Chapter 1. Spiritual starter kit
Spiritual seeker, you’re here because you’ve become really curious and/or warming up to the idea of the “s” word!: spirituality. Your spirituality, your spiritual practice, your connection to Spirit or Source, or God, or Goddess, or the Collective, or any other wondrous word for “that thing”. And you’ve looked at some things here and there about what other groups practice and believe. AAAAAND some of those things you’re like fuck yes and other parts… respectfully, erhm no. I hear you, me too!
Here are the big five things I learned and used in my first years of intentionally diving head first into my spiritual journey that helped shaped my ever cycling spiritual practices. They changed my life, and yes, some stayed, some were fleeting- doing what they came to do to help me along my way and then it was time to let them go on.
I say yes, treat spiritual exploration as the best buffet in the world and pick and choose what calls to you, what looks delicious. Just like a buffet plate, you’ll eat some of it and leave the rest, you’ll have more than one plate because you’re supposed to help yourself to as much as you can handle! So go for it, go ovaries (or balls) to the wall and enjoy yourself with your spiritual exploration.
You can NEVER go wrong learning, or remembering, something about yourself.
Bon appétit and Blessed journey, love~
1. Know thyself
You’ll need to know your birthdate and location and time of birth for accuracy. Go ask your birth information keeper, dig up your baby book or birth certificate, and I hope you eat up everything you discover and “oh shit… that IS me” like your favorite comfort food.
Human Design
Here’s the website I like sharing for your HuDe profile
What to focus on first: There is definitely a lot of information thrown at you, especially with that overwhelming and intimidating Human Design Chart and its numbers and black and red colors running around on its own internal highways.
Let’s keep it simple since this is a spiritual starter kit, aka spirituality 101, and focus on these 3 things:
Your energy type: there are 5 types, you are one of them. We are all energy beings and we take in and give out energy differently. Human Design helps you know how you receive and give energy.
Your inner authority: there are 7 types, you have one of them. This is how we are made to make decisions. Yes, there is a way you are meant to decide on things. Not everyone is supposed to “listen to their gut”- that’s a sacral authority! Some Human Design have no connection to their gut
Your strategy: there are 5 types, one is the way you are meant to interact with the world. Every website you go to will tell you- if you’re a wait to respond it doesn’t mean you do nothing! You go about living your life and life will invite you to join in whether it’s a verbal invitation from a human being, an IG post, or a feeling of inspiration you get from something you saw or experienced.
Just knowing these 3 aspects about your HuDe is more than a great start to living more aligned with your nature. I shared this with a friend over a delicious lunch and they utilized their HuDe inner authority and strategy … and wound up with the love of their life! You never know.
If you’d like to dive deeper, here’s my absolute favorite HuDe website for all the juicy details of your human design
and a link to the original HuDe book if you’re going for it
aaaaand my favorite HuDe book
Gene Keys
According to creator and founder, Richard Rudd, Gene Keys is the “feminine” response or side to HuDe. It focuses on purpose, the inner workings of our psyche that hinder and help us fulfill our purpose. Here’s the website to receive your GK profile.
What to focus on first: GK is a feminine divine approach and response to HuDe’s masculine, logical, and practical approach (both are wonderful!). It’s a different kind of ???, requires a different kind of finesse, and a more contemplative, slower process. With this distinction, understanding these 3 concepts will help you start gaining the benefits from the wisdom of GK:
Your shadow, gift, and siddhi: aka the Spectrum of Consciousness, it’s a general “map” of the obstacles you are meant to face, work with and through, in order to achieve your siddhi, or Contemplation, Concentration, Commitment: Rudd explains in his book what it takes to work through your shadow, gift, and siddhi. This truly sets GK apart from HuDe’s action-oriented practice. GK is an inner, spiritual journey rather than an outer one.
Koans: aka phrases, words, small blurbs given to a student monk from their Zen Buddhist teacher to contemplate, concentrate, and commit to in and throughout their everyday life. As in, as a student monk, you meditate on a koan in sleep,
2. Locate thyself:
Locating yourself is about hearing, tapping into, and following your intuition. The obstacle we all face is that intuition is a whispering bitch. She literally does not speak louder than library volume mumbling. That requires us to silence the distractions, get comfortable with initial discomfort, and shift and refocus. Besides the usually advertised or advised practices of meditation or journaling (which I enjoy in short and long stints), using Tarot is a spiritually fun and different way to learn what your intuition is telling you. It’s kind of like that psychological Rorschach ink blot test where people are asked to interpret what they see when looking at the ink splatters. It gives us insight into our inner worlds, aka intuition.
Here’s the original Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck
For my small hands people, I am currently using this mini deck that was gifted to me
Tarot is not only fun and interesting, it’s helpful. The way I saw Tarot in the beginning was as an intuition locator exercise because I was lost in my dense ass fog. I didn’t have clear questions to ask, I didn’t have a direction to want to go towards, I just asked for guidance, blindly holding my hand out for whatever would fall to fall. I was open to receive anything. If you have questions you’re itching to ask, great! If you don’t, I’m with you- I enjoyed spiritual journaling what I learned from each card I pulled about myself and where I was in my life at that moment and my beliefs. I did it for a little over a year and it helped me get familiar with silence, no distraction, listening to my thoughts and feelings and happenings, and me-time.
