to oppression through practices that maintain inner freedom even under external control. Indigenous land defenders draw strength from spiritual connections that colonizers cannot understand or co-opt.

These communities shared common threads: deep-rootedness in practice, commitment to something beyond the individual self, and spiritual foundations that couldn't be shaken by external pressure.

The Choice Before Us

So here's the choice before us: they win by keeping us spiritually brittle. We heal by becoming spiritually flexible, grounded, and unshakeable.

Choosing to read this and consider something new is already an act of resistance. Every time you choose to gather with others around questions of meaning rather than consumption, you are choosing connection over isolation. Every time you trust your own inner wisdom rather than outsourcing your decisions to fear-based systems, you are reclaiming your agency.

Every time you respond to the world's pain with fierce love rather than reactive fear, you are channeling the Bear Goddess.

Witch/Bear who lives on my shelf in my office

Living the Questions

I offer to you questions to sit with. I invite you to hold these questions not as problems to solve but as invitations to deepen:

How do you view fear? Can you feel the difference between the fear that makes you smaller and the fear that emerges from love?

Have you ever found a gift in fear? Perhaps it connected you to what you value most, or moved you to protect something precious, or showed you your own strength.

How do you summon your inner bear when you need courage? What helps you remember that you are both tender and fierce, both vulnerable and powerful?

The Work That Is Ours

We are living through a time that historians will study. Future generations will ask: What did they do when democracy was fragile? When the climate was changing? When fear was being weaponized?

I believe they will say: Some people chose to tend their spirits and each other's. Some people remembered that they were whole, holy, and connected. Some people practiced fierce love.

Some people gathered under the moon and around kitchen tables and in virtual circles, refusing to let fear have the last word. They knew that their spiritual practice was not separate from justice work—it was the foundation that made sustained action possible.

The bear hibernates, but she also awakens. She rests, but when spring comes, she emerges with cubs to protect and territory to claim.

What is trying to be born through you? What fierce love is stirring in your hibernating heart? What is yours to protect, to nurture, to defend with the unshakeable strength of one who knows she is connected to all life?

The Bear Goddess lives within you. She is both sanctuary and guardian. She is both a soft heart and a strong backbone.

In a world that profits from your fear, your fierce love is a revolutionary act.

**Say it with me: Blessed be the Bear within. Blessed be the fierce love that will not be diminished. Blessed be.**

May you know your fierce love today.

Nautilus Labyrinth Meditation

Let's start by coming here to this moment... to this heartbeat... to this breath.
And the next breath.
And the next breath.

I invite you to bring to mind a shell—the Nautilus shell. The spiraling opalescence of the Nautilus shell. One chamber built upon the next chamber. Each one a little larger, spiraling out and around... and out... and around.

Feel the smoothness of that pearlescent shell—pink, white, a little bit of purple.
Feel the unwinding as you move out into larger and larger spaces.

Nautilus Shell, Circe Denyer CC0

This magical shell is going to transport you to its sister: a labyrinth.

This may be a labyrinth you've traveled in the past that you have in your mind's memory, or maybe one that unfolds in this moment in mosses or grasslands, or stones, or shells, or sand.

Notice the spiral before you.
Notice what it is made of.
Notice the temperature around you here at this labyrinth.
Notice the feeling of the air, the textures, the weight of the atmosphere.
And the quality of light—or the dimness, or the dappled light, or perhaps the moonlight. The warmth or coolness on your skin. The scents that may drift by.

Font in Granada, Spain CC0 

Allow what you notice to adjust as the labyrinth around you adjusts, as it changes, as it transforms. Flowers may bloom. Waves may lap. The moon may rise or set.

Gaze out over this spiral, this labyrinth. You can't see the whole thing yet. You know that it spirals out from where you are.
And you journey the way the path invites you.
As you travel along this path, it unfolds, expands, opens up before you.
You cannot see the end. You cannot see the middle. And as it turns and twists, you're not even sure of the way that it is going.
But it is unfolding before you.

As you continue down the path, as you say yes to the invitation, more is revealed. And you can embark upon what has unfolded for you.

Pause along this path and notice: Are there ocean waves? Are there flowers? Are there fairies? Is there moss? Is there tiny life? Are there smooth stones? Are there shells? The temperature of the air? The textures beneath you or around you? What are the things that you might notice that are on this path with you?

You're not going to travel the whole path in this moment—only as far as your yes feels right, right now.

Be Here.

Possibly Prehistoric labyrinth in Trojaburg, Germany
Photo: © <https://thuecat.org/resources/304109990030-feja>,
<https://thuecat.org/resources/840100048827-ohak>

And when it's time, retrace your journey. Notice where you've been. Notice where this path has led. Notice all that has unfolded along it, back to the place where you started today.

Turn for one last glance across the spiraling labyrinth. Know that you can come back here.

And notice the nautilus shell is here for you to snuggle back into.
Let it transport you deeper and deeper back into yourself, spiraling back in.
True. Beautiful.

As you're ready, allow yourself to become aware of your breath.
And gently, as you're ready, notice again your heartbeat.
This moment. And this place where you are.

If there's anything you brought back with you that you want to make a note of or say out loud to hold it, take time for that.

You Lost Family to MAGA. You Don’t Have to Survive Alone

You're Not Alone: Some of Us Never Joined the Cult

I see the heartbreak. The devastation of watching parents, elders, mentors swept into the hateful MAGA cult — abandoning compassion, truth, and the ethics they once taught you.

