THE GROUNDING CIRCLE
What if your spirituality and liberation work fed each other?
You sense your healing and collective liberation are connected, but spiritual and activist spaces feel miles apart. Burnout isn't a personal failing. It's rooted in a worldview that treats people, bodies, and the earth as resources to use up.
Reconnect with ancestral, animist spirituality, and remember you belong to a living web that can sustain your work without self-sacrifice.
Join a small circle of first readers to read early drafts, test practices, and shape spiritual writing that reaches thousands of other people committed to justice and liberation.
Free · 12 spots · Applications close November 13
Free · 12 spots · Applications close November 13th
“Liberation is not an easy path, but with Sandra’s guidance, it can be a navigable and joy-filled one.”
— Rev. Syd Yang, Buddhist chaplain and spiritual counselor,
Blue Jaguar Healing Arts and The Dharma of Loneliness
THE PROBLEM
mainstream spirituality separates
personal healing from collective liberation
You're already carrying so much. Your paid work, your home, and the people you care for. Then comes the third shift: the organizing, the meetings, the group chats, and the mental load of tracking everyone's safety. For many women, people of color, queer and trans folks, and working-class and poor people, this isn't a hobby. It's survival.
Resting can feel like letting your people down. And even when you do rest, the tiredness stays. Underneath it is a quiet sense that something deeper is missing. You sense spirituality could help, but there are so few places to explore spirit alongside people who share your commitment to justice.
What you find instead are mainstream spiritual spaces that tell you to rise above it all. Tune out the news, trade your activist friends for "high-vibe" ones, find personal peace even if it means turning away from struggle. Some spaces demand blind faith, which can feel too close to the religious dogma and harm many of us already know. And in many mostly white spaces, practices from people of color get stripped of their history, meaning, and original intentions.
Spiritual spaces ask you to step back from the struggle. Activist spaces rarely make room for spirit. You're left with an impossible choice: your spirit or your people.
When you need sustenance the most, spirituality can feel like a luxury for people who can afford to look away.
THE INVITATION
you don't have to choose
Your spirit and your people were never meant to be separate. You can explore your spiritual life without leaving any part of yourself, or anyone you love, behind.
I call this approach "Grounded Mysticism for Collective Liberation":
Mysticism: your own direct relationship with Spirit, however you name it: Source, Divine Love, the Universe, God, the Sacred, All-of-Creation
Grounded: rooted in your body, your community, and the reality of the systems we live under
For collective liberation: about all of us getting free together, not just your own peace.
So why does it feel like you have to choose? For most of human history, ancestral cultures, including my own Korean shamanic lineage, understood all of life as alive, connected, and sacred. That's animism.
Colonization cut those ties. It severed so many of us, in different ways, from land, ancestors, Spirit, and our own bodies. In their place, we inherited a worldview that treats people and the earth as objects to own and exploit.
That worldview lives inside our movements, too. It shows up when we treat ourselves as resources to use up, through the urgency, perfectionism, and self-sacrifice that burn us out. It quietly shrinks what we believe is possible, even for liberation. That's why rest, therapy, and even good anti-oppression work can only go so far. They don't reach the root: a wound of cosmology, in how we understand the world itself.
But this wound can heal. When we return, through simple practices, to an animist way of seeing, we remember that Spirit is universal love and all of life is sacred: people, animals, plants, and the land. Everything belongs, including you.
And what becomes possible is fundamentally different. When we're embraced by the Sacred, instead of believing humans must drive everything on our own, we no longer have to carry everything alone or force change through sheer effort. We find relationships that can actually sustain us:
Belonging: Be a part of a living web of ancestors, land, and community
Guidance: Learn to trust your inner discernment, even when the path ahead is unclear
Calling: Offer your gifts from wholeness rather than depletion
THE PURPOSE
why we shape this together
In a life full of meetings, bills, and grief, how do you actually live this? That's what my writing on this website intends to explore.
And that's where you come in: helping make sure it's grounded in many different lives and truly meets you where you live.
No single person can map this alone. People of different races, cultures, genders, abilities, faiths, and movement roles experience Spirit and struggle in their own ways. On my own, I can mainly share from my own experience, and my truth won't be the same as yours.
Your questions and critiques might be the very ones others are too tired or too unsure to say. With feedback from many people, this work can reach more kinds of lives and offer more paths for different kinds of support. I don't want to write from an ivory tower or a mountaintop. I want to write from the ground, with you.
That's why the Grounding Circle exists: to keep my writing and practices rooted in three realities:
The different lives of people committed to justice and liberation
Systemic oppression and how it impacts our bodies and communities
A living world where land, ancestors, and all beings are kin and sacred
Together, through your questions and honest feedback, we can explore and deepen our understanding of what grounded mysticism looks like across many lives.
ABOUT SANDRA KIM
I come from this work, too
For years, I was "the rock." In my work and with my family and friends. I silenced my own needs to keep others safe. Eventually I saw this wasn't a personal failing. It was a survival role shaped by the systems around us.
