The Reading Before the Reading: Tarot, Presence & the Holy Cup

Drinking the Tea: Card Reading for Spiritual Companioning

In spiritual direction and card-based discernment alike, there's a profound shift when we stop treating the tools, Tarot, oracle, images, even the question itself, as the point, and begin to see them as companions. We move from “reading the leaves” to drinking the tea together.

This movement is not about interpretive authority or even structured layouts, though those have their place. This is about presence. The real magic often happens before the reading begins or without a formal reading at all. The act of sitting together, sipping metaphorical (or literal) tea, is as sacred as the moment of revelation. Maybe more.

In my own Tarot practice, and this extends to any form of contemplative card work, I find that a single card, drawn with attention and held in shared reflection, can be as rich and complete as an entire spread. There’s power in asking: Where do you feel this in your body? What word stands out? Which image unsettles or comforts you? A one-card pull becomes an invitation into lived wisdom, expanding insight.

Seekers often arrive hoping for answers. But what unfolds is a mirror of wisdom they already carry, just waiting for permission to be perceived.

The card helps hold the space, but it is the sipping, far more than the scrying, that builds trust and transformation.

It’s less about divining the future than about making room for the present. Less about providing solutions, and more about lighting gentle fires of self-knowing. What we offer is never a prescription: it’s a hot chocolate for the soul.

Sometimes, the reading happens before the reading. Sometimes, the ritual, the breath, the shuffle, the image, the shared pause, is what reveals the wisdom that’s already waiting. Tarot, like all sacred tools, is not the thing itself, it’s a companion The cards become image-bearing, question-holding, moment-making partner on the spiritual journey.

This post explores three movements that I’ve found especially helpful in using Tarot or oracle cards as part of spiritual direction. I've moved away from divination or prediction, and toward soul witnessing and presence. Each movement is optional. But each, if entered with care, has the power to shift the whole shape of the conversation.

Movement 1: Choosing a Card to Represent Yourself

Rather than starting with a card, layout, or interpretation, sometimes the most powerful opening is simply: Who do you feel like right now?

If using Tarot, invite the seeker to reflect on what is most alive within them at the moment. How would they describe themselves in terms of what is present for them right now? Perhaps they arrived at this moment with a burning question. Perhaps they have a gentle curiosity about their true self or path. Or perhaps they are grappling with meaning or connection.

Who Am I in this Moment?

To begin, invite the seeker into discernment about who they are in this moment. This is a contemplative act that can be deeply illuminating, sometimes even more so than the reading itself.

Before laying out a single card, we can pause and ask: who am I, right now? What archetype reflects my current soul-place? Am I beginning something, nurturing something, letting something go? Which element is stirring in me, water’s emotion, fire’s longing, earth’s groundedness, or air’s clarity? These questions guide us to choose a card that represents our current self, as a truth-telling

Steps and Insights

Ask if they’d like to choose a card to represent themselves (rather than drawing one at random). This gives them agency and insight.

1. For example, you might focus on the court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King) of the traditional Tarot deck. In this case, invite reflection on:

• What stage of life they feel they are in

Ask them to choose one that feels like it represents who they are in this moment. If using other cards, adjust the below model to fit those cards.

This isn’t about hierarchy or medieval identities. It’s about spiritual season and elemental resonance.

• Are they feeling tender, just beginning something, exploring (Page)?

• Are they in motion, carrying fire or change, pursuing a mission (Knight)?

• Are they sustaining something, consolidating or expanding an already established domain, working with sovereignty, or deepening a skilled role (King)?

• Are they witnessing, reflecting, integrating, aging or saging (Queen)?

2. Which element resonates for them in the moment: Earth (body/practicality), Air (mind/ideas), Water (emotion/connection), or Fire (spirit/inspiration)?

• Do they feel most connected to the clarity of Air, the warmth of Fire, the depth of Water, or the steadiness of Earth? If working with other types of cards, you might be looking at associations from other cultures or traditions. Earth/Air/Fire/Water is not the only system of suits/elements!

You might offer some descriptions of the suits and roles, but often, simply placing the cards in front of them and asking Which one feels like you? opens a profound moment of self-reflection.

The chosen card becomes a spiritual name tag, a gesture of self-recognition. The chosen card becomes an archetypal mirror, inviting the seeker to honor who they are and what energies are most present for them in the moment.

