Spirituality Mistaken For Poverty : A Cultural Fracture Point

Who is allowed to be spiritual?

Who is allowed to be intelligent, stable and successful? Does that have a look?

At what point was spirituality collapsed into poverty? 

As time progresses, I have been noticing a consistent trend in my interactions.

When conversations spark regarding spirituality, meditation, dark-light consciousness, healing the inner-child and meeting the shadow. There's an air of comfort, admiration and even curiosity. 

People lean in, they listen and engage.

But when the conversation takes a turn from spiritual matters into the physical world... 
And the questions begin to arise,

"So... what do you do for a living?"

"Where do you work, by the way?"

"What spaces do you occupy?"

As I begin to answer, there's an immediate, noticeable shift.
Comfort dissolves into tension
Curiosity morphs into disbelief
I can visibly see and even feel the surprise and the recalibration of energy. 

Not just one time, one person
A pattern that has revealed something deeper beyond the surface 
 

What is being questioned is not my career.

What I actually feel is the unspoken belief/frameworks that people hold around spirituality in itself.

Somewhere along the line, spirituality became synonymous with lack.

Somewhere along the line, preconceived notions were placed on the shoulders of persons who look a certain way, talk a certain way or believe certain things. 

When these preconceived notions do not align with the reality of the person in front of them, they're seen as an "anomaly", "a one off", or in extreme cases, "a fraud" or possibly " an imposter"

Which leads me to the deeper questions:

Did you expect something else?

As if someone rooted in spirit should not also be rooted in competence, education, and responsibility?

Why do people feel comfortable placing all spiritualists in a box?

Why is alignment expected to be expressed as lack?

When appearance is taken into consideration, the situation becomes even more complex.

In my opinion, locks are a symbol of discipline, commitment, patience and devotion.
But in the eyes of some, this natural embodiment perpetuates lack and instability.

A belief that is not accidental but predicated on colonialism, capitalism and racial conditioning

Is organized religion viewed with the same economic deficiency?  Are persons apart it assumed to negate career ambitions? Are they also read as incompatible with discipline or achievement?

Or is it just spirituality? (on a larger scale)

The spirituality that is unapologetically ancestral, earth-based, initutive and above all else, internally governed is approached with caution. Perhaps this is the fracture point.

It is downtrodden, demonised, and aestheticised.

Allowed as culture but dismissed as relevant authority. 

There's a silent air of comfort or normalcy in the image of the "struggling mystic".

The mystic that is spiritually aware but materially unstable. 

Highly intuitive but impractical. 

Wise but economically irrelevant. 

And somehow, they always imagined the same small occupational box: being an artist, a hustler, a weed seller, a jewellery maker, or perhaps a wanderer.

As if spirituality disqualifies professional competence..

But spirituality paired with education, discipline and influence unsettles something deeper

A spiritual chemist/scientist? A spiritual engineer? Manager? Business owner?
Eyebrows shoot up, feathers begin to ruffle....

Because it challenges the unspoken belief that spiritual depth must exist outside of structure and skill.

It collapses the false partition between the sacred and the structured.

It ejects the narrative that alignment is withdrawal.

Spirituality at its core awareness and oneness 

It sharpens discernment
It deepens intuition
It refines decision-making 
It is an anchor to navigate complexities without fragmentation
It is alignment 

TRUE SPIRITUALITY IS NOT ESCAPISM!

You are in the world but not ruled by it
You are internally governed and competent, with a higher level of consciousness. 

When practised with integrity, the only result is coherence, never chaos.

Spirituality and dissociation do not mesh. 
It is not an excuse to avoid responsibility.

Your finances, 

Your health, 

Your relationships

Spirituality is does not exempt you from tending to them to give way to a chaotic, unstructured life. It calls you to do so with a greater consciousness.  

I am not an exception

I am not a contradiction

I am not a fraud nor an imposter

I am not performing a version of spirituality that makes others comfortable

I am rooted and educated

I am natural and disciplined

I am spiritually aware and structurally competent

Yes, both can exist at once

Perhaps the real fracture point is not my existence but the inherited belief from the powers that be... that spirituality and stability cannot occupy the same body.

Spirituality does not diminish my capabilities; it actually refines it.



Be well, beloved,
A🧿🪶