Spiritual Rebel

by Sarah Bowen

  You know that feeling when you reach the edge of your comfort zone? This was my moment. And judging from the looks on other participant faces, I was not alone. As we timidly approached the paint, our boisterousness was deflated. Tension filled the room. Perhaps old art-class traumas were smacking some of us in the face. Our fearless leader patiently waited, put on some tunes, and hung back, allowing us to work through our fears. As we did, a miraculous site appeared. Jeanette transformed into a colorful parrot, while Steve’s silver hair framed his newly painted white polar bear face. Dark as the night, Elaine’s raven eyes peered at Connie’s round open owl eyes just under her bangs. Wild and thick, Pam’s lion mane framed her smiling face. Next to me, Laura’s fishy face shimmered with beautiful azure and emerald scales. Denise’s otter whiskers twitched as she giggled, holding a rock to her chest (for opening clams, she announced). With courage, I ratted my hair up into a squirrely pile using an absurd amount of bobby pins. In the mirror I caught a reflection, and promptly lost it in laughter as I glimpsed Amy in full Hanuman-inspired monkey regalia, a black yoga strap tied around her waist for a tail. Deciding I was all in, I grabbed the face paint.

  No longer out of our comfort zone, our pod banded together to face the public, marching straight up to the dining hall, inspiring confusion in those we passed, as well as a deep love for each other. Months after the retreat, I still pull an animal oracle card every morning for a bit of inspired guidance. (I swear Picasso swims faster in his bowl every time I draw the Fish card.)

  As unique beings, we each come to this book with a different history of experiences. So if you were raised on tarot, maybe sweat lodging makes your spiritual bucket list instead. Or Sufi whirling, dream work, or balancing your chakras. The source of our spiritual moments is limitless; we just need to use our intuition to tap in to lower the volume on Station 1, so we can hear what is being whispered to us on Station 2.

  HOW IT WORKS

  1. Silence your phone, computer, or anything around you that might ring, ding, or vibrate.

  2. Gently close your eyes.

  3. Pay attention to your breath. Notice your belly rising and falling, the movements in your chest. Perhaps add a big cleansing yawn.

  4. Become aware of your thoughts. Notice which seem to be broadcast by Station 1 (“I have nothing clean to wear.” “I need to pay the electric bill.” “What’s for dinner?”). Visualize a volume control floating to the left of you and turn it down to a murmur.

  5. Mentally change stations. Visualize Station 2’s volume control to your right. Increase the volume. Take a few moments to tune in to this channel.

  6. Ask yourself the questions below. Record any thoughts on the Reflections & Ahas pages. Alternate between tuning in and reflecting.

  • What connects me to my intuition?

  • Where do I find guidance?

  • What spiritual practices am I curious about?

  • How can I make space in my life to tune in on a more regular basis?

  7. Explore. Grab your phone or computer and investigate whatever topics or themes popped up. Create a spiritual bucket list of people, places, and things to delve into during the coming months.

  REBELLIOUS VARIATIONS

  It’s in the cards: Although the Rider-Waite Tarot deck is the standard for card connoisseurs, modern decks span an impressive range of interest areas. From Steven Farmer’s Power Animal Oracle Cards, to Lucy Cavendish’s Japanese-inspired Foxfire: The Kitsune Oracle, to Yehuda Berg’s The Power of Kabbalah Card Deck, there’s an option for intuitive work inspired by most spiritual traditions and religions. After you choose a deck, pull a card (or series of cards) each morning to connect with what’s going on inside you and how to approach your day.

  Feel the Force: As Qui-Gon Jinn told Anakin: “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” In his book Use the Force: A Jedi’s Guide to the Law of the Attraction, Joshua P. Warren offers tips for tapping into metaphysical energy from a spirituality-meets-science-meets-space mindset. In his Take Five visualization exercise, Warren suggests setting aside five minutes each evening to envision exactly what you want to occur. Write down the description using as much detail as possible with a positive focus. For example, “I am fortunate that my body heals more every day.”

