Monday, July 06, 2026

Judaism: Story and Questioning in Spiritual Direction

Judaism: Sacred Questions, Sacred Stories, Sacred Repair

A People Shaped by Story

Judaism is fundamentally a story-based tradition. From Genesis through the prophets, from the Talmud to contemporary Jewish life, stories define identity, transmit values, and shape faith.

These are not stories to be believed from a distance, they are stories to enter, wrestle with, and retell. A few of the foundational narratives include:

  • Creation: Adam and Eve, the Garden, humanity's first choices
  • Covenant: Noah and the rainbow, God's promise
  • Liberation: The Exodus from Egypt, Passover, the journey from slavery to freedom
  • Revelation: Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, the giving of Torah
  • Wandering and Arriving: The wilderness, the Promised Land
  • Resistance and Survival: Esther and Purim, Hanukkah and the Maccabees

Each generation retells these stories, finding new meanings. At the Passover Seder, families are instructed: "In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally left Egypt." The stories are not just history, they are lived experience.


Stained Glass from a Synagogue CC0

Poetry as Prayer

Judaism sings. The Hebrew scriptures pulse with poetry, language that doesn't just inform but transforms:

  • The Psalms: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." (Psalm 23). Ancient prayers still prayed today.
  • Song of Solomon: Erotic, mystical, embodied, the love between the divine and humanity.
  • Lamentations: Grief given full voice, mourning made sacred.
  • The Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, not fortune-tellers but activists, calling people back to justice and covenant.

The prophets deserve special attention for spiritual companions. They weren't predicting the future, they were challenging the present. "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8). The prophetic voice is the voice of social transformation grounded in spiritual conviction.

Jewish Spiritual Direction: Hashpa'ah and the Mashpia

Jewish spiritual direction has its own name: hashpa'ah (literally "influence" or "overflow"). The spiritual director is called a mashpia (one who provides spiritual influence). This practice draws from Hasidic traditions of one-on-one soul work between a rebbe and their followers.

From the ALEPH Ordination Program:

"The AOP Hashpa'ah Program embraces a rich multi-dimensional approach. Just as the various rebbes had different styles of counseling, so too The AOP Hashpa'ah Program faculty model varying styles and approaches. Our training draws both from the uniquely Jewish tradition of fostering a direct soul-work relationship with a rebbe or mashpia, and from the many helpful practices and lessons we have learned from other religious traditions."

The Hasidic rebbe served as spiritual guide, often known for healing through storytelling, prayer, and love. The Ba'al Shem Tov (1698-1760), founder of Hasidism, emphasized joy, simple faith, and mystical devotion over rigid legalism. Stories abound of his healing powers and his ability to heal souls through the mystical power of love.

Chevruta: Partnership in Learning

Another Jewish model for spiritual companionship is chevruta, paired Torah study. Two people wrestle with text together, asking questions, debating interpretations, deepening understanding through dialogue. The Talmud teaches: "Two are better than one." In chevruta, both partners learn; both teach. This egalitarian approach mirrors the heart of spiritual companionship.

Rabbi Jacob Staub on Jewish Spiritual Direction:

"The object of spiritual direction is to cultivate one's ability to discern God's presence in one's life—to notice and appreciate moments of holiness, to maintain an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things, to explore ways to be open to the Blessed Holy One in challenging and difficult moments as well as in joyful ones. The director serves as a companion and witness, someone who helps you to discern the divine where you might have missed it and to integrate that awareness into your daily life, your tefillah, your tikkun olam work, your study, your ritual practice."

See resources below for training programs and contemporary practice.

Midrash: Many Layers of Meaning

Midrash is the Jewish practice of creative interpretation, filling in gaps in Torah narratives, exploring multiple meanings, letting ancient stories speak to contemporary lives.

The sages taught that every word of Torah can be understood on multiple levels, represented by the acronym PRDS (pardes, meaning "orchard"):

  • Pshat: the literal meaning
  • Remez: the symbolic or hinted meaning
  • Drash: deeper analysis through language and association
  • Sod: the secret, mystical meaning

In Hasidic thought, the characters of Torah exist within each of us. When we study biblical stories, we come to know ourselves. Midrash invites us to interpret the sacred text of our own lives—what's the literal story? What's being hinted at? What deeper meaning emerges? What mystery remains?

