I’m the last person one would imagine to take the vaccine within the sphere of my spiritual community.

Aside from my personal circle, that community is about 40,000-strong on social media. When one is public with their life and has taken on any kind of leadership, their “persona” is at once real and imagined.

People imagine that because I have been a strong advocate for body sovereignty, alternative health practices, transparency in vaccine ingredients/protocols (30 years of advocacy), that I would automatically take a strong stand against the COVID-19 shot.

I’m writing about this not because I’m some important person whose vaccine status merits comment, but because I know that there are many spiritual folks out there hiding their status in fear of being shunned and feeling alone.

I also considered not writing this. It would be easy to just smile and nod and pretend that I agree with all the anti-vax theories out there, and protect myself against the hurtful reactions I’ve received.

But then, I’ve always had a difficult time ignoring a call to action from my heart, which usually passes off the frailties of my human condition with intonations of: “So you’re going to keep mum because you’re worried what others will think of you? Okay then.”

Here’s the truth of it.

When the pandemic hit, I was busy supporting my daughter and her partner through their birth plan, as our first grandbaby was about to come earth-side. Everything in my body was attuned to what they may need to give birth during uncertain times. Because of Covid, I couldn’t be at the hospital when my daughter had an unplanned birth experience. That was my first real rub against what Covid meant in our lives as a family and community.

Suddenly, we were also faced with my partner’s layoff. Since we didn’t know what this virus was, or how it could affect us, our collective decision was to choose time off work to protect the most vulnerable person in the household. It’s had reverberating effects on our financial reality since.

You’d think that when the vaccine came out, I’d be hopping to it to end the madness, but I personally did not. Many years of an alternative path was a strong influence.

My interest in holistic health came about naturally from early days of watching my European grandmother use herbal medicines and foraging the woods. What we could not source for lack of money or supply in Communist Poland, we found for ourselves in nature. I also have much older, ancestral memories of Wise Woman ways, stemming lifetimes past. When I returned to my walk as a witch, I remembered the old ways, and unfortunately, how “medicine” took advantage of women’s suffering over the centuries.

I’m not going to get into it here, but one could research the history of hysterectomies and the prescribing of Valium as “mother’s little helper” as only two instances of the medical community invalidating women’s mental health needs.

To be clear, I am not against all modern medicine and science. When I need to balance my hormones for instance, or be proactive about my health, I see my naturopath, but when I need surgery, I see a surgeon. If I truly need antibiotics, I get them. I rely on science for many things in my life, including my witch’s path.

What makes me distrust the allopathic community is that the industry does not acknowledge the science of naturopathy, homeopathy, herbalism, indigenous knowledge, and so on, as adjunct and necessary. Allopathic medicine is not the only science there is, but it often believes itself to be. That much arrogance makes me uneasy, and causes mistrust.

I have great respect for the nurses and doctors who have been toiling through Covid, saving lives, watching people die and unable to help them. I have great gratitude for all those in the medical field who looked after me or mine in times of need. And also, there have been times when I could not trust their care. But I do not like to throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water. So, when Covid came around, I was both hopeful that science would prevail, and took some information with a grain of salt.

My initial instinct was to say no to the vaccine. The reason I never took the flu vaccine was not only because I had a strong health practice of my own and felt I didn’t need it, but also because whenever I asked any doctor for a list of vax ingredients, they would all say to trust the professionals, and name ingredients like eggs, avoiding the ones I may not want in my body. That supremacy pushed me even further away. Transparency is incredibly important if one is to earn someone’s trust, and in those cases, mine was not earned.

I believe in body autonomy. I believe in the right to choose, and also, I believe in protecting my community, my family, my self. I trust my intuition above all, and my body wisdom. In North America, as in many free countries, we have little need of thinking as a community. Our individualism is everything. We have a difficult time being told what to do, and feel an inalienable right to protest. I do believe in protest as part of a healthy society actually, as long as it’s not a knee-jerk reaction.

Because Covid is of the modern world, filled with modern minds, and with already so much distrust of governments and corporations, we easily could take quick steps into a “plandemic” theory. I swam in those waters for a bit.

I took the vaccine to protect my own lungs—which have suffered acutely from exposure to black mold and asbestos, to protect the lungs of my family, and to protect the indigenous communities whose traditional lands I live on and which I am in close proximity to when I visit my family. I took the vaccine not because I completely trusted the science behind it, but because I do trust myself, and my Self said: this is right for you.

There is always surprise when I pause someone on their assumption that I haven’t been vaccinated. Total disbelief. Often anger and disappointment. Sometimes accusations of betrayal. Usually a quick “unfollow” and words such as…

“Don’t you know this is a plan for mass exterminations to control world population?”

“Your consciousness has been placed in a synthetic reality.”

“You won’t ascend to the 5th Dimension.”

“I won’t be able to meet with you because you’re shedding covid and will hijack my consciousness.”

“You’re now separated from your astral body.”

“You’re living in a different dimension from me but won’t be able to recognize it.”

“You’re full of magnets and will be tracked by the Illuminati.”

“I can’t believe you fell for the plandemic.”

“You’re a communist.”

“You may not live to see your granddaughter grow up because those who are vaccinated will probably be dead in two years’ time.”

“Covid is just the flu.”

“Have you noticed anything strange about yourself?”

Surprisingly, even though my consciousness is supposedly in a synthetic reality, I still feel the same, still work toward the betterment of society, I’m still teaching about the magic of wise woman ways, and I’m still deeply connected to the earth. A recent test at the naturopath’s showed my cell health as that of someone younger than 20, and I’m 61. But when I mention my overall vitality, the comment always is: just wait two years. Ugh.

I’ve lost friends whom I truly valued. I’m also blessed with people who see things 100 percent differently from me and have remained friends. But I know how it feels to not truly feel part of the pack anymore and it is isolating. I’ve done this before though—left a common philosophy to strike out on my own. In the end, our own north star must guide us.

Personally, I don’t wish to take a dance with Covid. I don’t know if my lungs would make it. Some have said it’s not so bad. Others have died. In a senior’s home where my mother-in-law used to reside, over 30 people passed from Covid. Thirty! That sometimes only hits home when it affects us personally.

To be honest, I can’t know for sure what the cause of this virus is. That does not matter. What matters is that I listen to myself, to what I can reasonably trust, and to be mindful of those around me. Do I trust all government? No. Do I think corporations are often greedy and corrupt? Yes. Do I trust Big Pharma? You can probably guess the answer to that. But I do trust myself?

My Self has been shunned, yelled at, laughed at, blasted with all the ways I will soon be dead. I’m literally pained by the division in my spiritual community. What used to be the domain of religion is now the domain of the spiritual—the vaxed are ascending, the unvaxed will stay and suffer in the 3D. Sound familiar?

Is this spirituality? Is this living through the heart? Is fear the motivator for the spiritual now?

Thank goodness for my grounded spirituality, my feet on the earth, the love of those who don’t agree with me but stay, and the community of people who never say they are spiritual but live with kindness.

In my vulnerability, I hope this helps someone who is also living through a shift in community. In my vulnerability I wish for us to be able to respect each other and to live peacefully with differing views.

I hope for conversation that speaks to the safety of all.

~