I am on a quest to heal my heart from white shame.
Which, ironically, must come from embracing (and no longer denying, suppressing, shaming, or making superior) my body’s white skin. After all, healing doesn’t come from denying what is, but from integrating, contextualizing, and accepting it.
But, because most examples of embracing being white tend to come from outright racists, bigots, and neo-nazis, it can feel like a disgusting, embarrassing, nauseating, shameful endeavor… White pride? Absolutely not, thank you.
If you’re similar to me, it’s obvious how outrageously destructive colonialism and white supremacy have been to people and planet. White people have done—and continue to do—horrific things to people of color, while also benefitting from unearned white privilege.
The last few years in the U.S. and the increasing number of extreme and fascist-leaning governments around the world reveal that our “post-civil-rights movement” Western world still has a LOT of work to do in the name of racial equity. (Not to mention the backwards slide of women’s rights, but that topic’s for another post.)
I believe that, because of our brutal, genocidal inheritance and present-day examples of white supremacy, many of us with white bodies do not feel at home in our skin. We also struggle to find a spiritual home if we no longer align with organized religion.
We are a people without a land, without a sense of place, without spiritual roots. As humans with European ancestry, our indigeneity; our animistic cosmology, visionary practices, healers, and seers were violently eradicated, colonized, or integrated into organized religion so long ago that we feel adrift.
Yet, our very bones HUNGER for belonging—both physically and spiritually.
And unfortunately, this becomes a recipe to colonize… because colonization at least partially stems from a sense that someone else has a resource that you need (and deserve).
Hungry ghosts ache to consume.
It can seem like the only way to feel earth connected and “rooted” is to look to cultures who have more intact spiritual traditions and cosmologies… Cultures who were colonized more recently, and so their practices have not quite been swallowed… Cultures like the First Nations of Canada, Native Americans, Mayans, the Q’ero people, Hinduism and the Yogic traditions; among many other (mostly non-white) lineages.
It’s very alluring to set aside our own messy, violent, sometimes hard-to-identify heritage and start picking up medicines, ceremonies, and sacred paths from people who may or may not be willing to share them with us (for good reason).
We become culture vultures, cherry-picking the remains of spiritual practices that resonate, stringing them onto a necklace we bought from Etsy, certain that we are the “rainbow warriors” of that Hopi prophecy… Or was it Cherokee? My great-great-grandmother was half Cherokee, I think.
I was Cleopatra in a past-life.
We sell ourselves that this is appreciation, not appropriation… That we are making reparations and repenting for the genocide our people have perpetuated on these very same cultures… A way of saying, “I am not (a white asshole) like them; I value everything you stand for. I am honoring you.”
If you are a white-bodied human and you only find resonance with Native American, Central or South American, or African spiritual practices, I invite you to join me in asking why.
Why don’t Celtic, Nordic, Hellenic, or Saxon traditions speak more to you?
Is it because pre-Christian Indigenous European practices have been nearly erased?
Do you not know where your people come from?
Do you know exactly where your people come from and it’s incredibly problematic?
I am in the process of unpacking my own privilege and assumptions… and while I’ve been given direct permission from my teachers to offer the work I do, I still question whether that permission was given with full consciousness and generosity or if it’s just another way of placating an oppressor by saying what they think I want to hear.
Regardless of whether I have the “right” to do what I do and the ways I channel healing, I’m answering a deep call to return to, explore, and integrate my own roots.
All people of this world stem from tribal beginnings…
…And those tribal beginnings included rituals, rites, ceremonies, plant allies, and traditions that connected us with Mother Earth, the cosmos, each other, and our bodies.
Once you dig below the surface, many “shamanic” paths are quite similar. Which is not to be confused with concepts such as core shamanism which wash away unique cultural elements and remove vital eco-niche contexts…
Rather, it’s fascinating to learn that many of the practices we are given, borrow, or steal from the Indigenous Americas we can actually reconstruct from our own familial lineage with just a little digging.
For example, my background boils down to the Northern Tradition: the basis for the Nordic, Celtic, Germanic, and Saxon spiritual paths that my people arose from. In the Northern Tradition, there is rattling. There are medicine songs and trance drumming. There are divination tools. There are Wild Messengers, entheogenic plant allies, initiation rites, and visionary rituals. Norse Shamanic Healers practice soul retrieval, prophesize, and ritually dissociate to heal the collective.
Of course, there are shadows in the North, too… How and why did my people get caught up in, trampled by, and ultimately become the Empire? What have we sacrificed to the machines of colonialism, materialism, disconnection, and fear?
Who were the witches in my family that burned, and which family members lit the match?
I may not ever find specific answers to those questions, but I know that I carry imprints of both the pyre and the pyromaniac.
As I learn more and more about my roots, I can see that I have not been far off the mark in my spiritual practices and shamanistic work. In fact, these roots are likely what make my sessions, ceremonies, rituals, and programs so powerful. In many ways, I have been living my ancestral medicine for years without realizing it. I have already found my way home.
Now, I have the opportunity to learn new to me (and very very old) songs from my own people. I have the chance to shift my perspective of where I come from, and rather than wishing to be someone I am not, to stand proudly in ALL that I am… As I explore and integrate my ancestry, I am healing the shame, fear, complacency, superiority, inferiority, woman, witch and whiteness wounding that are woven through my bones.
It is only then that I can meet my indigenous brothers and sisters as an equal. Then, I am no longer seeking to take something they have and claim it as my own. I have done that enough with the stolen land underneath the home that I’ll never truly “own”.
So what does this mean?
It means that you’ll see some changes around here… In the wording we use and the framework for our rituals and ceremonies. In the diversity of backgrounds and voices represented in our programs. It also means that we’ll be going deeper with the healing work we offer.
(Roots teach us about depth.)
This means that we’ll be better able to serve YOU: to help you create results in your life that will ADD to the revitalization of our co-existence here on Earth. This is truly in service to the health and wellness of all beings; from the stones on up. Our work is in service to Gaia, so that humankind becomes part of a positive feedback loop rather than a force of resource depletion.
Let our personal devotion to uncovering who we really are encourage you to explore your own lineage. We all have indigenous roots. Once, we were each much more connected to and part of our ecosystems.
But, let us not aim to go back in time, which is a fruitless fantasy.
(Despite our romantic ideals, human existence has always been complicated and shadowy.) Let us aim instead to co-create a future where we listen to our Mother, serve each other and our planet with humility and openness, and honor the laws of nature.
Learning the traditions of our personal lineage(s) and synthesizing them with where we are on Earth today is a way to do so with integrity.
Resources for those with roots in the Northern Tradition:
Resources for healing our humanhood, connecting with our roots, and creating unity through diversity:
I encourage you to explore and honor your ancestry.
Even if you don’t get specific answers, the inquiry alone is enough to open amazing doors into your psyche, heal your wounded identity, and help you embrace who you are (so you can get on with life and contribute).
Honoring your roots doesn’t create more separation.
Rather, by exploring our differences and honoring our unique backgrounds; we come together as a beautiful tapestry that is our human tribe. We find our similarities only by knowing who we are to begin with.
What’s your strand in the tapestry? Are you (like most of us) multiple strands woven together? Which one(s) are calling for your exploration? We’d love to hear from you!
Lola Elle is a sacred space designer, stylist, spiritual mentor, and wellness retreat leader based in San Diego, California. When she’s not writing, supporting clients, or designing, you’ll find her on her mat or adventuring with her two kids and aviator husband.