And from there, the reading, if one happens, has already begun.

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Movement 2: Settling in and Meditative Shuffling

“Would it be all right if I just shuffled for a bit?”
Her voice trembled slightly, but her hands were steady on the cards.
“Yes,” I said, “you don’t have to draw anything unless you want to.”
She breathed. Sat back. Shuffled. It became rhythm as the sounds of cards tapped on the table, the shirring of paper slipping past paper, and then snapping into place, repeated. Ten minutes passed.
She never did draw. But something opened.

Shuffling as Prayer

Sometimes, we never draw a card.

The act of shuffling can be its own practice. I’ve watched seekers sink into the rhythm, not ready to pull and grateful for the silence. The shuffle becomes a centering bell, a way to move from anxious mind into contemplative body.

Settling into the practice can be as rich and revealing as the reading itself. The shuffle is more than just preparation, it is prayer, meditation, and alignment.

When we are on Zoom and I'm the one shuffling the cards, I accompany the shuffling with an invitation for them to enter into meditation. When you are in person and your seeker is open to shuffling you might offer an invitation like:

“Take as long as feels good with the shufflin.? Being with the cards in this way is an important part of the practice."

Encourage the seeker to let their hands move while their heart settles. This is an opportunity for them to feel into the sensations present in their body, the movements in their heart, mind, and soul. You can encourage them to notice shifts and emergences as they dwell with the question or topic.

Steps and Insights

During the time of shuffling you can offer quiet prompts:

• What are you noticing in your body right now?

• Is there a word or image you’re holding as you shuffle?

• What are you hoping the cards might help reflect or hold?

I often say: The reading begins with becoming present to what is.

• Invite them to breathe, feel into their body, and name (silently or aloud) what is true for them in the moment.

• Encourage visualization: what unseen forces are helping bring these cards into alignment with their truth?

• Trust that the process of sinking into presence is already a form of spiritual direction.

In the act of shuffling, breathing, and asking what is true for us right now, something aligns. The cards become almost secondary, their magic is in the way they give form to the insight we’ve already begun to claim.

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Movement 3: Choosing a Layout

Card work becomes spiritual accompaniment through presence, consent, and shared reflection.

Offering different layouts helps the seeker clarify the scope of their question or the sense of their questing. 

Once you've settled into your self-knowing and drawn (or chosen) a card to reflect who you are, the next question is: what do you need help seeing? This is where the layout comes in, a structure to help you frame your curiosity, receive insight, or open to mystery.

Choice and Honing

Layouts are not maps showing us answers, instead they're invitations into deeper presence. Always, we begin with choice, offering the seeker options. Let the structure serve the question, not the other way around.

Steps and Insights

• Check in: Might a single card suffice today? Is the "Yes/No" layout resonating? Or the "Know Thyself" layout? Or perhaps a modified Celtic cross? Or perhaps no layout?

• Offer Options: Sometimes, a seeker is drawn to a complexly structured layout, like the Tree of Life. It offers a series of placements, splendor, strength, understanding, mercy, each one a prompt, a doorway.

• Get Creative: Would they like to pull a card today from one place that resonates, say, “wisdom” or “foundation”?

• Allow for Spaciousness: Perhaps for the Tree of Life layout it would serve to draw one card per session, letting each sphere speak across a season of spiritual direction?

• Let go: Or is today a day for simplicity, a single card, no layout, just presence?

Whichever layout is chosen, remember, it’s not necessary to “do the full spread.” In fact, this part of the discernment is asking the seeker what they need. 

Offering these options becomes part of the companioning itself. It honors agency and asks for consent. Practicing consent in the logistics of the reading, engenders a practice of consent in the soul-level work of being met and seen.

The deeper shift, always, is from seeking answers to seeking presence. And from presence, comes offering.

In this kind of practice, the cards do not offer a verdict or a prescription. They offer a mirror. A gentle reflection. A story waiting to be explored together. As companions, we are not “reading” for someone. As companions we are making room for what their soul already knows, and may be ready to say aloud. As always, the companion is discerning when and how much observation to offer. We avoid interpretation and offer comfort or invitation. We do not force the experience toward a goal of clarity, but offer company. We offer tissues, snacks, and meaning and connection for the soul, something warm and companionable to let the hidden truths come forward and sit at the table with us.

