The Great Misunderstanding
Why Ascension Is Not the Point
For years now, the word ascension has echoed through spiritual circles like a promise.
A golden carrot hanging just out of reach.
Ascend your consciousness.
Transcend the body.
Rise above the ego.
Reach for 5D, 7D, 12D.
Become pure light.
It sounds beautiful—noble even. But there’s a quiet violence hiding underneath the glow.
Because what is it, really, that we’re trying to escape?
The weight of form?
The ache of grief?
The chaos of the world?
The skin we live in?
Ascension culture tells us that the density of this world is something to outgrow.
But that’s the great misunderstanding.
You didn’t come here to get out.
You came here to get in.
Into your body.
Into this moment.
Into the raw, complex, contradictory beauty of Earth.
You spent lifetimes trying to arrive here.
This planet, this timeline, this body—it wasn’t a punishment.
It was a sacred assignment.
And now, many of us are turning away from it.
We call it awakening, but often it’s just another form of spiritual avoidance.
Meditating to dissociate.
Raising our frequency to bypass pain.
Downloading galactic codes to feel special instead of grounded.
Channeling beings who never have to pay rent, feed a child, or hold someone dying.
We talk about being “lightworkers,” but light without root burns out.
We talk about being “starseeds,” but forget that every seed needs soil.
The Earth doesn’t need more people trying to leave.
She needs people who remember how to stay.
Who can feel it all and not run.
Who can hold paradox in their palms like fire and water.
We’ve exalted the upper chakras and abandoned the lower ones.
We’ve made heaven the goal and left the body behind.
But it is in the body that the mystery reveals itself.
It is in the mud that transformation happens.
It is in the ground that we grow.
Yes, there are stars inside you.
Yes, you are infinite, radiant, multi-dimensional.
But none of that matters if you can’t love someone through their sorrow,
or sit in silence with your own.
You’re not here to transcend your humanity.
You’re here to sanctify it.
So I offer this:
Let go of the myth of escape.
Fall back into the arms of this world.
Not as a lesser reality, but as a living temple.
The real spiritual revolution isn’t in floating away.
It’s in staying present.
Staying open.
Staying on the ground.
This is the new invitation.
Not to rise above life,
but to meet it, fully, as it is.
Reflection:
Where in your life are you trying to spiritually "ascend" as a way to avoid being fully here?
What would it feel like to stay?