Spiritual companions can use midrashic thinking to invite seekers into a layered exploration of their own experiences.

The Sacred Art of Asking Questions

Judaism doesn't just permit questions, it requires them. The Passover Seder is built around the Four Questions asked by the youngest child: "Why is this night different from all other nights?" Children are taught to question, to probe, to wonder.

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic debate, multiple interpretations held side by side, questions upon questions. "These and these are both the words of the living God." Wrestling is sacred. The name "Israel" means "one who wrestles with God."

When Jacob wrestled with the angel, he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The blessing came through the struggle. Doubt is not failure, it's engagement.

For spiritual companions, this tradition offers permission to hold questions without rushing to answers, to honor wrestling as intimacy with the divine.

Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World

Tikkun olam means "repair of the world." In Kabbalistic tradition, divine vessels shattered at creation, scattering sparks of holy light. Humanity's sacred work is to gather those sparks—through ethical action, justice work, compassionate living.

This is not separate from spiritual practice. It IS spiritual practice. The prophets made this clear: "Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed" (Isaiah). "Let justice roll down like waters" (Amos).

Rabbi Staub emphasizes that Jewish spiritual direction integrates daily life, prayer (tefillah), tikkun olam work, study, and ritual practice. Inner transformation serves outer healing. Personal growth leads to communal repair.

Spiritual companions working with Jewish seekers (or drawing from Jewish wisdom) can ask: Where is this inner work leading you toward action? How does your healing contribute to the healing of the world?

Gifts for Spiritual Companions

Judaism offers rich gifts to spiritual direction practice:

  1. Embrace Questions: Create space for wrestling, doubt, and holy uncertainty.
  2. Mine the Depths: Invite multiple layers of meaning (pshat, remez, drash, sod).
  3. Honor Study as Sacred: Learning itself is spiritual practice.
  4. Connect Inner and Outer: Personal transformation serves communal healing.
  5. Value Partnership: Two are better than one (chevruta model).
  6. Seek Justice: Spirituality leads to tikkun olam, repairing the world.
  7. Tell Stories: Return to the stories that shape us. Find ourselves in them.
  8. Celebrate Poetry: Let prayer sing.

Try It: Practices for Companions

Midrashic Listening When a seeker shares a story, ask: "What's the pshat (what happened)? What's the remez (what does it point to)? What's the drash (what does it mean)? What's the sod (what mystery does it hold)?"

The Four Questions Like the Passover Seder, invite your seeker to bring questions to each session. Practice holding questions without answering them.

Tikkun Olam Check-In Explore: "How does your inner work connect to healing in the world? Where are you being called to gather the holy sparks?"

Study Partnership Find a chevruta partner for your own growth. Explore sacred texts together, Torah, psalms, poetry, the stones and rivers and trees, or your own lived experience.

Story Retelling Invite your seeker to retell a story from their life from different angles. What myth or story mirrors your experience?

A Note

This chapter offers a brief introduction to Jewish spiritual guidance traditions, focusing on elements that support spiritual companions in two ways: (1) developing minimal cultural competency when working with Jewish seekers, and (2) exploring gifts from Jewish wisdom that enrich sacred companionship across traditions.

Judaism is an ancient, complex, and living tradition with extraordinary diversity, from Orthodox to Reform, from Ashkenazi to Sephardic to Mizrahi, from mystical to rationalist. This chapter cherry-picks a few themes relevant to spiritual direction work; it cannot, and does not attempt to, represent the fullness of Jewish thought, practice, or spiritual life.

If you are not already familiar with the rich tradition of scholarship, debate, storytelling, and commitment to justice in Judaism, we encourage you to read widely and, more importantly, to build genuine cross-cultural friendships and relationships. Books can introduce; relationships transform.

For deeper exploration, we recommend the writings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and following contemporary voices like Rabbi Abby Stein, among many others.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy.

