Keeping up Spiritual Practices in Dark Times

One of the resounding things I’m hearing from those on any spiritual path right now is how everything is just falling off for them in terms of their spiritual practices.  Its hard to keep up, and hard to motivate yourself to continue with your practices when everything is collapsingg down around you.  Yes! I hear you! This is in some ways, a similar situation to many people in the early days of the pandemic–everything was disrupted and so everything was disrupted.   There seems to be two kinds of responses that people who are on a path of nature spirituality have: some people really embrace their spiritual practices, clinging onto them during difficult times, while others seem to let things fall away, not being able to focus, concentrate, or feel excited about them, and end up doing nothing.  As I’ve been mentoring people through this process and working through this process myself, I wanted to take the time today to share some thoughts and also open this topic up for community discussion to share resources, ideas, and wisdom.

I will also note that this is part of my series of posts on how nature spirituality will get us through this collapsing age and into a brighter future.  My vision for that brighter future and how it is coming into being is here and here! Earlier posts in this series include 1: surviving and thriving in the collapse, 2: a good library and reskilling, 3: collapse gracefully and find cracks in the system, and 4: reflections on collapse (May 2025)  And with that, here we go!

Spirituality Centers of the Body and Stress

In order to get into the topic of why spiritual practices are hard in difficult times, I’m going to put on my herbalist hat for a moment and share a bit about how stress manifests in the body and why that can cause problems for spiritual practice.  Over hundreds of thousands of years, our ancient ancestors were primed for a specific kind of stress response: fight or flight.  The body senses stress, the brain signals to the adrenals to release adrenaline and cortisol, which increase our heart rate, breathing, increase the tension in our muscles, and offer us a surge of energy by increasing glucose in our bloodstream.  This is great for short-term, get away from the beast that is going to eat you stress.  While this is happening, our “rest and digest” functions of the body are weakened: our digestion, our ability to sleep and produce melatonin, and our body’s ability to relax.  The problem comes in with chronic stress: chronic stress keeps the body in this heightened state long term, which begins to tax all aspects of the body and can lead to high blood pressure, decreased libido, poor gut health, a weakened immune response, slower healing after injuries, back and muscle pain, and inability to get a good night’s sleep.  Now, as I’ve been writing about, we are living through really difficult times globally.  Here in the US, I cannot remember a time when there has been as much upheaval and uncertainty–and with the proliferation of the internet, you can literally doomscroll for hours, and it’s impossible to get away from.

What does this have to do with spiritual practice, and why is it more difficult to practice spiritually when under stress?   A good amount of your body’s stress response activation rests in the HPA axis–this is a complex system that connects your brain (hypothalamus, pituitary, and pineal) through your spinal cord and central nervous system to your adrenal axis (including your solar plexus). The solar plexus itself is a large bundle of nerves right in the middle of the core of your body, which is heavily involved in the stress response.

But the pineal and the solar plexus are also spiritual centers of the body: the 3rd eye chakra and the manipura chakra in the chakra system, and widely recognized in many traditions as critical for spiritual connection.  Your solar plexus is the site of your intuition, and in a druid’s terms, your spiritual connection with nature and the world around you.  This is where your gut-based knowing comes from, the seat of your intuition, and allows you to connect metaphysically to the world.  Part of the reason that all traditions have a component of breathwork is that breathwork directly calms and assists the solar plexus in returning to a parasympathetic state (which is also why taking a few deep breaths when you are upset or angry is actually quite good advice).  The pineal gland is the seat of our connection with the divine, and has been recognized by many throughout the ages in multiple cultures as being the seat of the soul and gateway to our inner selves.

If the Pineal and Solar Plexus are busy responding to stress, they are not going to be available for any other activity, such as sleep or meditation. This is part of why most druids find it is nearly impossible to deeply meditate or do meaningful spiritual work when they are stressed out.  When we take deep breaths, engage in meditation, or otherwise engage in spiritual practices, it can help regulate and calm this axis–literally reducing the cortisol levels and managing our stress. This is important for druids to know, because we are living in challenging times and are witnessing the damage, destruction, and potential collapse of the entire human biosphere. That we are stressed out, and often, is common.  Inner life is part of how we deal with it, and part of what is fascinating about this topic is how modern science sheds light on some of the spiritual tools we use in our tradition.

