Love, Light, and Compliance?
A Critique of the Western Spirituality Movement Amidst ICE and American Politics
If you’re like me your TikTok or Instagram these days is an interesting blend of two worlds. On one end of the spectrum, I am seeing video after video discussing the ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids across the country and how individuals are being deported at alarming across the nation. In addition to these individuals being separated from their family, friends, and communities, what is perhaps more concerning in the long term is precisely where the federal government is planning to detain all these individuals. Especially since many of the deportation centers across the nation are already overcrowded. Moreover, the individuals being targeted by ICE are individuals who have lived here, worked here, and would probably consider this nation to be home – in fact some of these individuals could be considered more “American” than the White patriarchal Government Officials enforcing these discriminatory laws.
Who are the Real “Americans”?
An article from AXIOS, NBC, and a whole host of other media outlets are now reporting that 15 or more Indigenous individuals of the Navajo Nation have reported being harassed by ICE officials. What this reveals is the true intent behind these laws: racial profiling. Because let's be real: if you’re a white-passing individual or are an undocumented immigrant from a European nation, you are not the target demographic of these raids. Who is being targeted? People of color. Specifically, Latino/a individuals who have received the most harmful rhetoric from Trump and his supporters over the past 8 years since he first took office in 2017.
So, what does this have to do with Indigenous peoples and Native Americans? Well, everything if you think about it. Already, these individuals have experienced tremendous amounts of hardships, trauma, discrimination, oppression, and diaspora at the hands of the U.S. Federal Government dating back since, well the Mayflower? Or even before then with the arrival of Italian and Spanish colonizers on their shores in what is now modern-day Mexico and the Caribbean. They have had their cultural and spiritual practices stripped from them or have been forced only to continue them away from their native lands, which, in many Indigenous cultures, their relationship to the earth is seen as sacred and, therefore, essential to their sense of identity and heritage. In addition, given the fact that so many Latino/a individuals have already lost aspects of their culture and heritage through the whitewashing of their practices by the American/British, French, and Spanish rulers who imposed their own cultural values on the land they stole from these individuals, these individuals being retargeted by ICE is just a continuation of the long history of oppression and trauma they have already endured.
Fuck Your Gratitude
As I mentioned earlier, my reels and TikToks show two extremes. So, on one end, while I am being flooded with hearing the stories of millions of people being targeted and oppressed, on the other end of the spectrum, I have a host of self-proclaimed spiritual gurus, astrologers, Tarot readers, and intuitive healers posting videos about how to “manifest all of your wildest dreams” for this upcoming new moon on February 13th in Aquarius. Moreover, these influencers preach about the importance of “gratitude,” living with “light,” and, of course, having only “high vibrations.”
To that, I say as a self-identified intuitive healer…fuck that bullshit.
Being “high vibrational” does not make you spiritual. It makes you compliant with what is happening in the world around you.
These spiritual gurus who preach “love and light” are 80-90% White women who appear to have disposable income, given their ability to travel or buy new outfits for each video they post. Thus, they represent a Western perspective of spirituality, which goes against many of the spiritual principles found in many of the wisdom traditions across the world. Specifically, those that come from more Indigenous or native cultures.
Western spirituality is inherently selfish because, like Western culture (and Western psychology, for that matter), it is self-focused. The goal of Western spirituality is to enhance your connection with source or the divine, and while that is great, it leaves out the part that we are all part of a larger collective. Moreover, this idea that you can manifest anything you want (money, a job, a lover, etc.) is inherently flawed because it violates the laws of reciprocity, which are central to many of the Indigenous healing practices these techniques derive from. If you want the universe to “bless” you, you have to be in relationship with it, not just take from it or ask for more. Many Indigenous and native cultures understood the importance of having a relationship with the earth and the universe, which was why their land was so sacred to them.
Moreover, the rise of eco-feminism in the 1970s, which was inspired directly by many Native American and Celtic spiritual practices, also emphasized this connection to Mother Earth as being central to spirituality. Yet, we forget that in our modern culture because, like many things taken over by White people, it is co-opted and used for their own individual benefit, rather than understanding the role they play in the collective. I, myself, have fallen into this way of thinking because of my own lived experience growing up as a White woman who learned to internalize individualism through my exposure to Western thought and belief systems. Therefore, it wasn’t until I connected to my ancestors an understood my Croatian and Celtic/Irish roots that I could really begin to understand why and how the land and our relationship to it is so important to being able to tune into source and harness my own intuition.
In other words, it was not manifesting or being “high vibrational” that helped me feel more connected to my spiritual practice. It was looking at the uncomfortable truths. It was getting angry, getting mad and feeling the grief of the collective wounding of the female Indigenous healers who came before me. Learning about the women in my family who, because of their intuitive gifts, were marginalized or labeled as “hysterical”. How that title of “hysterical” was used against women during periods like the Witch Craze, which disconnected all women (and yes, White women too) from their feminine wisdom, their culture, and spiritual traditions.
A New Type of Spiritual
In order to bring this all together, as I often tend to do as I am intuitively drawn to the practice of inner and collective alchemy (i.e. depth psychology), what we need within the Western spiritual community is a massive overhaul. We need to throw out this “light/love” bullshit and words like “high vibrational” instead of judging the individuals who call out the hypocrisy in these movements as being “low vibrational,” which shows the inherent patriarchal and Western bias towards individuals who refuse to comply with the system. Moreover, we need to support and defend those in the collective who are being targeted and persecuted. Whether that is through action, writing, using your voice, your Claires, or whatever your spiritual gifts may be, because for you to have received those gifts from the source, you must engage in reciprocity. You cannot have one without the other.
You cannot be spiritually “awake” and ignore the destruction in the world around you.
Spirituality is not just in the ether or the sky, as we have been told by many Jeduo-Christian faith-based traditions. It is in the earth, the feminine, our connection to our communities, our ancestors, and other people, and the collective experience of being human. Which inherently means we will suffer, and we have to feel the suffering of others. It is both of these worlds.
If you are going to use this new moon to manifest, might I suggest before focusing on your own needs, whatever they may be, perhaps consider what the collective needs most from you now? How can you support your fellow sisters and brothers who have been robbed and persecuted for their spiritual traditions and the healers before you who did not live to share their stories with us? How are you being called by your connection to spirit/source/God, whatever you want to call it, to heal the world? Rather than focusing solely on yourself.
XO
Your Dark Fairy Godmother
Resources:
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/native-american-immigration-raids-navajo-nation