Winter Solstice is here y’all. I used to suffer the seasonal depression white folks talk about on the commercials for pills you can take for it. I was in college when it got real bad. Something traumatic happened to me. My parents released me alone into a world I wasn’t ready for, and I still have to atone with myself for letting it bother me for so long.
Winter Solstice is here. In an attempt to be more deliberate about honest expression, I’ma write the way I talk. The way I would say it to you if we were face to face. I’m sitting at the computer with a baby in my lap, thoughts swirling through my head, and no plan for how to climb out of the thought abyss I’m in except to write this piece and hope somebody reads it til the end.
Essentially, what I’m gonna do is set up like, 3 weeks worth of journal entry questions/scenarios for myself. That’s 21 days. While I’m on my fake ass social media fast, which really just means I’m not posting in groups as much or scrolling all day to check up on new randomness in other people’s lives, I’ll take time to write every day on the thoughts I’m tryna mature into awareness by feelin deeper inside.
Here go them entry questions/scenarios
– What and where is my community? What community am I a part of in the real world? Who calls my name at roll? Whose names am I calling at roll?
– How do want it? In 5’s, 10’s, or 20’s?
– Who, what, where, why, or how I’m feeling in this moment in all the senses I’m aware of
– What is expansion? How am I expanding today? I wrote a whole ass post. I’ll write for pay all day, but this is important too.
I could go on and on with questions, and scenarios, but the other real important piece to getting through winter solstice for me is meditation. I don’t call sitting in asana with my eyes closed meditation though. In this language I’d like to forget and replace with vibration and telepathy, meditation means “to deeply focus ones mind for a period of time in silence or with the aid of chanting.” I’m going to make up my own chant. I don’t know what it’s gon be, I’ma just let it happen the way it happen. Before all that, here go my steps:
1. I’ma throw some protection around myself with some wood and my prayer for my ancestors to look out for me.
2. Then I’m going to get on my floor and sit with something that represents each of the elements in front of me. I usually get a stone for earth, incense for air, water, and a candle for fire (lit).
3. I’m going to place my attention on each element, thank them for sustaining me, and my spirit is going to naturally focus in on one. It’s a different one each time, but if I’m focused on it, it’s for a reason. If it’s fire, I know there might be something I’m not speaking up about, or I’m being too lethargic. If it’s water, I know I’m either thirsty, or I need to go with the flow on something I’m resisting. If it’s earth, I know I’m being loose in my movement and need to ground myself. If it’s air, I’m not studying a situation deeply enough, or I need to think harder for a solution, OR let go, and trust that the solution will come in time. My focus on it usually means I’m lacking in it.
I always miss grounding when it gets cold outside, but this winter, being outside in the sun when it’s shining is going to be so important for me. It’s cold, but that sun is going to break up the monotony of these 4 walls.
When I think about rose bushes, how they are all so beautiful, but some are tall and climbing, some are short and broad, and then how each rose is not identical, I think about what maybe each rose thought different to come out unlike the one right next it. I was like, I want to be a blossoming thing. That’s what the lotus is about that yall love so much. Everybody be out here ever awakening. What’s your current blossoming process? I wanna hear it.
The photo is a piece by BK artist Mickalene Thomas titled “Don’t forget about me (Keri)”
The 9 Minds 