I've spent over 25 years supporting people impacted by trauma, violence, and oppression. I founded Everyday Feminism, created trainings on healing from internalized oppression, led community healing spaces, and became a movement chaplain offering spiritual and emotional support to activists.
My spiritual path spans 20 years of Zen Buddhism, Korean shamanism and other shamanic traditions, energy healing, and more. As an initiated Korean shamanic-priestess (무당 mudang) apprentice, I'm always learning what it means to carry an Indigenous Korean tradition on colonized land outside of Korea.
My spiritual journey has changed everything for me. Seeing all of life as sacred and trusting Spirit radically expanded what I believed was possible for myself, my people, and our world.
But many of my teachers and lineages were apolitical or ahistorical. I had to work out on my own how spiritual practice meets the real demands of justice and liberation work.
You don't have to do that alone. That's why I'm creating the Grounding Circle.
If you’d like to learn more, you can read about my journey or background and trainings.
HOW THIS WORKS
a simple monthly rhythm
The Grounding Circle is an invitation to go deeper. You’ll explore my frameworks and practices up close with me and other like minded peope, and your feedback will help shape the writing I share with my wider community.
Like the land, the circle moves in seasons. It’s free, and you join one season at a time. Each season is three months with a small group of 12 members. The Winter Season runs from November 2026 through January 2027, with three drafts, three live calls, and a monthly group energy healing. After that, you can sign up again, take a break, or come back later.
Each month, you'll get two emails:
My draft and prompts: A draft of my next piece, with a few guiding questions to make giving feedback easier. I'll also ask one short question about where spirituality and justice meet, or don't, in your life right now. Your answers help shape future writing, and you can send your own questions anytime too.
An invitation to the live call: A reminder to RSVP for that month's Zoom video call.
Then you can share feedback in one or both ways, whatever works best for you:
In writing, on your own time: Within two weeks, comment on the document, reply by email, or send a voice message.
At the live video calls on Zoom: Once a month, we meet for 60 minutes on Saturday at 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET to connect, discuss the draft, and explore next month's topic.
Either way, you'll see what changed. When the piece is published on my website, you'll see how your feedback shaped it. I take every piece of feedback seriously. I won't use every suggestion, but I'll do my best to address it, weave it in, or be honest about what the piece doesn't cover.
What’s shared in the circle stays in the circle. I’ll never share your story or words publicly without your explicit permission.
WHAT YOU’LL RECEIVE
small circle, deep roots
With just 12 people, there's room for every voice, and for something real to grow. Here's what you'll receive:
Your feedback, truly heard: I read every response myself, whether it's a sharp critique or something that stirred your heart. As appropriate, I'll address what you share in the writing, and I may follow up with questions to go deeper.
A spiritual anchor, not a guru: I share frameworks and practices, and you're invited to question everything and make it your own.
Room to wrestle with big ideas: Dig into cosmology, colonization, Spirit, and liberation with people who love to think critically and push each other's understanding.
Monthly group energy healing: I lead a live group energy healing session to help you release what you've been getting in your way and bring in support for your life’s purpose.
Real impact: Get practical frameworks for your own life, connect with like-minded people, and know that your insights helped shape work reaching more than 10,000 people on my email list.
Testimonial
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WHO THIS IS FOR
is the Grounding Circle right for you?
This circle is for you if you:
Are committed to justice and collective liberation, in your work, community, or daily life
Curious about how spirituality can support this work, whether you've practiced for years or are just starting out
Willing to explore the possibility that Spirit is universal love and all of life is sacred
Enjoy reading longer pieces and sitting with ideas before responding
Willing to give honest, specific feedback, including questions and sharp critique
Able to set aside about 1–2 hours a month for this engagement
This circle isn't for you if you:
Are looking for one-on-one spiritual coaching or a structured course
Want a spiritual space that stays neutral or avoids politics
See spirituality as an escape from the world, not a way to engage with it
Need support for an emergency or crisis situation
Would rather receive simple answers than question, critique, and help shape them
Can't set aside 1–2 hours a month right now (future seasons are always an option)
I especially welcome people who often don’t feel included in mainstream spiritual spaces, like people of color, queer, trans, disabled, working-class and poor people, and anyone who doesn't feel "spiritual enough" but feels a clear pull toward this.
I'm looking for a mix of life experiences, backgrounds, and movement roles, not an impressive résumé. If I can't include you this season, I'll invite you first when Spring Season opens in February 2027.
FINAL INVITATION
your personal healing and our collective liberation belong together
If you've been longing for a spirituality that takes justice seriously, one that never asks you to look away from what’s going on in the world, this is an invitation to you.
Explore it with a small circle of people who share your values and commitments, and help shape writing that will reach thousands of others searching for the same thing.
It's free, it takes about 1–2 hours a month, and there are just 12 spots for the Winter Season.
I'd love to read your application. Applications close Friday, November 13th and I’ll invite people into the circle on November 16th.
Will you join me?