But perhaps you see the catch-22 here: stress puts our bodies on edge, making it less easy to engage in traditional spiritual practices.  Spiritual practices can return us to balance, to some degree, but if the body is in a chronic state of stress, this is harder.  What a conundrum!

Spiritual Practices in Dark Times

But there are ways through this conundrum, and that’s what the rest of this post is about.  What you can take away from the above discussion about stress and the body is twofold: one, stress impacts our ability to engage in spiritual practices (especially the deeper ones and ones that take more energy), but on the inverse, spiritual practices, especially breathwork and meditation, can reduce our stress levels.  I now want to offer three suggestions that have helped me and others navigate spiritual practices in this age.

I also very much welcome any additional insights and practices that you want to share in the comments! We are all in this together,r and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Adaptations and Energy

What I have found in my own life and in mentoring others in AODA is that there are levels to spiritual practices, and one of the things we can do is figure out how we can adapt our spiritual practices to difficult times and days based on how much energy and spoons we have.  This begins with knowing yourself and knowing what you have the capability for on a given day, recognizing that some days or weeks are much better than others. So, I suggest that you spend some time useful considering what your regular spiritual practices are, and how you would break them into these categories.  Since I’m a druid, I broke my categories below in two ways: high, medium, and low energy and practices in the druid, bard, and ovate tracks (more info is here on these divisions if you aren’t familiar with them). Your list might look a little different than mine, but when I think about how much I have in me, I can break my own spiritual practices into three categories: high energy, medium energy, and low energy. And then I will engage in practices based on what I have the energy for that day. For me, this looks like the following:

High-energy practices

• Druid: Astral travel, raising and directing energy, formal ritual, extended meditation, building shrines, divination for others
• Bard: complex bardic practices and flow states (both for my writing and painting), crafting magical tools and incenses, writing anything, spiritual kitchen work (cooking, baking, etc)
• Ovate: Extended hiking and foraging (day-long, overnight), reading books about nature and studying, heavy labor gardening (fall and spring, especially), bringing in and processing the homestead harvest, raising small animals

Moderate-energy practices

• Druid: Discursive meditation; extended breathwork; intuitive and less formal rituals; energy raising through flute, drum, and other movement; plant spirit communication; maintaining shrines, spiritual journaling, Sphere of protection, and other protective-based work, visualization,
• Bard: Artwork that does not require a specific desired outcome and is more free; light editing or revision on existing writing
• Ovate: Foraging in the woods, making plant medicine, weeding garden beds, mucking out coop,s and daily tending of flocks, tending the herbal apothecary, magical herbalism

Low-energy practices

• Druid: Breathwork, plant spirit communication, spirit communication with allies and guides, altar work, visiting shrines, smoke cleansing, chanting, re-reading journals, nature-based observation of elements (meditative Sphere of Protection), chanting, dreamwork, divination for myself
• Bard: Repetitive practices that don’t take much energy, like beading, doodling, stitching patches on clothing
• Ovate: Taking a light walk in the woods, sitting by a stream, spending time with plants or trees, hanging out with rocks, hanging out with geese

With the list above, you now have a sense of various things you can do based on your energy levels, and that allows you to make a plan and consider your next steps.  I have three suggestions in this direction:

1. The first is to give yourself grace.  We can’t be in high summer all the time or always doing everything only on the “high energy” list. There are hard days, weeks, even months, and that’s a time to move to your lowest energy practices and have a fallow period. It is important to acknowledge what we are capable of on a given day, and not beat ourselves up over what we aren’t. The world is hard enough; no reason to be hard on yourself, too.

2. Do something every day. The second thing is to realize that even if you are feeling pretty defeated on a given day, you can still do something (see next point).

3. The third thing is that a list like this allows you to set priorities and make space for the things you value and that nourish you the most.  If you look at your list, you might do some further self-reflection: what is the most important spiritual work you do in a given day, week or month? If you had the spoons to only do one thing a day, what would it be?

So with that said, here are a few other specific suggestions to move forward with spiritual practices in dark times.

Do Something Every Day

One of the strategies that works well for people in a prolonged stress response is to make a regular commitment to doing something every day.  That can be the smallest thing, like its simple breathwork or taking a light walk in the woods.  Find a way to build this thing into your day in a meaningful way, and also at a receptive time (see beginning of the day practices, below).  And then, simply do it.   Think about what you can do even in the most difficult days. Perhaps that something is really small: standing in front of a tree, chanting awen, and taking three deep breaths.

