50 Ways to Tend your Spirit
The Meaning of Tending Spirit
Tending Spirit, is the fourth Key Channel of Change in the Full & Plenty Joy Life Spiral, if you are going in a linear fashion. It appears after Freeing Expression and before Aligning Dreams. It is across from the Breaking Cycles Key Channel, and as such, has a symbiotic relationship with the lessons learned there. In many ways, it is a necessary resource and balance, what we must keep coming back to if we are to break cycles, and definitely if we are to align our dreams.
We see this reflected in so many aspects of society. From 12 Step programs to Yoga classes to Weekly Horoscope Podcasts and Dance Jams. Tending Spirit is tending to our souls and the spirits we come from who helped us be here. It is about going inward, so we can shine outward. It is about Accessible Joy and Re-membering our Magic.
It is a season of life characterized by putting the puzzle pieces back together like a detective about the truth of the magic you are descended from. For example, my mother was a ballerina and my father was a drummer. My ability to express myself through dance and music is part of re-membering my magic. Learning about my Great Uncle who became a socialist after WWII and rejected his inheritance is a part of re-membering my magic as an Advocate. And further and further and further back, so far back, that Tending Spirit becomes an intuitive practice affirming your own magical rituals and practices and beliefs that unconsciously source from The Ancients.
It is about learning to be in awe of the magic that surrounds us each and every day all around by using the resources gained in Breaking Cycles, Becoming Embodied and Freeing Expression to ultimately allow your unique magic and spirit and JOY to come through as a resource. A Queen of Wands journey, if I may.
It is a sacred liminal space for touching into the unseen and allowing its loving support back. There are messages for us from beyond that want to help us expand into Aligning Dreams. The Question is will we get quiet enough to hear them? Feel them? And brave enough to trust them? Affirm them?
Tending Spirit is where we stop gaslighting our inner children who have always known the way of magic in the world, and begin taking them quite seriously. We no longer skip over or hold "disbelief" in this aspect of our Being. We learn our Spirits are real and need tending to like everything else.
50 Ways to Tend Your Spirit
Start a sit spot practice - Find a tree near / on the land you occupy. Set a timer for 20 minutes. Sit there without meditating, without eating, without doing anything other than being and listening. Do this everyday or as many days as possible.
Light a candle when frazzled, stressed or distracted. Ask it to hold your fears or anything blocking you from settling into the present moment to do what must be done.
Change your clothes after work, especially if you work with clients or in a service based industry.
Wash your hands and forearms with cold water in between client sessions, meetings or other contexts where you are interacting with other people, including your own children.
When walking, stop and smell the flowers.
Take a bath with your crystals - this cleanses them and absorbs their energy into your body
Start a morning pages practice - Write three pages of stream of consciousness in the morning, everyday, or as many days as possible.
Go on a walk and breathe in the natural elements interntionally into your energy / body
Go on a walk and listen to music you can keep pace with. Imagine yourself dancing in your mind.
Go outside and stand or lie down and soak up the suns rays for 5-20 minutes
Attend a grief circle.
When you feel like crying, allow it and make it full bodied and loud.
Take a nap for 5-20 minutes. The goal is not to fall asleep. The intention is to be in stillness and your body. Count your breathes in intervals of 10 if you mind gets distracted.
Attend an open mic.
Take a drive with the windows down blasting music you love.
Write up to 10 wishes at the New Moon
make your mornings as gentle and spciaous as possible.
Catch up with a friend on the phone while walking.
Tend your garden or tend a community garden.
Build an altar. let your intuition lead you.
Take a walk or sit at sunset.
Take a walk or sit at sunrise.
Take a walk or sit late at night with the moon.
Brew an extra cup of coffee for your well ancestors. Place it on an ancestral altar or give it back to the land.
Choose a guardian animal to imagine walking in front of you or flying above you when out in public to promote feelings of safety.
Imagine your favorite tree and its trunk becoming your spine.
Imagine yourself as a Redwood tree - take up space.
Get your astrological birth chart read.
Get that tattoo you’ve been putting off.
Start an authentic movement practice - follow the impulse to move in your body without music. You are not trying to dance. You are allowing your body to move and express itself as it sees fit. Let the movement be revealed to you rather than you trying to dance or control the movement.
Cuddle with an animal.
Cuddle with a human.
Cuddle with a plant.
When filled with difficult emotions, write a poem without an intention of sharing it. Let the words pour out of you.
When filled with difficult emotions, paint a picture without an intention of sharing it. Let the brush strokes lead you.
Tidy up your space.
Deep clean your space.
Choose an ancestor or two to channel. Ask them your questions. Let them respond through your hand and pen while writing. Don’t judge what comes through.
Research your last name. Let it lead you to more knowledge about where you come from.
Research the land you come from.
Research the land you occupy.
Take a flaming hot shower.
Swim in a body of water - float in it and become one with the water.
Stand and focus on the sensations of your feet touching the earth. Shift your weight front to back and side to side. Lift one foot up and roll your ankle. Shift to the other foot and do the same. Keep your awareness on your feet.
Sing.
Book a healing session.
Book a massage.
Call in sick.
Toss a stone or crystal back and forth between your hands.
What ways do you tend your spirit?