  Listen to the animals: If you are an aspiring Noah, Jane Goodall, or Dr. Doolittle, dig into your connection with the animal kingdom by exploring their possible messages. Steven Farmer notes in his Pocket Guide to Spirit Animals: Understanding Messages from Your Animal Spirit Guides, “You can have a relationship with a power animal even if you’re not a shaman or shamanic practitioner. One may come to you in meditations, visions, dreams, or shamanic journeys. It’s a highly personal and specialized relationship with an animal spirit guide, one in which the personality and characteristics of the particular power animal that you’ve attracted to you is reflective of your own personality and characteristics.” As you go about your day, watch for animals around you. Consider how their characteristics might be mirroring something for you to bring awareness to. After an animal sighting, reflect upon a situation in your life. For example, after seeing a bear, ask yourself, “Is there a situation in which I need to stand my ground?” A squirrel sighting could trigger: “Is there something I need to prepare for?” A hawk above could prompt you to consider, “In what situation do I need to focus on the bigger picture?”

  Use the P-word: The simple six-letter word prayer causes many of us more trouble than all the four-letter words we discovered in our formative years. Others swear by prayer as their primary intuitive practice. Celeste Yacoboni’s book, How Do You Pray? Inspiring Responses from Religious Leaders, Spiritual Guides, Healers, Activists & Other Lovers of Humanity provides 132 remarkably diverse responses, suggesting there are at least as many ways of expressing prayer as there are definitions of the G-word. Prayer does not need to be limited to speaking a set of words prescribed by a particular religion, directed to a specific deity. From art to poetry, to body movements, prayer can be any action that connects you to something greater than yourself. If you feel blocked about the P-word, consider how you might reframe your definition of it.

  DISCOVER DEEPLY

  • Take an online class from Soul Tarot School at lindsay-mack.com.

  • Read Animal Spirit Guides: An Easy-to-Use Handbook for Identifying and Understanding Your Power Animals and Animal Spirit Helpers by Steven D. Farmer.

  • Download Brian Brown Walker’s I Ching: Book of Changes app.

  • Read Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott.

  NOTES

  * Tarotology, or reading Tarot cards, is a subset of the practice of cartomancy (which uses standard playing cards). Since its Renaissance beginnings, the practice of using cards was poo-poohed by Church leaders with wild cries of “the devil’s work.” People raised using the Roman Catholic Catechism, a guidebook for the faith, may be familiar with this direction: “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.” Let me assure you, developing our own intuition is a far cry from trying to call up demons or start a zombie apocalypse. When using cards to tap our inner thoughts and desires, we are instead dabbling in the realm of Carl Jung’s collective unconsciousness, working with the archetypes that underly our human narratives.

  Seva Saturday

  * * *

  WEEK 2: DO SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

  “Sarah, where is all our canned food going?” my father inquired one morning. It was my junior year of high school, and unbeknownst to my parental units, a flannel-clad homeless kid lived in my Ford Fiesta. (Let’s call him “Matt.”) But, alas, Dad was on to me with his keen investigative sense.

  After several unsuccessful attempts to explain the enigma of the missing canned food, I eventually fessed up. Not surprisingly, my father wasn’t angry. But he did suggest there might be better options for Matt than living in our drivew
ay on canned food, spending his time skateboarding while the rest of us were in class. A shower, some clean clothes, and an interview for a dishwashing job followed. Matt moved out of the car into a cheap apartment and started on his GED. I wish I remembered his last name so I could track down the rest of his journey.

  Indeed, my dad was no stranger to assisting the homeless. Never judgmental, he helped people connect the dots to improve their circumstances. I remember one guy staying in our church’s boiler room for a while. Dad referred to him as “PIBer.” The man had been caught peeing in the bushes (hence P.I.B.) by the local police, and my father had advocated for him to do odd jobs at the church rather than be put into jail. I’m not sure what happened to PIBer either.