On top of using Tarot yourself, get a reading from someone you feel trust and comfort with. I’m ngl, spiritual journaling became a meticulously, exhausting workout. I couldn’t sustain it and I stopped. Then an acquaintance orbiting my outer social circle entered my world and skyrocketed my Tarot reading game into a whole new galaxy. No joke. Her name is Aneya. She is available for you too.
Schedule with my go-to
It wasn’t until I met Aneya that direct, specific questions came to me! I learned how to shuffle and pull cards her way. There are so many ways to pull. I wonder if I have a unique pull. (We shall see!) I’ve learned to interpret and understand the cards with her guidance and modeling. Watching her channel has been a speechless, awestruck gift. I learned and gained more traction in the last four months with Aneya than I did alone since I bought my Rider Waite deck in 2018. The right teachers for us will turbo speed us into our next level. I’m grateful she has been mine. It’s been an amazing journey and I pray the same for you- a free … or freed … spirited meandering towards your inner compass.
3. Spiritual is Ritual
By now, you are in possession of more knowledge about yourself! WOOHOO! Let’s take that core basket of goodies and ground it. It’s time to stretch and grow deep those roots. You’ll need to spend a little to receive a lot and that equation means this ritual practice is worth your investment, promise.
Shopping List:
- Candles (collab blog on what candles to burn with Aneya is in the works! Will link when it’s available): I’ve been using the Ikea tea light candles for years now. They smell great and there’s so many 😍 and they are affordable af.
- Reusable lighter: This is the one I use. I’ve had it for 6 months and I LOVE IT. It’s pretty, sleek, and you do have to clean off the candle wax that naturally gets coated on the prongs, #worthit.
That’s it! Just those two things and you’re ready to start your spiritual ritual. Say a prayer or set your intention when you’re about to light your candle(s).
You can light a candle before you:
- take a shower or bath
- take a nap (I LOVE lighting one before I nap)
- are about to do chores
- are about to do work
- are about to read
- meditate
- pull cards
- are about to do something you dread to bring life-giving energy to it or something you look forward to (that is in the vicinity of the lit candle) to magnify your efforts/its affects.
***Keep in mind:
Ritual is bringing intention into routine.
A ritual can be an hours long process or 30 seconds. All that matters, what spiritual ritual boils down to, is intention. Because to have intention is to also possess self-awareness, express desire, make effort, and clear space for ritual. Intention is the quickest instant that tethers your mind, body, and soul to the present moment. It ties your self-awareness, expressed desire, and effort to the space you cleared, aka: the present. Spiritual practices don’t need to be elaborate- though they can be!
Spiritual practice, ritual, and/or building new habits requires titration: a chemistry process (YES spirituality is science) of mixing together (two “incompatible” substances) in the smallest amounts possible to ensure integration (!!).
So take it super duper uber slow. It’s okay to forget techniques you learn and use them when you remember. Don’t beat yourself up, i.e. shame or guilt yourself, over not “doing things daily” Let it happen naturally. Over time. In its own time. In your own beautiful, wondrous natural time. There is noooo rush. No more survival mode. No more self-shaming and -guilting. When you remember, do. The rest can fuck it.
4. Rest is ALWAYS BEST
All work REQUIRES rest. You have to remember to rest. Ritual, though has a calming effect and brings peace, is still work. You are doing. So make sure you get rest as well.
Uh, if ritual isn’t part of resting, then what constitutes as rest? Silence. Being awake and doing nothing. Not being awake- sleeping! Sitting and not doing a single thing. It is uncomfortable at first, hell yes. Your thoughts get really really loud at first. You’ll most likely get antsy and restless, start fidgeting, wanting to get up, your leg might start shaking and your toes tapping. Go ahead and get up. Let yourself fidget, shake, look around, grab your phone. Stay with the restlessness until it stops. For 30 seconds at a time, 2 minutes at a time and then work your time up from there.
Just make sure to clear space for rest. You don’t have to make rest happen, just make space for it to naturally happen. Give rest an opportunity to enter your body and life. You will be so much more … all those 🥰 feels. Trust.
The Nap Ministry: If you haven’t heard of her, I’d like to introduce you to Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry (TNM) and her drill it into your head to rest and resist grind culture book, “Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto”. It is such a strong and necessary reminder that we as human beings are NOT robots and need our quality rest. Hell even machines need to be shut down and restarted! So please my love, remember to take the time and space to rest.
Just incase Tarot or cards are your thing (like it is often mine!) I love Hersey’s Rest Deck It’s a great, quick way to ground and/or prepare yourself for rest. 🙏
In my Soul Cycle workshop series, I go over “Soul Play” or ground rules for how our soul cycling was going to go, and I’d like to apply that to our solo spiritual journey as well. (I also finding myself echoing them in my every day life, to myself and others. Like AH, gotta walk the talk, hold myself accountable.) The main bits I want to leave you with:
1) Ask and give yourself consent. If you’re not comfortable enough or feel safe enough, don’t do it.
2) Stay open. You’re exploring. Everything is a taste test atm. You don’t have to commit (ever).
3) HAVE FUN. Do what calls to you, do what seems easy and doable. Challenge yourself if it’s fun.
4) because nothing is set in stone. You can change your mind any time. That’s the beauty of being an individual human being. You can choose the opposite and it’s nobody’s business.
Happy spiritual journeying, soul sibling! I look forward to your healing, resting, and thriving.
With Optimism and Joy,
Sandy