Women’s bodies have historically held the needs, expectations, and survival of others before their own. BIPOC bodies have carried the weight of displacement, violence, forced labor, assimilation, and the inherited vigilance those histories require.

These landscapes were stripped of the knowledge, relationship, and conditions that make tending possible. Then they were expected to not just to flourish but nourish.

These bodies weren’t abandoned. They were enclosed.

Over generations, these ruptures gave rise to lineages of trauma that echo through body, family, and community, often speaking in the language of illness until they are finally witnessed.

Body remembers.

Through posture, breath, nervous system, instinct, and the stories we tell ourselves about what it takes to be safe.

Body remembers belonging before enclosure. Reciprocity before domination. Relationship before rupture.

Soul tending is not learning something new.

Soul tending is remembering what body has always known, and begins by asking, “What is my own story?”

Relationship is the original medicine. Soul Tending sessions are where we practice it. Together, we listen to body, dreams, ancestors, land, and soul until relationship begins to restore itself.

S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

#beyourcommunity ~ #youareecosystem

elder well, die well, ancestor well

@kelleysoularts