That’s the tea. Literally and metaphorically.

It’s not just about the cards, or the layout, or the leaves at the bottom of the cup. It’s about what happens when we sit together. When we sip and wonder and listen without fixing.

We don’t just read the tea leaves.

We drink the tea.

Try It: A Mini Practice

Next time you sit with someone (or with yourself) and a deck of cards, try this simplified flow. It contains the three movements, a reading, and a reminder:

1. Who Are You Today?
   Choose a card that feels like it reflects who you are right now. No need to explain. Just name it.

2. Settle & Shuffle.
   Spend 3–5 minutes in quiet. Let your hands shuffle. Feel into the sensations in your body, the movements in your heart, mind, and soul. Notice shifts and emergences as you dwell with the question or topic.

3. Choose Your Framework (or Layout)
   Sense what kind of structure might support you: a layout with multiple cards, a single card in response to a question, or simply silence.

4. Lay Down One (or more) card(s)
   If and when it feels right, draw a single card. Sit with it. Let the card lead you to a word, a memory, a gesture, a story. If you chose a layout, pull a second card and after spending time with that card, spend some time letting the cards talk to each other, and interact with the placement they are in. Repeat to fill the frame and then back up to take in the whole picture.

5. Sip, Don’t Rush.
   Treat this like a conversation with a wise friend, not a quiz with a right answer.

Coda: One Card, One Cup

You don’t need a ten-card Celtic Cross to be a deep companion to someone’s unfolding story. You need presence. A good question. Maybe an image. And a mug.

Whether you're drawing from Tarot, oracle decks, art cards, or simply from your own deep listening, this work is about mirroring someone into remembering themselves.

Sometimes you’ll draw a card.

Sometimes you’ll hold space.

Sometimes you’ll say, “Here. Have some tea.”

And every now and then, you’ll watch someone’s soul peek out, blinking, ready to speak.

Beloved, you are whole, holy and worthy,

Rev. Amy

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For Further Exploration

• Greer, Mary K. Tarot for Your Self - A classic in the world of introspective Tarot work. Encourages personal insight and spiritual growth rather than prediction.
https://www.tarotpassages.com/marykgreer.htm

• Arrien, Angeles. The Tarot Handbook - Integrates cross-cultural archetypes, psychology, and spiritual development with the Tarot.
https://www.angelesarrien.com/tarot.html

• Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom - One of the deepest dives into the layers of Tarot meaning and spiritual reflection.
https://rachelpollack.com/tarot-books/ 

• Beltaine, Amy. Ethical Tarot Practice: An Evolving Perspective - Explores how tarot can support spiritual direction without slipping into prediction, projection, or appropriation. Offers practical tips and grounded reflection for ethical engagement.
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-ethics-of-using-tarot-cards.html

• Matthews, Caitlín. Untold Tarot: The Lost Art of Reading Ancient Tarots - Offers insight into historical approaches to tarot as conversation and presence, not just divination. Grounded in Marseille decks and soulful inquiry.
https://caitlin-matthews.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-untold-tarot.html

• Beltaine, Amy. Ethical Spiritual Companioning: A Foundation of Trust and Integrity – A vital exploration of spiritual direction ethics, including consent, boundaries, and integrity. This underpins the compassionate, consent-based approach to card practice shared in Drinking the Tea.
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/03/ethical-spiritual-companioning.html 

• Beltaine, Amy. The Heart of Spiritual Direction – An introductory guide to spiritual companioning, highlighting deep listening, sacred presence, and the relational space that sets the stage for contemplative practices like card work.
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-heart-of-spiritual-direction.html

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.

The Third Chair: Sacred Presence in Spiritual Companionship

In spiritual direction, many companions speak of a “third chair” in the room, the unseen presence of the Sacred. This metaphor reminds us that sessions involve more than two human beings. Whether we name it as Spirit, God, the Divine, Mystery, Source, or Meaning, the “third chair” symbolizes the sacred current we invite into the space.

But what if there are more than three chairs? What if each person’s relationship with the Sacred, or their refusal of that language, deserves a seat of its own?