Rev. Amy

See Also These Posts

  • Sacred Storytelling, Healing, and Liberation 
  • Listening for Story
  • Myth and the Power of Story 
  • Spiritual Autobiography
  • Via Transformativa (as a part of the Apophatic/Cataphatic topic)

For Further Exploration

Books:

  • Estelle Frankel, Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Practices for Healing the Soul
  • Marc Gellman, Does God Have a Big Toe? Stories About Stories in the Bible
  • Martin Buber, I and Thou
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath and God in Search of Man
  • Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference and other works
  • Yitzhak Buxbaum, Jewish Spiritual Practices
  • Howard Addison, Show Me Your Way: The Complete Guide to Exploring Interfaith Spiritual Direction
  • Elliot N. Dorff, Tikkun Olam: Judaism, Ethical Practice, and Repairing the World
  • Rabbi Dayle Friedman, Jewish Wisdom for Growing Older: Finding Your Grit and Grace Beyond Midlife
Minimal Cultural Competency:
Organizations and Resources:

Traditional Texts:

  • Torah (Five Books of Moses)
  • Psalms (Tehillim)
  • Prophets (Nevi'im) - especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah
  • Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers)
  • Midrash Rabbah (selected midrashim)
  • Stories of the Hasidic masters

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

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Homily: What and Who Do We Belong To?

What and Who Do We Belong To?

July 5, 2026 | Prepared for the Spiritual Feast

[Grounding Meditation: https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2026/07/grounding-meditation-body-remembers.html]

I grew up putting my hand over my heart every morning before school started. I did it before I had any idea what the words meant, before I knew what a republic was, or what indivisible meant, or why we were pledging to a piece of cloth. The gesture came first. My hand on my chest. My body committed before my mind caught up.

I've been thinking about that lately. About how allegiance works. About what it means to belong, and to what, and to whom, and whether those things are chosen or inherited or simply assumed.

The word allegiance comes from the Old French liege, the sworn bond between a lord and a vassal. Feudal. Hierarchical. Not chosen so much as assigned by birth and enforced by power. You belonged to your lord the way a field belongs to its owner. The pledge was less a spiritual act than a legal one, a claim made on your body and your labor.

We have dressed it up considerably since then. But what is underneath still hurts. In 1982, I read the book "The Ugly American," and then my family spent a couple of weeks traveling in Europe, where we sometimes claimed we were Canadian because we were ashamed to admit we were American. I noticed that complicated feeling again in recent months here in Portugal, where I now also belong. My passport says what it says, and... there's more.

But here is what I notice: the hand still goes to the heart. Even when the words are compelled, the gesture reaches toward something that feels like it should be sacred. Like the body knows that belonging is serious business. Like we are always, underneath the patriotism and the performance, reaching for something real, some actual web of obligation and love that holds us.

So today I want to ask what we are actually pledging when we do that.

Vern Barnet, a UU minister and interfaith teacher, wrote a different pledge. Not to a flag, not to a nation, but to the earth and all life — the fields and streams, the mountains and seas, the forests and deserts. One world, one creation, one home, indivisible. Endangered, he says, by greedy consumption. Degraded by faithlessness.

Faithlessness.

Not ignorance. Not carelessness. Faithlessness. As if the ecological crisis is, at its root, a failure of fidelity. A breaking of covenant with the living world that holds us. We were claimed by this earth, by soil and water and the long, patient work of evolution, and we have not held up our end.

That's a theological claim, not just an environmental one. It says: you belong to something. You always did. The question is whether you have been faithful to it.

And then there is Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist, lawyer, daughter of California farmers, who's declaration of Revolutionary Love is not a pledge to a nation or a landscape, but to people. She vows to treat them as siblings. To fight for a world where all can flourish. She answers Mr. Roger's question "Who is my neighbor?" with "you all are, especially the oppressed and downtrodden and overlooked."

She vows to love even opponents, not to agree with them, not to excuse harm, but to refuse to let hatred reshape the one who resists it.

And she vows to love herself. To protect her capacity for joy. To honor her ancestors whose bodies, breath, and blood call her to courage.

We choose to perceive this darkness not as the darkness of the tomb, but of the womb.

Kaur is not saying it will all be fine. She is saying: I am bound to this. I have made a covenant. I will push.

Barnet and Kaur are doing the same thing, on different scales. They are naming what they belong to, past the nation, past the performance, past the coerced pledge, and they are making it explicit. Saying it out loud. Putting a hand on the heart and meaning it.