One of the spiritual practices I especially like leaning into in difficult times is dreamwork.  I wrote about dreamwork and lucid dreaming here.  Why? Cause I have to sleep anyways, so I might as well use that sleep to my advantage, even when I don’t have the spoons for a lot of big rituals, etc.

Leaning In rather than Shutting Down

Once you’ve got the “doing something every day” going for a while, then I suggest that you work to lean more deeply into your spiritual practices.  I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken to lately that have completely stopped everything they are doing (and when I ask them what they are doing, its spending a lot of time reading headlines and being stressed out).  But when we lean into our spiritual practices, especially meditation, breathwork, bardic practices, and so forth–these actually help us cope, manage, and address our stress response.

Structuring Practices

The final useful practice I’ll share is figuring out the structure of your day and prioritizing your spiritual practices to fit that structure and what you need the most.  Think about the patterns in your life that already exist and build spiritual practices into those patterns.  Kind of like brushing your teeth– Find something that works for you and stick with it.  Once you have made your practice into a habit or routine, it will be easier to do every day, even in difficult times.

One of the philosophies I adopted during the pandemic that has continued to serve me well in these chaotic times is to start my day with my spiritual practices, especially the druid path practices.  What I find in these times is that the day gets heavier and heavier, and by the end of the day (when I used to do my practices), I am wiped out and drained.  So, I structure my day to prioritize two things 1) caring for our animals and land and being outside (which is an obvious priority, since everyone needs to be fed and cared for each morning) and 2) engaging in 20-30 minutes of spiritual practices before I do anything else.  So for me, this begins by being outside (in any weather) for at least 45 min, and on most days unless its pouring rain or well under freezing with a windchill, I then go out on our land to my druid’s anchor spot, our stone circle or one of my shrines, or simply take a walk.  I do my daily Sphere of Protection (which, to me, is my “minimal” daily practice).  I will drink tea or cacao and may have some furry or feathered friends with me, and simply breathe in the day, connect with the land.  I often also do some light stretching.  What I have foundis  that this helps me lean in, it helps me do something every day, and it also makes sure that I and those under my care (the geese, lands, etc) are protected for the day.  And regardless of what else happens or what is in the headlines, I’ve done what I need to do and I feel better, less stressed, and more centered.

Another important part of this is choosing not to be on my phone or read headlines in the morning.  I might do some light novel reading in the morning to help me wake up, but I have committed to not checking messages or engaging in any scrolling or social media until after this sacred time. I have personally found that doing this before I engage in the rest of my day is an act of radical self-care.  And it does a few things 1) the heaviness of everything isn’t yet on me;  2) it sets the day up for success; and 3) regardless of whatever bad happens that day, I have already engaged in my spiritual practices.

My end-of-the-day practices typically revolve around my bardic path, where I paint, create art, and otherwise just relax. There’s a ceremony in this too:  tending my Awen altar and lighting some candles and getting into the flow of Awen.  It is a nice way to destress before bed and round out the day, which I usually finish with a bit of breathwork and sometimes dreamwork.

Opening to Conversation

I would love to hear from you, readers!  How have you been adapting your practices in these challenging and collapsing times? What have you found works for you, and what advice do you have!

Announcements

Herbalism Classes in Fall 2025 through the Pennsylvania School of Herbalism – I am happy to share my fall 2025 teaching schedule.  These classes will be held in person in Indiana, PA (about an hour east of Pittsburgh, PA, USA) and are hands-on workshops where everyone gets to make and take herbal medicines home, with most ingredients for the classes coming from the Druid’s Garden herb gardens.  Classes are offered on a sliding scale to ensure affordability and access.  If you are in the region, feel free to reach out with questions!  Hope to see you there!   Also, as soon as I get my spring work schedule, I will be scheduling another online mushroom medicine course and an online plant spirit communication course through the herb school for Jan – April.

Podcasts and Appearances:  With my next post, I will be releasing my list of upcoming podcasts and online appearances, including through AODA :).  Stay tuned!  If you have a podcast or a group you’d like a workshop for, I’m setting up a bunch for the next six months.  Please reach out!

New Book out on October 28th, 2025 (North America) and January 2025 (International).  Many of you may already have heard that I have new book coming out, co-authored with the amazing Nate Summers.  Click this link for more info on the book and to preorder!