Students in the Spiritual Direction Certification program, where I teach, have explored this beautifully: some speak of a companion’s divine and an explorer’s divine, already making four chairs. Others remind us that energy may flow not as a seated figure at all, but as a field encompassing both seeker and companion. And animists, atheists, and polytheists offer yet more expansive imagery. The point is not to settle on one image, but to recognize that spiritual companionship is never a conversation of just two.

Three Heart-shaped chairs, by LuxXeon CC3.0

Naming Our Own Theology

One student put it plainly: before guiding others, we benefit from knowing our own theology. Grappling with “what we believe” lowers anxiety, gives us a steady foundation, and clarifies our fit with particular seekers. Our theology does not need to inform theirs, but knowing it helps us listen with integrity and humility.

Whose Sacred Is in the Room?

Sometimes the Sacred presence is experienced as shared, a single third chair for both companion and explorer. Other times, each brings their own relationship with Spirit or Source, making four chairs (or more). A polytheist might picture a gathering of deities; an atheist may see “what is meaningful” taking a seat; an animist may envision trees, stones, and ancestors joining.

An agnostic companion might hold space for 'the unknown mystery'; a Buddhist practitioner may sense interdependence itself as sacred presence; those from Indigenous traditions might acknowledge the land, ancestors, and spirits of place.

The metaphor stretches, but its heart remains: the sacred presence(s) invited into session deserve attention.

Mini Zen Garden, Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV

Beyond the Chair

Not everyone relates to “chairs.” Some sense Spirit more as energy swirling about the room, as warmth, nudges, or sudden insights. A medical intuitive describes “synchronizing” with sacred energy, so the field encompasses all who are present. This echoes Thomas Merton’s reminder: “We discover an older unity … we are already one.”

For some, a physical object helps, a ceramic chair on the altar, a stone or candle beside the desk, a symbol of the divine on a companion’s computer table. For others, silence itself becomes the container where Spirit is noticed.

Promptings and Discernment

Spiritual companions sometimes experience what feels like “channeling” the Sacred: a phrase, question, or insight arises with a quality different from ordinary conversation. The tone may feel spacious, grounded, or infused with love. Other impulses, our opinions, reactivity, need to fix, or even friendly chatter, have a different texture.

Here, the third chair (or its equivalents) can serve as a tuning device. The presence of a candle, stone, or empty chair reminds us to pause and notice: what is the source of this nudge? Does it feel like a sacred prompting, or something else? Learning to sense the difference is part of the art of spiritual companionship.

Crow in Chair by Louise LeGresley CC2.0

Try It

• Place a symbolic “third chair” in your space (a chair, a candle, a stone). Before each session, acknowledge the Sacred presence it represents.

• If you don’t resonate with the chair metaphor, try sensing the energy field around you and your seeker. How might Spirit be present there?

• If physical objects don't work for you, try setting an intention, creating a mental space, or using sound/music to acknowledge sacred presence.

• After a session, reflect: When did you feel you were speaking from Sacred prompting? When were you offering personal opinion, reactivity, or friendly conversation? How could you tell?

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

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For Further Reading

• 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

• Ethical Spiritual Tending: A Foundation of Trust and Integrity – Explores how sacred listening, ethical guidelines, and mutual agreements support trust and autonomy.
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/ethical-spiritual-tending-foundation-of.html

• Decolonizing Spiritual Direction: Honoring Lineage, Resisting Appropriation – Examines how spiritual direction can resist colonial patterns and cultural appropriation, encouraging companions to honor source traditions and uplift marginalized voices.
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/03/decolonizing-spiritual-direction.html

• Three Chairs Spiritual Direction – Introduces the original “third chair” concept.
http://www.threechairsspiritualdirection.com/why-three-chairs.html

• SDI: The Importance of Taking Off Your Hat – A reflection on humility, presence, and the sacred in companionship.
https://www.sdicompanions.org/the-importance-of-taking-off-your-hat-while-offering-spiritual-companionship/

When the World is on Fire: Why Spiritual Care Still Matters

Not everyone has to be a fire fighter to put out a fire. Some of us have to be water carriers.

When authoritarianism rises, when rights are stripped away, when the fabric of society frays—what is the point of tending to small things? What is the point of spiritual care when fascism gains ground?

The answer is simple, but not easy: the work of spiritual care still matters. In fact, it matters more.

