Why We Do It

I have spent the last fifteen years on a spiritual quest. Alongside my daily toil to feed, clothe and house myself (and in recent years my child), I have meditated and prayed, aligned myself with the higher forces of God/dess and Universe, sought guidance and wisdom and inner peace, sensitized myself to the energies of the elements and spirits that move through the world, danced and drummed and created ritual, shared and taught and striven to teach by example. Throughout all this time it has never occurred to me to question that value of what I was doing. I knew my practices and beliefs were seen as strange by many, but it didn't matter. The importance of these activities and their utter efficacy in developing my connection to Higher Self and changing the world were self-evident to me. Besides, I felt compelled to be in the world in this way. What choice did I have? To question the purpose of this way of being is like asking, why is it important to make art? All of the intellectualized answers you can give about beauty and humanity and soul serve only to obscure the truth, which is simply that it is.

Yet as I sat in the room with my women's group the other night, working the energy that was an unmistakably tangible thing, all of us participating in this magical work, apparently wholeheartedly and without question, a voice in my head kept insisting: What is all this for? How is this totally self-absorbed activity making any kind of impact that matters? What's the point?

For many years I have taught that self-development and transformation is worthwhile because as one is inextricably part of the world, increased health of the self is tantamount to healing the world. No one can give when empty, everyone's ability to work for healing or justice or peace is strengthened by personal growth. Working on the self only becomes selfish when one loses sight of one's place in the larger web of life and the responsibility that comes with that. But now I am sitting here wondering how the world is helped by my focusing so much time and energy on my own ecstatic experience.

I know that the stress of my personal financial situation is contributing to the black cloud surrounding me, out of which this voice is emerging. And I see that this too is connected to my spiritual path. In the "new age" spiritual world, and among those of Pagan and other indigenous spiritual traditions, there is ongoing conversation and debate about the appropriateness of charging money for spiritual services, teaching, and healing. On one hand, there is the long-standing tradition in indigenous societies that one does not charge for such services. On the other, the "new age" emphasis on prosperity has resulted in the application of modern marketing principles to all sorts of spiritual work, from soul retrieval to tarot reading. One need only open the pages of any new age publication to see opportunities to spend money on being regressed to your past lives, hearing the wisdom of channeled entities and angels, walking on fire, having your aura read, and more.

Where are the lines here? For example, paying doctors and psychiatrists and even acupuncturists is not controversial. If the practice of charging money for that type of healing is a result of society’s disconnecting the physical and psychological from the spiritual, then does the reconnection of the spiritual with everything now mean that it's not ok to charge for anything?  Is the exchange of money always, by definition, corrupt or tainted by greed? What determines whether work is "spiritual" rather than "professional"? Can it ever be both? And what determines the value of, say, a soul retrieval? Is it what the market will bear?

Within traditional communities there is an outcry at these practices of charging money for spirituality and ceremony. In the Pagan community there is also a strong ethic that Pagan clergy should never be paid. This Pagan ethic is a reaction to perceived abuses in the Christian church model, and not the influence of native tradition. Yet, although the underlying ethic is the same in Native and Pagan tradition, the effect on those who serve the community is quite different. Those Pagans who eschew the new age model and decline to set a price for their spiritual services often find themselves in great demand, but uncompensated. The more they give, the more time they devote to developing their skills, the more impoverished they become.

In an unbroken tribal context, there is no question that those providing spiritual services and support to the community will be supported by the community. Those who sanctimoniously decry the charging of money for healing or ceremony neglect to recognize that in the traditional context of the tribe, it was expected that those who used the healer's services would pay in kind. While the medicine person might not explicitly ask payment for a healing, divination, or ceremony, members of the tribe understood that an exchange was required, and made sure that the fruits of the harvest or the hunt were provided to the shaman in exchange for her/his services. In the modern world of fragmented communities and isolated individuals, those shared expectations are nonexistent. I could fault white people for not knowing what is appropriate, but that would not really be fair. How could they? Most of us grew up in a world where the shared expectation was that things cost a certain amount of money. If some of us have progressed to the point where we realize the inherent dysfunction of that model (it supports and encourages continuing breakdown of community in favor of individual consumer units), we still face the challenge of creating a new model. And if we look to the living models of Native culture for inspiration, we are labeled "wannabes."

Many people are seeking to access ancient wisdom, but one cannot simply transfer that information into a modern context and expect all the nuances of meaning to remain intact. The tribal community which provided for the needs of the medicine people and elders, and in turn received the benefit of those elders' spiritual wisdom and knowledge, does not exist for most white people today. In today's world, one needs money to exchange for food at the grocery store, until we create a fundamental change in the world paradigm.

Is the answer to  recognize that money is the new form of exchange, and just charge for everything? I don't think so. My answer is rooted in my own discomfort at determining a monetary value for the spiritual services I seek to offer to the community. This discomfort does not come from a fear of prosperity or a lack of self-esteem. It is a deep, intuitive feeling that the spiritual gifts I have to offer should be just that: gifts. I think the path to the answer lies in changing the social organization of our communities to bring back more tightly woven tribal groups and more barter and exchange of goods in kind. I would like to be able to give my gifts feeling confident that if my community finds them useful, I will receive what I need to compensate for my time, energy, skill, and dedication.

Yet this is clearly not how it is now. And as a result, after years of service, teaching, organizing, counseling, healing, and ritual work for the community, I have been forced to resort to the public welfare system in order to secure food and health care for my child. And despite all of the personal effort, honest self-assessment, facing my shadow, risk of disapproval, and walking through pain that has been involved in traveling my spiritual path (and strengthened my ability to give to the community), I am still facing this voice telling me that I have been self-indulgent and should just "get a job".

Despite all this, I come full circle, back to my faith in the power of Spirit. When the anxious brain-chatter stills and the doorway between the worlds opens, I see my place in the Web of Life. From the deep place of inner knowing a small voice counsels patience and trust. I continue on my Path, and somehow the bills get paid. The Universe provides. I drum, I dance, I give and receive. I give thanks.

c. Morwen Two Feathers, March, 1997

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