  Similarly, neither Dad’s nor my actions in these stories were about long-term relationships requiring ongoing reward or recognition. They were moments of kindness and generosity, spontaneous acts of caring and connection.

  Likely I learned this principle not only from my father but also from my most influential childhood teacher—the amazingly quirky, political, author/illustrator, Dr. Seuss,* who wrote, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” (I am the Lorax, and I speak for the trees!)

  Better is another hard word to define. It’s subjective and relative. Better for whom? Last Saturday, I defined seva as “something done without any thought of payment, reward, recognition, or thank you.” If I have a desire to change something, to fix something, to make something better, is it still selfless?

  Honestly, I’m not sure, but I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the relationship between being and doing. There’s a saying that goes something like, “Service is love dressed for work.” Cultivating love, compassion, and caring is important. But without action, there are no trees in the Lorax’s forest. Without effort, none of the pain and chaos in our world is going to end.

  Which brings me to Joshua Coombes, a hairstylist from London. After a dark period of loss, he questioned who he was and what he wanted to do with the remainder of his life. Drawn to the feeling he experienced with people in his salon chair, he wondered if that connection could be expanded beyond his work. Then one day, he was chatting on the street with a man who was homeless. Joshua spontaneously offered him a haircut. He recalls, “That empty feeling I felt changed. The moment kinda turned on a tap, and this other kind of happiness started flowing in.” And Joshua became positively addicted to acts of kindness.

  Soon he began documenting each person’s story on Instagram using the hashtag #dosomethingfornothing. Fast-forward just a couple years (and hundreds of haircuts). The Washington Post has dubbed Joshua the “globe-trotting hairdresser who helps homeless people look sharp,” but that’s just scratching the surface, because his work is really about connection and dignity. About truly seeing people (who are often ignored) and listening intently to their stories (which usually go untold).

  I recently had an inspiring chat with Joshua. Serendipitously, our call was planned for July 4: Me in New York, him in the U.K. Amusingly, I realized that almost 250 years ago our relatives would have been duking it out about the rights of individuals, struggling over how to disconnect. (Admittedly, the July 4 holiday carries mixed feelings for me, as I find that the celebration of freedom and independence can be a shiny layer over a dark foundation of war, cruelty, pain, privilege, and nationalism. But speaking with Joshua on July 4 was particularly meaningful. And shortly after our call, as if on cue, my Christian yogini friend Shelley phoned to wish me “Happy Interdependence Day.” Deeper perspective, indeed.)

  In contrast to our forebears, Joshua and I connected excitedly across the pond (and airwaves) on the topics of punk rock, spirituality, and what it means to be connected. He prefaced:

  I don’t come from a background of any particular religion or even much of a value system, per se, not one that was packaged up for me in any way. But I was very lucky. I grew up with a hell of a lot of love and I think that’s the part I never overlook. I definitely went through a kind of atheist period. I wondered about connection and where that comes from: is it inherent and innate or does it stem from somewhere? Right now I’m in this point of “I really love people and I’m really interested in connection.”

  Through his interactions, Joshua offers time for people to reconnect with what he describes as “their greater self, their spiritual self, and to the energy that is undeniable. To being awake.”

  But as the slippery slope of spiritual terms starts, I, of course, can’t help but mention the Force. Joshua interjects, “You’ll love what I’m looking at.” He describes a nearby mural on the side of a Peckham pub: a spray-painted portrait of Carrie Fisher (in full-on Leia buns) with large yellow letters reading “The Rebels’ Princess” followed by “Carrie Fisher | RIP | 1956-2016.” You cannot make this shit up. Everywhere, connections abound if we are aware, awake, and open to possibility.

