How to Build a Soultribe – Step One, Make Space.
Welcome to 2009, The Year of the Soultribe! Follow all the related posts by clicking “soultribe” in my tag cloud, or following me on Twitter, where I’ll announce new posts.
A few weeks ago Kazari sent in a question for Advice Girl. Kazari likes the idea of a Dreamboarding Circle, and she dug reading up on our soulcare community, Monkfish Abbey, back in the States. In the end her question boiled down to this:
So I guess the question that I have is, where can I find people like you in real life? Or, how do I go about helping such a community to grow in my own house?
Or, more basically, what do I do with this spiritual crisis I grew all by myself? I feel like I need a community to help sort it all out.
This is not the first time I’ve been asked this. It happens quite often. Even more often people write to me about how badly their church fits them, or how worn down they are from trying to find their spiritual “place.” Most of the time those folks resign themselves to one of two things: leaving, or staying somewhere that is a very poor fit – somewhere that pinches their toes, leaves blisters on their heels and keep them from reaching the mountain top because, damn it, their feet hurt too bad to climb on up there!
Soulsiblings, this is the year to build our tribes. No more wandering about on our own, or cramming ourselves into institution and ideologies that no longer fit. This, my friends, is not for us. It’s time to move on – or perhaps more precisely it’s time to move in: to move in to the territory that is truly our own, to put some holes in the wall and hang up our oil paintings, to stick pictures on the fridge. It’s time to make our souls at home.
In the upcoming weeks and months, I will be writing posts that in one way or another have to deal with forming your Soultribe. Grant it, they might be only tangentially related, and of course there will be rabbit trails along the way. But over all, this will be the theme.
So here’s your first assignment: make space for your tribe. Rites and rituals are powerful because they take an abstract idea and make it physical. When you can see, touch, smell, hear or taste your dream, it becomes solid, it becomes real. So make a physical space in your home for your Soultribe. How? Here are two suggestsions
Vest your space. Do something once each week, every week, for at least one month that communicates welcome and gathering to you. Maybe you stack the magazines and fluff the pillows every Monday. Maybe you bake a loaf of bread on Friday night. Perhaps you replace all the candles and light up the room on Sunday.
In liturgical traditions, before a priestess officiates at a service, she dons the robes and stoles of her office. This is called putting on her vestments. When you prepare a space for a holy purpose you vest your space – you prepare the space so that something sacred can get born. What very simple thing could you do as a one-month experiment in vesting your space?
Send an Invitation. Nothing anchors me into a new reality like building a shrine. I’ve made them to quiet my demons, to honor my anger, and to let go of my burdens. Most recently I made one as an invitation to my Soultribe. It consists of a dollhouse chair, a tea light, and my December dreamboard. It took about ten minutes. Well, a couple days of musing about it, then ten minutes to set it up. It’s on the window sill behind my desk and every time I sit down at my computer, I light the candle and as I blow out the match I see that breath as a whisper of welcome. I’m making space for whoever The Muse or The Universe wants to bring my way. (I’m so curious to see what happens!) What object symbolize tribe to you? What things communicate welcome and belonging? Where can you gather them to indicate your openness to the in-gathering that is to come?
What will you do to make space for your Soultribe? Let us know in the comments and put a picture up at our Soulshrine Flickr group.
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January 1st, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Rachelle, I love that you’re writing about this… Paul and I sat across the table the night after Christmas talking about this very thing. That this will be the year of finding/creating our tribe. I love these ideas. And am sad you’re not still in Seattle. Love ya’.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Love this post, Rachelle. Thank you. I’m bursting with inspiration!
January 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
stopping in to say happy new year to you - and as always I find inspiration for myself. I will continue to read your insight and look for some of my own. Best wishes for you and your tribe in 2009!
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:03 am
Wow,
What a beautiful, amazing answer to my question. Thankyou so much. I did get some friends to come over and build dreamboards together, and I’m very pleased with the result.
It’s a beautiful drawing of a lemon tree, surrounded by laughing, happy, strong and wise people.
When I make my scanner behave, I’ll post it.
thanks again,
k
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 am
Oh yes, this is what I needed to read, so very much! Going off to let the ideas percolate…
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 am
This is exactly the question I have been asking. I’m lighting a candle and preparing the way for some new tribe members…
I’m so glad I found you (through Jen Lee).
Happy New Year!
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
[...] MagpieGirl on Soul Tribes (On having one of your own) [...]
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:33 am
I’m going to vest my space by cleaning up my downstairs every Sunday. This is something I try to do anyway, but now I’ll view it as a way to make my space homey, inviting, and tribe-ready at all times. I love the shrine idea, too. Think I’ll work on that as well.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
it is serendipity i have come to your blog… this has been something i have craved for some time now… looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds… in the meantime i shall focus on how best to honour the space…
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
This rings a bell right now - not sure what is percolating, but something is. And my chance, today was the day I took a loaf of fresh bread to a neighbor I want to know better. Maybe that’s making a space, too, huh? Going out a little? It’s unusual for me these days.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:27 am
What a wonderful post and great advice! One of the best things I’ve found through blogging is my tribe, including wonderful, inspiring you!
January 6th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Beautiful post! I’m feeling very inspired by it. This is something I’ve been mulling over for quite some time, but have not made any physical moves towards creating it. I’ll do that today. Thanks as always Rachelle!
January 6th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I have been cleaning my house for days & days now, (even the cabinets:) I believe nothing new can come into your life unless you make room for it. I have a place just for me (right now it is the tub) but am working on transforming the back porch.
I look forward to reading & learning more in the Soultribe Series.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:31 am
i love this!
thank you!!!!!!
mccabe x
January 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
I’m in!
Cushions, mugs, teacups and teapots communicate welcome and belonging for me. I’m going to gather those things in my studio.
To vest the space - once a week, for the next month, I will prepare food in the studio. Soup, Bread, Cake, Cookies. Fill the space with the fragrance of food. A physical symbol of the spiritual nourishment that will take place here.
And I feel that a campfire symbolises tribe. Or the fireplace, or in the absence of either, simply the glow of candlelight. A place where the tribe gathers to tell stories, share a warming cuppa, and rekindle the soul stuff.
January 9th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Dear Rachelle,
How lovely to find your bright spirit here—even if you are facing down the Gremlins—especially so! I adore your notion of Soul Tribe. Yes, I agree, now is the time we must gather together, once and for all. You are so young and full of promise. I am an old(er) soul, deep into my wise woman years, and my heart dances when younger women take up the torch. Oh, yes, I am a non-tradtional “minister” as well. And to answer your question about a little sacred space for ourselves. Well, when one gets a bit older and the kids are gone, one has a tendency to take over the whole house and turn it into an abbey. So lovely to be able to do so…And to meet you here.
Believe, breathe, and be well.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:51 am
[...] Everybody needs a tribe. [...]
January 17th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Hey Rachelle,
I’ve followed your blogs sporatically since going to Monkfish and I’ve always enjoyed reading it, so nows the perfect time to get involved. I find the soultribe idea intriguing because it creates an active community.
To vest the space, I light the candle on the soultribe invitation shrine, I put books back on the shelf and get the laudry off of the chair so that it looks tidied up for guests every Saturday. Then, I write short reflection on the week’s journey.
I’m excited to see where the sould tribe goes.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
[...] is an ongoing series about How to Build Your Soultribe. Click here for step one and step two, or follow me on Twitter for notification when a new post is up. To listen to this [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
[...] about Soultribes has got me to reminiscing about my last clan, Monkfish Abbey. Here are *8 Things the monkfishers [...]