Naming the Tensions

In a moment like this, we’re pulled in many directions.

• Panic: Drop everything. Scream. Mobilize.
• Grief: Lie down and cry. Lose faith in what we do.
• Numbness: Pretend it’s not happening. Keep busy. Keep scrolling.
• Determination: Carry on with work and routines as if nothing has changed.

And for those of us whose work centers around care, spirit, healing, and justice, there’s an added tension:

How do I do this work now? Is it selfish to keep tending to my practice, to my livelihood, to my own healing while the world is burning?

Burning dumpster at George Floyd protests in Washington DC, Lafayette Square by Rosa Pineda CC4.0

Yes, Your Work Still Matters

I want to say this clearly: spiritual care is not a luxury. It is not optional. It is not secondary to “real” resistance.

Spiritual care is part of resistance.

The practices we offer—presence, reflection, discernment, connection, grief-holding, joy-tending—these are what keep people human in the face of dehumanization. These are what make the difference between despair and determination, between burnout and resilience.

If you’re a caregiver, a healer, a spiritual companion, your work is part of the resistance. You are offering people a lifeline. You are helping them find their ground when the world is shaking.

Personal Crisis in Public Crisis

And what if your personal life is also unraveling? What if you’re navigating divorce, illness, poverty, grief?

Well, of course that is happening. Life is still “life-ing.”. That’s not a disqualification. That’s part of the truth.

Your heartbreak does not make your care less valuable. It may, in fact, deepen it.

Your questions about what to keep, what to let go, and what to rebuild—those are holy questions.

There’s no shame in regrouping. There’s no shame in starting over. There is no shame in needing care and offering it. We are in this together, and none of us is immune to the ache of these times.

So How Do We Go On?

• Gently. With ourselves. With one another. With the work.
• Imperfectly. Trusting that “enough” is still sacred.
• Creatively. Letting old models go if needed, experimenting with what still resonates.
• With discernment. Listening for what’s real, what’s needed, what’s yours to hold.

Try This

1. Set a timer for ten minutes.
2. Ask yourself: What part of my work still feels alive?
3. Write down whatever comes. Don’t judge.
4. Then ask: What needs to rest? What’s worth tending now?

You’re not alone in this.

The work of care—spiritual, emotional, communal—is never easy, and even less so in times of crisis. But it is still ours to do. Not perfectly. Not endlessly. But with presence, with honesty, and with courage. The world may be on fire, and still, we keep lighting candles. Not to deny the dark, but to remember we are not forsaken. Our work remains. We remain. Let’s keep tending the sacred together.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,

Rev. Amy

St.Teresa of Avila: Duende and Spiritual Tending

Teresa of Avila: Mystic, Rebel, and Spiritual Guide.

I’d like to introduce you to Teresa of Avila. Teresa and I were introduced in 2011, and I fell in love. She was many things, but above all, she was her whole self. She teaches me to celebrate and live fully into all the sacred and diverse parts of myself.

She has become a spiritual mentor despite us living centuries apart! Her ability to integrate mysticism with daily life speaks directly to modern seekers balancing spirituality and action. 

She was born in 1515 in Avila, Spain, land of Flamenco and bull fights. Her world was changing, like our world is changing now. A new world had been discovered, and Spain was full of new ideas, just as our world has expanded with satellites and the internet. 

I sought Teresa out because she was an excellent administrator AND an insightful mystic, proving that you can survive, even thrive, with one foot in the sublime and one in the here and now. This balance, this harmony between the mystical and the practical, is the work of a minister, of a person of faith. We must integrate our love of the world into our day-to-day tasks. 

I can relate… Sometimes I am most comfortable completing tasks and accomplishing goals. Sometimes I am most comfortable being soulfully responsive and connecting. Always, I am aware of the one when I am experiencing the other.

Saint Teresa, inspired by the Holy Spirit, c. 1672, by Josefa de Óbidos; in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Assunção, Cascais, Portugal.

Duende-Passion/Wildness

What thrilled me about Teresa was her Duende. Duende can be translated as Authenticity or as Soul, as in “you've got Soul.” Teresa had Duende. 