That act, the naming, the vowing, the this is mine and I am its, is what faith looks like in practice. Not belief in an outcome. Not confidence that it will work. Commitment in the face of not knowing. Allegiance as a spiritual practice.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist and writer, describes a grammar of animacy, the idea that the land is not an it but a thou. That belonging to a place means being in relationship with it, accountable to it, changed by it. You don't own the land. You are in covenant with it. That is a different kind of pledge entirely.

And if that's true of land, it's true of people too. The ones you belong to are the ones you are accountable to. The ones who can call you on your faithlessness. The ones whose flourishing is bound up with yours.

Today is July 5th. Yesterday the USA celebrated itself, its founding, its flag, its story. And there are things worth celebrating in that story, and things that story has buried, and most of us know both of those things are true at once.

But today, one day later, I want to ask the harder question. Not are you proud to be an American, but what are you actually pledged to? When you put your hand on your heart, right now, if you like, just as a gesture, just to feel where it lands:

What rises up?

Is it a flag? A nation? A particular vision of freedom that includes some people and not others?

Or is it the earth: the ground beneath you, the water you drink, the air that moves through you?

Or is it faces: specific people, communities, the ones whose names Kaur speaks aloud, the ones most likely to be abandoned by the pledges we make to abstractions?

Or is it something older and harder to name:  belonging that runs back through your ancestors and forward through those who you love, a thread of obligation that was never about borders at all?

The hand on the heart is an old gesture. Older than any nation. It says: I am here. This matters. I am not neutral.

May you know what you are pledged to.

May your allegiance be worthy of the lives it touches.

May faithfulness, not hope, but faithfulness to what matters, be the ground you thrive on.

May you belong to something real.

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Grounding Meditation: Body Remembers Belonging

Grounding Meditation: Belonging

Prepared for the July 5, 2026 Spiritual Feast | What and Who Do We Belong To?

Approximately 4-5 minutes.

Let's begin by fully arriving. Take a moment to settle into whatever supports you right now: your chair, the floor, the particular quality of light in your space.

Everything offered here is an invitation. Engage in whatever way feels right for you today.

When you're ready, bring one or both hands to rest on your belly. Near your navel, or wherever feels natural.

No need to press. Let your hands rest there.

Notice what you feel. Warmth, perhaps. The rise and fall of breath. The simple fact of your own aliveness.

I invite you to let yourself remember, if anything comes: a time you held your own belly. In laughter. In hunger. In grief. In anticipation of something you couldn't yet name.

Your hands have been here before. Your body remembers.

[Pause]

When you're ready, let your hands travel up to rest over your heart. One hand, or both, however feels right.

Feel the warmth there. The weight of your own hand. If you can sense your heartbeat, let yourself notice it, steady and patient beneath your palm.

And let yourself remember: other times this hand, or another hand, or your own intention has moved to this place. In a moment of love. Of loss. Of something that mattered enough to mark.

This gesture is old. Your body has made it before, and will make it again. Your body remembers

[Pause]

When you're ready, bring your fingers to rest on your upper lip, or throat. Lightly. No pressure.

Notice the movement of breath here. The subtle rise and fall. The place where what is inside becomes what goes out into the world, where breath becomes speech, becomes song, becomes the words we use to say what we mean and who we are and what we are pledged to.

And let yourself remember, if anything surfaces: a time you were about to speak something true and felt it here first. A time you swallowed something. A time a voice came out that surprised you with what it knew.

[Pause]

For a moment, hold awareness of all three places at once. B]elly. Heart. Throat.

The places where we know things before we have words for them. The places where commitment lives in the body. The places where belonging is not an idea but a felt sense, a warmth, a weight, a breath.

If other parts of your body are asking for your attention, allow yourselfe to attend to them now. Your whole body remembers.

You carry your allegiances here. You carry your faithfulness to what matters, here. In these places. Whether you have named them or not.

[Pause]

When you're ready, let your hands rest wherever feels comfortable, and begin to return to this space. To the sound of my voice. To the people gathered here with you.

Take a breath. And another.

We are here. Together. With all of what we carry.

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Sunday, May 03, 2026

Drive out Hope, Wecome the May Queen

Driving Out the Hag

A Beltane Homily prepared for the Spiritual Feast May 3, 2026


There is a Scottish custom at Beltane. When Rowan described it to me I felt the good kind of chills. 