I see the ache of wondering if the love you grew up with was ever real. The disorientation of losing someone to propaganda and cruelty.

So let me say this plainly: some of us never left.

Some of us — older, motherly, still rooted in care — are here. We still believe in kindness, in truth, in protecting the vulnerable. We still show up for justice, for community, for love that liberates.

If you're feeling orphaned by ideology, I want you to know: someone is still in your corner. Someone who remembers what it means to be human together.

Mr. Rogers Quote from PBS Learning Media

 You are not alone.

There Are Still Ethical Elders

We grieve alongside you — those of us who have also lost family members and mentors to this cult. We know the particular pain of mourning someone who is still alive but no longer recognizable. The parent who taught you empathy now parrots cruelty. The mentor who modeled integrity now embraces lies. These losses are real, and your grief deserves space.

But here's what queer culture has always known and generously taught the rest of us: family is not only what you're born into. Family can be chosen, built, created through shared values and intentional love. You can seek out and find elders, mentors, and kin who reflect the ethics you hold dear. People who will show up for you with the care and wisdom you deserve.

Many of Us Still Show Up for Love

As Mr. Rogers wisely said, "Look for the helpers." In times of crisis and confusion, look for those who are showing up with compassion and courage. They are out there — and they are looking for you too. Communities of care still exist. Elders who never abandoned their principles are still here, ready to journey alongside you. You don't have to navigate this alone.

If you're seeking a place of care, clarity, and spiritual support — I've created a sanctuary for you.

Visit http://AmyBeltaine.info to find resources, reflections, and companionship for the journey.

Heart-Centered, Anti-Capitalist (or Post-Capitalist), Consent-Based Business Coaches

Especially for Healers, Therapists, Spiritual Companions, and One-on-One Helpers

These coaches and teachers support values-aligned work with an emphasis on relationship, sustainability, and justice. Many are rooted in trauma-informed practice, spiritual depth, and anti-oppression frameworks.

(In no particular order)

1. Tad Hargrave

• Focus: Marketing for people who hate marketing, especially healers and changemakers.
• Style: Playful, disarming, rooted in generosity and authenticity.
• Site: https://marketingforhippies.com
• Sample offerings: tools like “point of view marketing” and “niching spiral” to help people find their way without manipulation.

2. Mark Silver

• Focus: Integrating business with spiritual practice, grounded in Sufi wisdom.
• Style: Gentle, deeply spiritual, relational, teaching with and about compassion and ethics.
• Site: https://www.heartofbusiness.com
• Book: The Heart of Business
• Offerings: Community, courses and mentoring for spiritually rooted entrepreneurs; supports connection to the Divine in business.

3. Bear Hebert

• Focus: Anti-capitalist business coaching, liberatory practices, values-aligned business models.
• Style: Direct, queer-inclusive, trauma-informed, rooted in collective care.
• Site: https://www.bearcoaches.com/
• Sample Offering: “No Starving Artists” and “Freely: Anti-Capitalist Business Coaching.”

4. Jenny Blake

• Focus: Systems, ease, and ethical scaling of meaningful work.
• Style: Gentle, strategic, focused on burnout prevention and intuitive alignment.
• Site: https://itsfreetime.com/ or https://www.pivotmethod.com
• Books: Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One and Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business.
• Note: Not explicitly anti-capitalist but aligned with heart-centered, non-exploitative practices.

5. Kelly Diels

• Focus: Feminist marketing, cultural critique, ethical branding.
• Style: Fierce, anti-patriarchal, focused on not replicating oppressive systems.
• Site: https://kellydiels.com
• Approach: Offers alternatives to exploitative marketing models like the “Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand.”

6. Rachael Kay Albers

• Focus: Anti-capitalist branding, media literacy, social justice.
• Style: Satirical, sharp, rooted in liberation and systems change.
• Site: https://rachaelkayalbers.com
• Project: “Awkward Marketing” — insightful and hilarious commentary on toxic marketing practices.

7. Laura Mae Northrup

• Focus: Trauma-informed care, ethical healing relationships, and spiritual integrity in helping professions.
• Style: Deeply somatic, psycho-spiritual, ethics-rooted.
• Site: https://www.lauramaenorthrup.com
• Book: Radical Healership: How to Build a Values-Driven Healing Practice in a Profit-Driven World — essential reading for one-on-one helpers.
• Note: Not a business coach per se, but deeply instructive about ethical practice in capitalistic systems.

8. Holly Truhlar

• Focus: Community-based care, collective trauma, and grief-informed organizing.
• Style: Poetic, grief-honoring, anti-capitalist and relational.
• Site: https://www.hollytruhlar.com
• Offerings: Supports coaches, therapists, and organizers doing grief and justice work outside dominant paradigms.

9. Emily Anne Brant

• Focus: centers Indigenous identity & decolonial frameworks. Personal develpment and decolonization.
• Style: integrating anti-racism, Indigenous ways of knowing, ethics, inclusive.
• Site: https://www.emilyannebrant.com/
• Offerings: Decolonize your Biz consulting, Decolonized Coach Community, Free guides.

I have personally worked with Mark Silver and love being a part of his community. I've received personal recommendations for Tad Hargrace. If you recommend someone, let me know!

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,

Rev. Amy

This Heart of Spirit Tending series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live:

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources are available at http://www.AmyBeltaine.info