Like all young women of her day and class, she was raised, like I was, to be a Lady, and a wife. Teresa could have married anyone she desired. She was renowned for her wit, her humor, and for her shapely legs. However, she heard a call, and she acted. Against her father’s wishes, she seized the day. She literally climbed over the household wall in the middle of the night, to go enter a convent. I could have stayed comfortable in my well paid, stable job as a corporate middle-manager, but I was called by duende. 

I imagine she sometimes felt like I do… About to burst with the amazingness of life. Listening to the compelling music that calls me to action. Like her, I have struggled to be true to myself instead of doing what was laid out for me. 

Over the years I’ve chosen heroes, and goddesses to learn from. I chose Teresa because she developed qualities I am cultivating in myself… Teresa was human. She doubted herself sometimes, she struggled, she failed, and she kept on learning and growing and forging her path. 

On my wall at home I have this quote from Joseph Campbell: “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take.” And a friend added a corollary: “Even though you will stumble and fall, it is still your path.”

Teresa founded over 17 cloisters and almost as many monasteries. Some time shortly after she founded her first Carmelite cloister, a group of young nuns found Teresa at midnight, in the kitchen, voraciously devouring a roasted partridge. “What are you doing?” They cried, scandalized. “I’m eating a partridge,” She answered, “When I fast, I FAST, and when I eat partridge, I EAT partridge.” Then she resumed eating, seizing that moment.

Living life fully and authentically, doing what you are led to do, without apology? That’s who I am when I am in flow with divine love. That is who I am when I am at the bedside of a dying person, and his wife and I are singing. That is who I am when I am standing on a street corner, holding a sign that says “We Celebrate Diversity.” That is who I am when I am fully present and who I aspire to be. That is the advice I hear when I am about to do something scary. Duende: “just be yourself.” 

Duende is also wildness.

Earthy/Discalced 

Teresa’s prayers were graphic, (the sun), physical (the bird cradled in God’s hands), and earthy (The bride who finally receives the bridegroom’s kiss). Of course she was earthy, she loved perfume, played the tambourine, and wore bright orange. (I favor purple.) 

Teresa knew prayer was earthy because her God, too, was earthy. “Lord, you are on the earth and clothed with it.” Teresian prayer involves all of our five senses: Touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. Prayer, she described as ‘a sweet fragrance’. and sin? It’s “a foul-smelling stench”. 

Teresa’s wild, embodied spirituality teaches us that spiritual direction is not just about lofty ideas—it is lived, danced, feasted, and felt in the body. She reminds us that divine presence is found in both fasting and feasting, in silence and song, in suffering and joy.

My thealogy is “Earth-based”. This is what I mean when I say that… I am grounded in the senses. I attend to the sacred earth. 

The reformed movement that St. Teresa co-founded is called the Discalced Carmelites. Discalced or “shoeless” is meant to represent austerity and humility. The choice to go without shoes was also a connection with the earth. Barefoot, or sandal-foot, you feel everything in the ground you stand upon. As God instructed Moses at the burning bush, ‘take off your sandals in this Holy Place.' Going shoeless is an affirmation that every place is holy, every place is sacred.

Ah, now I know why I feel compelled to remove my shoes during ritual, or when at home, or when connecting deeply with someone during spiritual companioning. 

I imagine Teresa would recognize that “mountain posture” in Yoga helps you stop doing and just BE. That the term “being grounded” is meaningful and holy.

Roast Partridge 

Humor, music, and Fun

Many years of living in college towns and attending or working in universities have given me a tendency to want to footnote myself, to be perfectly serious, and to be taken perfectly seriously. Teresa had little patience for too much piousness.

She knew that holiness was not about severity but about authenticity. “God deliver us from sour-faced saints,” she wrote. This is a lesson for spiritual companions, joy is a sign of the Spirit, and laughter is a form of prayer.

When I remember that I am enough, without the footnotes, and don’t have to take myself SO seriously, I can be fully my genuine self, and I connect with the divine and those around me. Ministry with Duende is a lot more fun. AND contagious.

Teresa loved to sing, dance, and play. Her poems were accompanied by instruments, such as castanets.  Singing is my spiritual practice, and laughter is deeply healing. I love being playful and goofy, and I’m so glad that someone I admire so much modeled goofiness. 

