Lately, the topic of my spirituality—or lack of religion—keeps coming up. I don’t feel the need to justify my beliefs, but I do feel the need to vent. People have endless questions but rarely want to listen. So here it is.
I make a clear distinction between spirituality and organized religion. To me, spirituality is a way of being, a connection to the land, ancestors, and the balance of life. It’s not something I practice on Sundays or within four walls. It’s in the way I carry myself, the way I respect creation, the way I acknowledge the spirits that walk with me. Organized religion, on the other hand, is a system—one that has been forced on my people, used to strip us of our languages, our ceremonies, and our ways of knowing. It’s not about connection; it’s about control.
I see the way Western society is unraveling, how the rejection of a shared moral code has led to chaos. People act like morality is just a personal choice, that right and wrong are entirely up to the individual. But some things are universally wrong—harming others, destroying the land, exploiting people for power. These aren’t just random rules; they’re fundamental truths. Indigenous teachings have always emphasized responsibility to each other, to future generations, to the earth itself. Colonization disrupted that, replacing it with laws that prioritize profit over people, dominance over balance.
I hear people say, “Without God, nothing is forbidden.” But from where I stand, without a connection to spirit, without an understanding of our place in creation, people become lost. I see it in the violence, in the greed, in the way society chases distractions instead of meaning. People are so focused on accumulating things—money, status, followers—that they forget to ask why they’re here in the first place. Meanwhile, the land suffers, people suffer, and those in power keep feeding the cycle.
Science and spirituality aren’t at odds. They never have been. Indigenous knowledge has always embraced both, understanding that science explains how things work, but spirituality teaches us why they matter. Western thinking has tried to separate them, to reduce life to a series of mechanical processes with no deeper purpose. And what has that left us with? A world where people replace meaning with consumerism, where they worship wealth instead of wisdom.
I refuse to live like that. I refuse to ignore the voices of my ancestors, the lessons they left for us, the teachings that have sustained our people for generations. My spirituality is not a religion. It’s not a set of rules designed to control me. It’s a relationship—with the land, with the spirits, with the ones who came before and the ones who will come after. And no system, no doctrine, no colonizer’s God will ever take that from me.
🦅🪶❤️🖤💛🤍🪶🦅
🫰🫖 JRT
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