In the ritual, before the May Queen arrives, before the maypole dancing begins — first, you drive out the hag of winter. The Cailleach. The one who has held the cold in place. You drive her out with noise and fire and sheer communal insistence. Not gently. Not apologetically. You make it clear: your season is over. Something else is trying to get through this door.

I love this ritual because it is honest about something we often skip in our spiritual lives. It names that arrival and departure are not the same moment. Something has to leave before something can enter. The threshold is real. And sometimes, the work of the threshold is not children and laughter.

Sometimes the work is driving something out.

I spent my childhood with people who changed reality. Some might say my mom was a really good author of fiction, writing books for publication, but she also rewrote our experiences. I learned to hoard truth, defend it, and constantly question others' statements. I have spent my life undoing that habit and while the work is never done. I now can relax and allow people to be wrong or right. to have their persepctive and disagree with me, without my safety feeling threatened. I can trust that it will be OK. eventually. I had to exhale that hypervigilant, anxious habit in order to inhale love and trust and freedom to be fully myself.

Today I want to suggest that one of the things we might drive out this Beltane — or at least examine carefully at the threshold — is a word.

The word is hope.

Now — before you panic, or before you relax too quickly — let me be precise.

I am not saying hope is worthless. I am saying hope has been weaponized. And I am saying that for some of us, the word itself has become a kind of hag — something that sits in the doorway and prevents us from doing the actual work of spring.

Miguel de la Torre, in Embracing Hopelessness, puts it starkly. Hope, he argues, can function as a Ponzi scheme — a way of trusting the future to resolve what we refuse to address in the present. We hope. We wait. We trust that it will work out. And in the meantime, the structures that are grinding people up keep grinding.

Frank Wilderson’s Afropessimism makes a related argument: that hope, for those whose bodies the system was designed to consume, is not a spiritual resource. It is a demand made by those with more cushion — just hold on, just keep hoping, the arc is long. And researchers have actually confirmed this. A 2019 study found that for people in disadvantaged social positions, hope — specifically the harmony-focused kind, the it’ll work out kind — actually suppressed motivation for collective action. Hope, in those conditions, made people less likely to fight.

The hag has many faces. One of them looks like optimism. One of them looks like trust. One of them looks like hope.

But I want to slow down and stay honest. Because this is a room of many people, and we do not all have the same relationship to this word.

The K-pop demonhunter Movie has a character — Jinu — who announces plainly that he is hopeless. And the main character says to him: that’s the thing about hope. Nobody gets to tell you if you feel it or not.

Nobody gets to tell you if you feel it or not.

The main character in that movie, Rumi, also is experiencing her own kind of hopelessness because she's holding onto a story that does no serve her. The song Golden is her moment of releasing, breathing out that story and then she breathes in friendship, commitment, faith in her purpose, and this amazing song comes out. 

Some of us need the word hope. It is a lifeline. It is what gets us up. It is cellular and real and we are not performing it. That is true, and it is not naive, and I will not drive it out of you.

Some of us need to redefine the word before we can claim it — need to strip it of its pastel coating and find something fiercer underneath. Need to know that hope is allowed to be angry, uncertain, unresolved, a sewer rat.

And some of us need a different word altogether. Not because we have given up, but because the old container doesn’t hold what we carry.

There is even a name now, from researchers in Turkey, for the state between hope and hopelessness: hope fatigue. Not despair. Not optimism. The exhausted middle, where you still believe something good might happen, but you are tired of waiting for it to show up on its own. You are not hopeless. You are tired of hoping. And you need to know that is a real place, with a real name, and it is not a failure.

Different places. All of them legitimate. None of them requiring your performance.

For me, there came a day, I think it was shortly after November, when I'd say "I Hope... blah blah blah." and I realized I didn't believe it. It had no meaning for me. I was bereft, and so many sentences didn't make sense any more. I'd lost it. But wasn't sure what came next.

So what comes through the door, once we’ve been honest about all of this?

Cornel West — and I’m paraphrasing from memory, so stay with the spirit of it — drew a distinction between optimism and hope that I have never forgotten. Optimism, he said, looks at a bad situation and says: everything will be fine. Hope looks at the same situation and says: this is bad — and then goes about working to change it.

