Hi SOUL Hi! Lovianhal!
How you? I’m glad you’re here. I’m here too! I love you.
Gurl. You know Tabitha Brown right? Of course you know Tab. I cannot with sincerity and earnestness call her Auntie Tab because I have had several more rotations around the sun than she’s had and that would be more weird and “West Virginia” than I’m willing to embrace at this juncture of my life. Saying that, Tabitha Brown, since the beginning of her meteoric rise to fame and fortune, has been naming and giving sentience to things that maybe we would not have if we hadn’t seen her do it with such fun and fervor. Why yes, I am speaking about Donna. Her hair. Whom, at the time of this writing, has a whole line (and a couple of flavors) of natural hair products. But lest we forget her famed cooking spoon and her abs and I think Tab named her biceps too. The point is, there is something magical and inspirational about what Tabitha Brown was able to do by holding public court and conversation with the many aspects of herself that she invited as themselves–to her many interwebs conversations with us.
So.
On some randomness last week, (I mentioned this in part in the glorious conversation we had on last week’s show–the link is below) surely it was a form of creative procrastination, (remind me again to tell you about this arduous process I’m still experiencing in releasing Book 4 in time for Sunday’s Fall Equinox)–I decided it was time for my hair and I to have a conversation. I started this paragraph with “on some randomness” and I meant it. It was random. It also probably, really wasn’t. It was a conversation that was long overdue.
Growing up, my hair and I weren’t always friends. The messages I received about her, both in and out of my childhood home were not loving. I always wanted “Rae Dawn Chong” hair. Remember Rae Dawn Chong? She had these long, dark, draping spirals of coils and curls that I thought was just thee most beautiful thing I had ever seen on anyone’s head. Because my mom had not been taught how to love up on her natural hair, she certainly didn’t pass any natural hair love on to me. So there was that. I grew up in the creamy crack era. “Beautiful” hair, when I was growing up, was stick straight and mid-back long. The longer the better– and weaves weren’t really a thing unless you were rich and/or famous (as far as I’m aware). So there was that. Part of a young girls attractiveness (read: “value”) when I was a tender roni, was often expressed in her hair’s texture and length. Bleh.
One time, at band camp (read: middle school) I got one of them Jerri curls because– Rae Dawn Chong. And also, Coming to America. (let your Sooooooul Gloooooooow!)
It didn’t work out.
When my mom finally let me get the creamy crack, for the rest of my middle, High School and college years, my hair stayed mechanically straight. This lasted until my later twenties when I started to dye it (and get length enhancements :). I will also say that for all of these years, my hair never really grew past my shoulders. I thought that was just cause (as the messages about Black hair were delivert) my hair just didn’t grow long like that.
Whell.
Fast forward to having Aubrei. I had stopped dying my hair golds and auburns and reds and stayed with my natural black-ish color. I had also stopped using products with all them chemicals on my hair and skin. I also started fasting and juicing and learning how to eat food to live. Some time into this process–Carla Clarkson had been my hair dresser for yeeeeeears at this point (I kept my hair at bob length for the most part)– I decided that I wanted to grow my hair long. I’ll also add here that I still didn’t really know my hair’s true texture. I would wash it and I would blow dry it out and flat iron it straight–regardless of length. There’s more to this story, but for ease and grace, we’ll put a pin in that here. Maybe it will come up again when I finally write my memoirs.
*insert fast forward sound*
Chile. I still remember the day I finally realized the “Rae Dawn Chong” coily curly hair I was so enamored with growing up was on my own head the whole time. Looking back, I think my fascination with her hair, was a subconscious remembrance of something I already knew about myself, but didn’t have access to in my young age. And because the people around me, also grew up around people who taught them what they knew about natural hair–mostly a form of self-hatred–they passed that ish on to me. I am more than clear I am not the only one. AND, this is not a judgement. That fuckery ended with me because I chose to end it. Since she was a baby, daughter LOVES her natural hair and wears afros and braids and whatever else she fancies like the young Goddess she is. I learned to box braid and whatever else, so she could wear her hair the way she wanted–the way I wanted to when I was her age. The way I can now.
