Decolonizing the Mediumship Mind
Mediumship is a sacred journey — a journey of coming to our Soul, returning to our eternal Power, and of unlearning the ways in which we have been taught by society, religion, and family to ignore the quiet (or sometimes loud!) whispers of our heart.
This is a lifelong journey — we commit to deepening our connection to Spirit and the Sacred continually.
I am a student in an interspiritual seminary program, and the first year has us focusing on deep engagement with world religions and spiritual traditions. It is through this process that I have been better introduced to spiritual practioners sharing the profound wisdoms of their communities of Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (Lakota / Diné), Abya Lala (Q’ero) and Yoruba-Land (Ifa-Isese).
Over the past few months, my own spiritual practice has been deeply informed by these teachings and has led me to nurture and foster my connection to the land and to all beings. Through daily practice and dedication, I am radically shifting my worldview and my relationships. Instead of looking out at the forest and seeing objects and things, I am coming to see/feel/know the Presence of every Being, each Spirit, each Divinity. And in so doing, working to develop a loving relationship with All Beings, and allowing these relationships to naturally transform me and my day-to-day actions.
Opening up to new ways of being and knowing reveals the narratives and structures put in place to maintain the supremacy of a specific way of being and knowing. This rigidity and control has been used by white supremacy and colonization to maintain power over certain groups.
We each must walk our own journey of decolonizing — of awakening to and from the ways in which our minds/hearts/bodies have been limited and contained in order to maintain the status quo of white supremacy and colonization.
Right now, I am still at a place of curiosity and question. It’s been easier over the years for me to see the ways in which my ‘daily’ and ‘non-ritualistic’ life has been colonized and to awaken from those. But in what ways have I been spiritually colonized? In what ways have my relationships to Spirit, to my ancestors, to non-physical Beings been colonized? In what ways do my rituals conform to ideas rooted in white supremacy?
These are areas of active reflection.
Within mediumship — my journey of coming to relationship with Spirit — I can see how deeply certain ideas have influenced me.
The American mediumship spaces that I have been a part of are predominantly white and hetero-normative, and deeply influenced by the American Spiritualism movement, which has its roots in middle- and upper-class European thought.
I am white and was raised as a girl in America. I was introduced to and trained in mediumship predominantly from white American women and a white British man.
What does it look like to invite other ways of being and knowing into my relationship with Spirit?
What does it mean to decolonize my mediumship practice, both personally, and in the work I do with others?
In what ways would I expand and deepen? What would fall to the wayside? What would be reborn?
Time will tell….