That second thing? That’s not passive. That is not a feeling you sit with until it grows. That is a practice. A commitment. A refusal.

Rebecca Solnit said it differently, just recently: if the word hope doesn’t work for you, try ‘never fucking surrender.’ And then she clarified what she means at the heart of it: we make the future in the present, if we show up.

The future is unwritten. This is not comfort. This is responsibility. Optimism says the future will be good. Pessimism says the future will be bad. Hope — real hope, or whatever you call it when it lives in your bones — says: the future is not yet written, and therefore I will show up to write it, with no guarantee that it works.

Viktor Orbán’s party just lost in Hungary. A single local election. A small crack. The kind of thing that could be nothing, or could be the first green shoot that comes after a long winter. We don’t know yet. And we act anyway.

We remain faithful, Charlie Murphy sings, to the work that must be done.

Not faithful because we know it will work. Faithful because the work is ours. Faithful because the alternative is to let the hag stay.

And this is where I want to hand you a phrase that I think does something important.

Trust and believe.

In the passive sense, trust is something you extend to the future and then wait. You hope. You trust. You see what happens. That version of trust is the hag.

But trust and believe, the way it lives in Black vernacular, the way it lives in our song today — that is not passive. That is: I am going to make this happen. Watch me. Trust and believe. It is not a surrender to outcomes. It is a fierce declaration of intention.

This is the May Queen arriving. Not as a feeling. Not as a guarantee. But as a commitment, a fire you light with your own hands, a dance you do on cold ground because you refuse to let winter be permanent.

Friends, the hag is real. The winter has been long. And some of what has kept us waiting — some of what has told us to be patient, to trust the arc, to keep hoping — some of that is worth driving out.

Not because we have given up. But because something truer is trying to get through the door.

Not optimism. But faithfulness.

Not passive trust. But trust and believe.

Not the promise of spring. But the fire we light to call it.

May you know which relationship to hope is yours, and be free to claim it without apology.

May you drive out what has overstayed its welcome — gently or with noise, whatever the season requires.

May you find the word, or the wordless thing, that actually gets you out of bed and back to the work.

And may you remain faithful — to the work that must be done, to the people you love, to the future that is not yet written but is waiting for you.

Welcome, May. We have made room.


This Spiritual Feast series is ©2026 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 ©2026 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.com

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Grounding Meditation: Choosing to Make Room

Grounding Meditation: The One You Have to Choose

prepared for Spiritual Feast for May 3

[For the reader: slow and warm throughout. Pause generously between paragraphs. This is approximately 5-6 minutes.]


[Arriving]

Everything offered here is an invitation. You are the sacred steward of your own experience. Engage in whatever way feels honest and available to you right now.

Begin by arriving. Not by relaxing, not by letting go of anything yet. Just arriving. Right here, in whatever this moment actually contains for you.

Notice what supports you. The chair beneath you, the floor under your feet, the particular quality of light or darkness in your space. You don’t have to do anything with that awareness. Just notice that you are held.


[Finding your way in]

In a moment, I’m going to invite you to breathe out.

Not yet. But I want you to know that this is where we’re going. Because the exhale is the breath you have to choose. The inhale comes on its own, once you make room. But the release? That one is yours to make.

If connecting with breath is difficult or uncomfortable for you today, you might instead find this in another way. The release of tension in your shoulders. The unclenching of your jaw or your hands. The deliberate softening of whatever in your body has been braced.

We are all looking for the same thing: the thing we have to choose to let go of, so that something can follow.


[The exhale]

When you’re ready, breathe out.

All the way. Further than feels comfortable. Let the body empty itself of what it has already used up.

The carbon dioxide leaving your body right now is not failure. It is not waste. It did its work. It carried what the body needed to release. And now it has to go, so something else can come.

You don’t have to force the inhale. It will follow. That is the agreement the body has always kept with you.

Breathe out again. All the way. As completely as you can.

Notice that the body knows how to do this. It has been doing this, faithfully, without your permission, your optimism, or your belief that it would work. It just kept showing up. Exhale after exhale after exhale.


[Making room]

Stay with this for a moment. The space between the exhale and the inhale.

This is not emptiness. This is the threshold. This is the door held open.

You drove something out. And now there is room.