  What I truly appreciate about Joshua’s story is that it is continually expanding. He’s not trying to hold onto a personal brand or keep the story centered on him: #dosomethingfor-nothing is an opensource approach. He’s seeded a movement that encourages others to be included. When I asked him why, he replied, “I wanted the hashtag to be an open space for people. It’s about whatever your thing is, whatever your connection might be to try and bridge something with someone else. I’m not a charity, I’m not a nonprofit. I want to keep this as accessible to people as I can. This is yours as much as this is mine.”

  As our conversation came to a close, I asked Joshua one final question, “What would you answer if someone came up to you and asked, ‘How do I start?’” His powerful answer created the spiritual moment for today.

  HOW IT WORKS

  1. On one of the Reflections & Ahas pages, write down three things that interest you. These three things might be your passions, your loves, or things that you think you are pretty good at. It could range from music to embroidery to legal advice. Write down the three things that make you feel good when you are doing them.

  2. Next, write down three things in society that you’re not happy with. Homelessness? Factory Farming? Poverty? Illiteracy? Again, it can be anything.

  3. Think about the parallels of these two lists. How can you do something in List 1 to influence something in list 2? Joshua Coombes asserts, “There will be a way to connect them. It may not come straight away but get them down and keep looking at them.”

  REBELLIOUS VARIATIONS

  Kindness isn’t always quiet: The late Joe Strummer of The Clash suggested, “Punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human beings.” In this spirit, Joshua Coombes en-listed friends to create Light & Noise, a multimedia event of art, photography, music, and film to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness. Bass guitar player Mike Watt (of Minutemen and The Stooges fame), San Pedro-based punk rock band Toys That Kill, U.K. artist Jamie Morrison, L.A. artist John Park, and photographer Mikey Huff all stepped up to “amplify some of the people often unheard by society, existing in some of the poorest conditions in the United States of America.”

  A street person’s best friend: Veterinarian Jade Statt walks the streets of U.K. cities with a backpack of vet supplies, from dog treats to antibiotics. As cofounder of StreetVet, Statt aids the four-legged companions of people who live on the streets (primarily dogs), noting “the bond between many homeless people and their dogs is profound, such that their pets’ wellbeing is a life-shaping priority.”

  Helping street cats live all nine lives: In Athens, Greece, a handful of volunteers combine their love of cats with a desire to keep the city’s large cat population as healthy and safe as possible. Without an office, shelter facilities, animal ambulance or transport van, or state funding, Nine Lives Greece feeds and provides medical assistance for nearly 450 cats who were abandoned or born on the streets. Their compassionate trap-neuter-return programs help keep cats—and their communities—healthy, as well as educate kitty “owners” about this potentially li
fe-saving procedure.

  Save a child from poverty: Australian philosopher and activist Peter Singer’s short book The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty proposes that as part of the global human community we have an obligation not only to the people around us but also to those around the world. No matter how much money you make, you can help. In fact, taking global wealth into consideration, if you make over $32,000, you are part of “the 1 percent.” Take a look around your house and at what you have. Then ponder this: The median worth of adults in India is $608 in total wealth, according to a report by Credit Suisse, and the average wealth of adults in Africa is even lower at just $411. Making no changes in your life other than reallocating just $10 a week away from bottled water, craft beer, or lattes could indeed make a big impact, saving countless lives.

  Employing the unemployable: What do you get when you combine Zen Buddhism, a no-questions-asked hiring process, and a love of baking? You get 35,000 pounds of award-winning brownies daily and happy employees. Greyston Bakery, based in Yonkers, New York, an innovative idea from the late Bernie Glassman, founder of the Zen Peacemakers, literally bakes for social change, with the motto: “We don’t hire people to bake brownies, we bake brownies to hire people.” Aiming to provide work for the hard-to-employ, Greyston allows any-one to sign up regardless of background. (If you’ve had Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie or Half-Baked ice cream flavors, you’ve eaten Greyston brownies. And might I suggest Chocolate Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert with Fudge Brownies for any discerning lactose intolerant vegans?) The company’s profits are used for low-income housing, daycare open to the community, a medical center for those with AIDS, and other projects.