harmonize humanity

Photo: Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad-City Times/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Photo

I believe that we are starved for spirituality.

Did you grow up with a strong sense of spirituality? 

The majority of youths in our western culture, I believe grew up with little to no spirituality. 

Perhaps there was a practiced religion, but I’m talking about the kind of spirituality where you know in your core the answers to life’s most profound questions, and those answers are present in every thought, every word and every action.

The ‘who are we truly?’

And ‘why are we here?’

And ‘why does little old me matter?’

The axis when a child becomes an adult is when they begin to seek the deeper meaning of life. 

Why are so many youths turning to psychedelics? 

Because in our ancient cultures, where we lived in connection to the land, and spirit, there would have been initiation ceremonies around this time. These ceremonies would most likely have involved accessing altered states of consciousness, and likely involved some form of plant medicine. The result of the ceremony would have resulted in the youth remembering that they are a spiritual being having a physical experience, and a knowing of what their calling is in this life. It would have answered life’s deepest questions. In many ceremonies, the person would have been given a spiritual name to reflect their spirit that they are more aware of now. They would have been guided by elders who have already done their initiations, who can be pillars of wisdom to their experience.  

Can you see any resemblances to the youth of today? And into adulthood?

The seeking altered states, the renaming, the seeking of the calling?

Yet, in today’s day, there is largely a lack of elders who have done these ceremonies in their youth, due to being cut off of their own spirituality. 

This remembrance of ceremony still lies in us, so we seek these experiences, not really knowing where or how to find them. And that’s if we even know consciously what we are searching for.  

I believe that this is the root of cultural appropriation - we seek a connection with spirituality, yet lack the wisdom that comes with truly living it. So we come as close as our physical senses allow us to get. And that is what we can see with our eyes, hear without ears and taste with our tongues. 

Until we realize there’s something deeper to the feathers, sage and cross. 

So we seek deeper. 

Yet, when we seek these spiritual experiences, without the pillar of an elder to walk us through, they can be traumatizing. 

If you’ve ever had a bad trip on LSD, you know what I mean. 

Yet, if there was a spiritual guide for that trip, it likely would have ended up in a profound revelation of your true nature and purpose as a human here on earth and as a galactic being. 

We see so many youths exploring different modes of spirituality, different churches, different practices. 

So now the question is, where do we go from here?

How do we regain the connection to this spirituality that has been severed?

It takes patience, humility, an opennness to all perspectives, and an ability to ask questions without judging the answer if it is one we don’t yet understand. 

It is to not condemn the youth for seeking altered states, but to provide them with a safe space to discover who they are. And to ask ourselves the same questions the youths are asking.  To not assume that because we’ve lived a little longer, that we know better. Do we really? Because a human who has stopped learning is cut off from the essence of the human experience. 

It is, to find the common thread among all the answers we are given. To ask the question: what do we all truly seek?

And if you can answer that, we might have a chance to get along as one human race. 

Written by Leah Trottier, 

March 30th, 2022