Whatever arrives in the inhale, let it arrive. You don’t have to name it. You don’t have to trust it yet. You just had to make room, and you did, and that was the act of faith. The rest followed.

Breathe out once more. Choose it. All the way.

And receive what comes.


[Return]

When you’re ready, let your breath return to its own rhythm. You don’t have to maintain anything. The body will keep the agreement it has always kept.

Bring your awareness back to the room. To the sounds around you. To the weight of your body in this moment. To the presence of others gathered here, each of them having just done the same faithful, active, ordinary thing.

Wiggle your fingers. Shift your weight. Take in a sound or a color or a sensation that reminds you that you are here.

You released something  and we’re willing to make space. Something necessary and nourishing followed. That is Beltane. That is the work.

Welcome.


This Spiritual Feast series is ©2026 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 ©2026 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.com

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Saturday, May 02, 2026

What Kind of Seeker Am I? Exploring Spiritual Typing

What Kind of Seeker Am I? Exploring Spiritual Typing

Just as we differ in learning styles, sensory preferences, or personality traits, we also differ in how we connect with the Sacred. Some of us are drawn to silence, others to service. Some find the Sacred in books and study, others in drumming, caregiving, or deep conversation. These differences aren’t flaws—they’re invitations.

Spiritual typing systems should not limit us. Instead, they can offer language to name how we flourish—and where we might stretch. From ancient paths like the yogic traditions and Enneagram to modern tools like the MBTI, seekers across cultures have recognized that the soul has many ways of journeying toward wholeness. This post offers a broad look at spiritual “maps,” helping you notice your inclinations and recognize others’ paths with compassion.

You’re invited to engage reflectively—and playfully.

Martha or Mary? Active or Contemplative?

The story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38–42) offers one of the oldest spiritual “typing” moments in the Christian West. Martha tends to the practical; Mary listens at the feet of the teacher. Many of us hold both—but one may come more naturally. Which feels more like home to you?

Four Classical Catholic Types

Catholic writers have often described four main spiritual orientations:

  • Ignatian – Action-based, service-oriented, practical, drawn to discernment.
  • Augustinian – Heart-centered, relational, emotionally attuned.
  • Thomistic – Rational, intellectual, engaged with truth-seeking and theology.
  • Franciscan – Experiential, nature-loving, justice-focused.

Each offers a way of being faithful. None is superior. Which resonates most deeply with your lived spirituality?

(See also the Spirituality Wheel by Corinne Ware for a widely-used adaptation of these types.)

The Four Yogic Paths: An Ancient Typology

Long before MBTI or even the Enneagram, the yogic tradition recognized multiple paths:

  • Bhakti Yoga – Devotion, especially to a deity or the Divine in form.
  • Raja Yoga – Meditation, breathwork, and posture—inner discipline.
  • Karma Yoga – Service and ethical action.
  • Jnana Yoga – Study, contemplation, and inquiry.

These are not exclusive but complementary. You may walk one more easily, but all are part of the human spiritual capacity.

Kripalu offers a helpful introduction here: https://kripalu.org/resources/bhakti-yoga-path-devotion

MBTI and Spiritual Style

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) isn’t a spiritual tool per se, but many find it helpful for noticing how personality influences spiritual engagement:

  • Introverts may gravitate toward solitude, journaling, or contemplative prayer.
  • Extroverts might be energized by group ritual, song, or shared study.
  • Thinkers often prefer structure, philosophy, and exegesis.
  • Feelers may be drawn to spiritual care, storytelling, or embodied practice.

Explore an MBTI-style test here (note: these are informal, not diagnostic): https://www.bustle.com/p/11-personality-tests-similar-to-myers-briggs-perfect-for-people-who-are-obsessed-with-mbti-2949167

Enneagram

The ancient spiritual system of the Enneagram has potential for spiritual companions. I cover more about it in a separate blog post.