My hair and I have been on a long a$$ journey. But, I never considered her sentient. I never considered her a her. It was just my hair. Sometimes I liked her and sometimes, meh. Sometimes she looked how I liked. Sometimes, meh. But since EVERYTHING else in my life is changed and changing, I decided it was high time to make some changes around how I speak to and about myself.
Back to Tab.
I was SUPREMELY inspired by Tab naming her hair Donna and I wondered how she came upon that name. I wondered if she simply asked her hair her name and her hair was like, “Gurl, I have been trying to tell you my name is Donna this whole time. But thank you for finally asking and then listening for my response. Jeez.”
Anyway, that’s essentially what I did. I was sitting on my bed and I started talking to my hair like, “Hey mama! How you? I know we haven’t always been on the best of terms, but I just wanted you to know that I’m in the right frame of mind to change all that. I love you. I really do. And since we’re going to start afresh, I guess it’s appropriate for me to ask your name.”
Immediately, I heard a song.
It was loud in my head, like it was playing in my headphones. The song was Laila by Eric Clapton. But I also heard– “It’s not Lay-la. It’s pronounced Lah-ee-la.”
And for the next several days, I couldn’t get that song out of my head. What I also couldn’t get out of my head were NEW lyrics to the song, along with the NEW pronunciation of her name. The chorus was first:
La-ee-la
I see you growing long La-ee-la.
I see you growing strong La-ee-la
I feel you glowing down to my tailbone.
La-ee-la
Mystifying, La-ee-la
Touching the sky, La-ee-la
Shining like a star La-ee-ee-la-a.
La-ee-la
Your name means Dark Beauty, La-ee-la
Your waves look like the sea, La-ee-la
You give life or drown the weak, La-ee-ee-la-a
And then came the verses (some parts were inspired by last week’s class btw):
We’ve been trying since we’re little.
To get on just one accord.
But through their eyes, we sucked in all their lies,
Those lies expense we can’t afford.
Our ancestors wore you covered.
Through laws your glory they tried to tame
Your coils and curls blasphemed around the world.
They tried to kill us, Tis’ their shame.
Just like water you are memory.
Akashic records sing your name.
Sacred text presumes your dialect.
Within each strand a universe.
And when I put it all together, I had a love song to my hair and all the hair in the entirety of my family line. I healed something profound in me that I had been carrying around for all these many years.
I recorded the song acapella and shared it with a few of my fren frens. My Sistar Bunmi then relayed to me how Tabitha Brown was at an event last week (?) imploring those present to name their hair, in essence, because it’s part of what had changed her life.
I did not know this Tab event/conversation happened, presumably around the same time I was communing with my own hair. But I do believe because we’re all connected, this is, in part, how SUPREME INSPIRATION works. Or some such. Oh, you thought we was gonna being talking about Doody this week? Lol. If he comes, up, great. If he doesn’t, great. But you know we prolly will…
With that in mind, there shalt be plenty to discuss In the WuWu Metaphysical Studio tonight…the upcoming election, what it means to be inspired. My personal experience with meeting Diddy and why I don’t have a picture with him (maybe) and how to tune in to SUPREME inspiration, particularly when you have no idea what to do about something you’re up to, how I learned to trust the process–and of course, wherever else the convo goes.
Tonight’s Starfolk University staff:
Sylvie Spielman-Vaught– Dean of Goddess Studies
Bridge’tte Starrgate – Dean of Spiritual Mid-Wifery
Please Welcome a Brand NEW Guest Stars to Starfolk U tonight:
Master Practitioner at the Agape International Spiritual Center–Eisha Mason will join in the 8P Hour.
Of course, Jordan (Nathan) is in the WuWu Metaphysical Studio with me, so Join us tonight 7-10p on WURD! Bring a journal, pen and 3 frens…
#starfolku #starpeopleish #comegetfree
“The women remembered.”
―The Stellar Trilogy, Book 4:Deep Roots
Envy McKee
You can listen live with this link and/or on the WURD App. We ARE Live on the FB Live OR Twitch too tonight!
Per usual, in EVERY single thing we do, the intention is transformation. And well moisturized legs.
Pssst! This month our #shiftprompt is:
The Art BEing SUPREME
Acronym:
Soul
Upleveled,
Purpose
Receives
Extraordinary
Monumental
Energy
(The SUPREME code)
No responses yet