All parenting is spiritual parenting. The very act of caring for a human being who is totally dependent is spiritual, for in tending the body, we are caring for the spirit, the vital principal. As with all spiritual acts, we may be more of less aware of the sacred essence of what we are doing. The more aware we are, the greater the spiritual benefit for all concerned.

“Spirit” is defined by my Merriam-Webster dictionary as “[the] animating or vital principal held to give life to physical organisms,” or “a supernatural being or essence.” And “spiritual” as “of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit,” or “relating to sacred matters.” Thus, spiritual parenting is our relationship to, and our affect on, the spirits of our children.

Conscious conception, as discussed in detail in Jeannine Parvati’s book of the same name, is the ideal place to start the journey of spiritual parenting. But our spiritual parenting journey can begin with conception on purpose, conception by desire, conception by accident, conception by design in the lab with hormone injections, forced conception, coerced conception, even conception-or-else. Spirituality is more in how we view what we are doing than in how we come to be doing it.

All of life is holy. Spirit plays through all things: those that we label good and those that we label bad. One task of spiritual parenting is to be present and fully, lovingly engaged – whether things are going well or poorly. One of my apprentices longed for a baby. After many years, she finally met the man of her dreams, married and became pregnant. The baby was born with severe Down’s syndrome; it was recommended that she leave her child at the hospital, to be placed in a care facility. She refused. Her husband filed for divorce. Spiritual parenting led her to provide her infant with an environment that activated all of his senses: colors, sprarkles, movement, music, wonderful scents, textures, breast milk. Not only did he survived, he thrived, and surpassed all expectations for him. In fact, he has a remarkable healing touch and by the age of six was offering to ease the pain of anyone within his reach.

All of life is holy and whole. I eat you and you eat me is the holy rule is this wholeness. Spiritual parenting includes understanding and tending to the special nutritional needs of infants and children. The growing brain requires cholesterol (animal fat) in order to develop properly. The young immune system needs large amounts of vitamin B12 to thrive. Both of these, as well as several dozen other nutrients required for children, are avaliable to us only as gifts from the animals.

Young children are omnivores. To limit their diets due to parental conceptions of what is and is not spiritual food is to short-change their intelligence and health for the rest of their lives.

Vegan, raw food, heroic, and overly strict macrobiotic diets do not provide adequate nourishment for infants and children. Vegetarian diets that include butter as well as full-fat cheeses, yogurt, and milk, may supply enough cholesterol and vitamin B12, and others of the several dozen critical nutrients that come to us only as gifts from the animals. The optimum diet for very young humans is rich in organ meats, muscle meats, and all kinds of fish, but not processed meats (sausage, salami, bacon, ham, bologna, hot dogs). I have heard parents defend a limited diet as “more spiritual.” Perhaps they are, for the parents. But, as an herbalist, I do believe that plants are as sentient as animals. I know that plants are capable of feeling. To eat only plants does not strike me as more spiritual, only more cut off from the gifts of life and from life itself. And that is not my definition of spiritual.

All of life is holy and whole and part of everything that is. Spiritual parenting connects to the larger picture. It sees the flow of generations, the web of Ancestral connections, the spiral of life turning, turning. Spiritual parenting sees into the fabric woven of blood lines and song lines, and makes of it a garment suited for each new baby. If there is a ritual, so much the better. Rituals help us spin our stories together into a beautiful tapestry. Rituals tie the new baby into the carpet of incarnated souls that precede it: parents and grandparents and great grands and so on. Baptisms, christenings, and godparents, being presented to the community and naming ceremonies are some of the rituals of spiritual parenting.

It is important to remember that each child’s soul chooses the parents and the home it needs for its growth and understanding. We do not have to be other than we are to engage in spiritual parenting, we need only to love who we are. When we love ourselves as we are – with all our faults, our tempers, our impatience, our lacks – then we can truly offer unconditional to our children. And, that, to me, is what spiritual parenting is all about.

The goal of spiritual parenting is not to create a perfect child (tiger mothering not withstanding). The goal of spiritual parenting is to nurture a whole and holy child. To do this requires that we become whole and holy ourselves, not by forcing ourselves to fit into a preconceived mold of spirituality, but by allowing the natural flow of spirit to burst open the gates our hearts so we fall in love with life itself.

Spirit is as close as your breath; spiritus is breath. And our breath is a gift from the plants. Let their joy inform you. Let them teach you how to keep the spirit. Read More