Other Spiritual Typing Systems
  • Keirsey Temperaments: Guardian, Idealist, Rational, Artisan https://keirsey.com/temperament-overview/
  • SpiritMap: Unity Church’s online tool for identifying spiritual style
    http://www.spiritmap.org/
  • Sandra Krebs Hirsh & Jane Kise’s Soul Types – A MBTI-based approach to spiritual style
    https://bigpicturequestions.com/what-is-your-spiritual-type/
  • Three Dimensions of Ecology: Soil, Soul and Society
    by SATISH KUMAR (excerpt)
    "..., an ancient Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, contains a trinity which in my view is holistic, and inclusive of ecology, spirituality and humanity. That trinity in Sanskrit is yagna, tapas and dana. Yagna relates to human/nature relationships, tapas relates to human/divine relationships and dana relates to human/human relationships. I have translated this trinity into English as Soil, Soul and Society." (Essay in "Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth" Ed. by Llewellyn Vaught-Lee
  • Eclectic Spiritual Classifications: From Islamic reflections, many traditions frame spirituality through different lenses—service, surrender, wisdom, devotion, justice. https://al-islam.org/invitation-islam-survival-guide-thomas-mcelwain/identifying-types-spirituality-and-types-approach 

Try It

Here are some invitations to explore your spiritual type through journaling, art, movement, or conversation:

  • How do I tend to meet the Sacred—through silence, song, service, reflection, community, or study?
  • What nourishes me: solitude or shared ritual? Insight or imagination?
  • Which of the yogic or Catholic types calls to me today?
  • If I place myself in the story of Martha and Mary, where do I feel most alive?

Bonus: Ask a friend or spiritual companion how they connect to the Sacred. What do you learn from the differences between you?

Want a deeper exploration? Try my Spiritual Typing Self-Assessment.

Whoever you are, however you seek or explore, you are whole, holy, and worthy.

Rev. Amy

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Saturday, April 18, 2026

Grounding Meditation: Into the Living Earth

 Grounding Meditation: Into the Living Earth

Prepared for the Spiritual Feast April 19, 2026

For the reader: Speak slowly, with warmth and weight. Let your voice feel like soil — dense, present, reliable. Pause generously between paragraphs. Approximately 5-6 minutes.

[Arriving]

Everything offered here is an invitation. Take what nourishes you. Leave what doesn't. You are the sacred steward of your own experience.

Let us begin by arriving. Right here, in this body, in this moment, on this day.

Notice the contact between your body and whatever holds you right now. Your chair. The floor beneath your feet. Whatever surface receives your weight. Let it do its work. You don't have to hold yourself up.

If connecting with your body feels difficult today, you might simply notice the quality of light in your space. The sounds near or far. The simple fact of being here.

[The breath as root]

Begin to bring awareness to your breath. Not controlling it. Just witnessing it. The natural rise and fall.

With each exhale, allow yourself to soften a little. Let the breath move down through your belly, your hips, your legs.

Imagine, if this feels right, that each exhale is sending something downward. Through the soles of your feet. Through the floor. Through whatever foundation holds the building you are in. Down through layers of sediment and stone and dark, cool earth.

You are not floating. You are rooted.

[What is beneath you]

Take a moment to sense the earth that exists beneath you, even if you are many floors above it. The earth is still there. It has always been there.

This earth holds the dead. It holds seeds that are not yet awake. It holds the slow, patient work of root and fungus and time. It is not empty. It is full of what cannot be seen.

Let yourself be in relationship with that fullness. Your body is made of it. Your ancestors are part of it. Something below the surface is already in conversation with you, whether or not you can feel it.

Let yourself be held, right now, by something older than your worries. Something that has been holding living things for longer than memory.

[The network beneath]

In a forest, trees do not survive in isolation. Beneath the visible canopy, roots are touching. Nutrients are passing. Signals travel through fungal networks. The forest is feeding itself. Warning itself. Tending itself. All below the surface. All invisible to those who only look up.

Let yourself imagine that you are part of a network like this. That somewhere beneath the surface of ordinary life, you are connected to others in this community. That what has nourished you has passed through the roots of many others. That your thriving contributes something, even when you cannot see what.

You are not solitary. You are part of something larger than you can fully perceive.

Breathe into that sense of belonging.

[Returning]

When you are ready, begin to come gently back. Feel the weight of your body again. Your breath. The surface that holds you.

You might wiggle your fingers. Shift slightly. Take in a sound, or the light around you.

Bring one hand to rest somewhere on your body that feels natural. Your belly, your heart, your knee. Feel your own warmth.

You are here. You are rooted. You are part of the living, turning, nourishing earth.

And we are here together.

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