The Fool card in the Tarot card deck is full of meaning for me. One interpretation of the fool card is “Trusting one’s elf/Trusting oneself.” The picture on that card is of a child turning handsprings, next to a crocodile-infested river and other perils. The sacred fool is playing with life, seeing the glory, in the midst of disaster and pain. You can laugh while forging your path and bring your inner elf to your work.

And Teresa worked hard! She criss-crossed Spain and Portugal, founding convents. 

Th Ecstasy of St Teresa, photo by Napoleon Vier CC3.0 

Pain

Life was not all work and play for Teresa. She had moments of communion with the divine that were exquisitely painful. So intense they hurt. She describes one of those moments as being pierced by a flaming arrow through the heart. Modern medical experts theorize that she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, an immune disorder that I also suffer from. (and yes, it sometimes feels like there are flaming arrows shot through my joints.) Like Teresa, I need to find harmony between caring for my body and soul, and caring for the world and my work. But her suffering helped her to feel her oneness and compassion with and for other beings. We all have moments, even days or weeks, when our compassion, our awareness, our connection to others, causes us deep pain, grief, and even despair. This pain is the source of social justice work. 

My awareness of others’ suffering breaks my heart. And creates energy. Energy to speak truth and take action; Energy to show up, to listen, to care, to give, and to receive. Just as the Buddha taught: With true compassion, you become aware that all life is suffering, so you must respond by taking real-world action. 

Song and Prayer

Teresa of Avila wrote music as well. Nada Te Turbe translates as “let nothing disturb you”. Wow! That wild woman wrote that sweet and soothing song. She had duende, AND stillness. She was witty and reverent. She was goofy, and she worked hard. She fasted and feasted. She suffered and she celebrated. She was authentically all those parts of herself. 

Her definition of what she called “mental prayer” was used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is what we refer to as contemplative prayer: "Contemplative prayer [oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us."

Teresa’s understanding of prayer as an intimate conversation mirrors how we approach spiritual direction today: not as experts dispensing wisdom, but as companions who hold space for seekers to encounter the Divine within themselves.

Spiritual Direction

Late in life, Teresa wrote the book “Interior Castle.” Interior Castle is considered a cornerstone of Christian mysticism and one of the earliest guides to spiritual direction. She describes the soul’s journey inward, moving through seven “mansions” toward divine union. 

This resonates with modern frameworks of spiritual growth, as we move through stages, or way stations, of spiritual exploration, such as shadow work, psychological integration (e.g., Jungian individuation), and contemplative depth work in spiritual companioning. This model remains influential in spiritual companionship today, offering a vision of progressive deepening in relationship with the sacred.

In spiritual direction, we accompany seekers as they explore these ‘mansions’ within, deepening their connection with the sacred.

For Teresa, discernment was not about making quick decisions but about cultivating deep listening. Her practice of recollection, drawing the mind inward to be present with the Divine, reminds us that spiritual direction is not about offering answers, but about guiding seekers into their own sacred wisdom.

[For more about mysticism and spiritual companioning, see this post: https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-roots-of-spiritual-direction-desert.html]

Teresa as Mentor

Teresa’s legacy is an invitation to bring our whole selves into our spiritual practice, to embrace both contemplation and action, to be fierce and tender, mystical and practical. As we journey alongside seekers in spiritual direction, may we follow her lead: listening deeply, loving boldly, and trusting the divine in all things.

These gifts of example and insight were given to us by mystics like Teresa, and now, they are ours. May we each be able to celebrate and live fully into all the sacred and diverse parts of our whole selves as we find our own spiritual directions. 

Blessed be.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,

Rev. Amy

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Information from SDI on Teresa of Avila: https://youtu.be/1aPyx5daW50

• Video from Mirabai Starr https://youtu.be/1aPyx5daW50 Mirabai has also written a book on St. Teresa.

• Holy Daring: The Earthy Mysticism of St. Teresa, the Wild Woman of Avila

  by Tessa Bielecki and Adam Bucko 

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Nada te turbe 

(Letrilla que llevaba por registro en su breviario) 

(Translation, below)

Nada te turbe; 

nada te espante; 

todo se pasa;

Dios no se muda, la paciencia todo lo alcanza

Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta.

Solo Dios basta.

May nothing disturb you;

May nothing astonish you;

Everything passes;

God does not go away, patience

can attain anything.

Who who has God within, does not lack anything.

God is everything!