One of the most common questions people ask me at this juncture in my path is some form of:

“Has embracing your Ancestors led you to lose professional opportunities?” 

Even more drip-drop essentialized, this question is, “What do other people think of you?” And, “Does it matter to you what they think?”

It’s usually asked in really polite ways, for whatever politeness is worth, and I don’t typically find it intrusive. Some form of this question is also such a common occurrence in my life now, that it confirms to me a deep burning desire so many of us are holding in our hearts to truly walk in the world as who we are called to be, even if we don’t quite know what it will look like,

or how it will call us to keep changing.

We hesitate when we feel this desire inside of ourselves, because we fear losing livelihood, we fear being misunderstood, we fear being cast out.

We fear what we will have to give up.

And that fear can keep us from walking in the greater direction of our hearts, if we let it.

Because, of course there are sacrifices. Of course. I would be lying to you if I didn’t acknowledge that. There were and are going to continue to be many things given up at the altar of who we were to be more of who we really are.

But here’s the thing:

Any part of us that we are hiding in order to survive, that is where liberation is calling us to go and to grow. The invitation is to trust that there is existence beyond survival. The invitation is to thrive, honey.

T h r i v e.

Where we have to contort our truest, highest selves in order to squeeze through and into known quantities, that is where illness manifests and rules the day.

Contortions or masks we put on in order to be “ok” in the world can also be where we are never quite well, but never quite unwell. We can be easily controlled in the “ok” space—not wanting to be “too big,” but also being fearful enough of insignificance to accept the status quo. In this pseudo-purgatory that is both agonizing and invisible, it doesn’t matter how lucky other people tell you you are, or the jealousy others project onto you for what you have,

You are living in a fraction of your power. Period. That, dear one, is excruciating, no matter what.

No one is well, there. Not one life.

So many of can’t breathe, even though we are supposed to feel booked and blessed, or so lucky to be [American][white][educated][straight][a man][an accomplished ____this___][an award-winning ___that____][born in this time and not during __blank___ historical tragedy][insert whatever is projected onto you as a privilege].

If the soul ain’t free, it ain’t free.

That’s the math.

This truth is at the heart of the spiritual crisis all around us today.

My beloved, this is a time for all of the plantations, inside of and outside of us to dissolve back into wild grass, overflowing rivers and rich mud that every. Single. Life benefits from without apology.

Every. Life.

The known quantities of our existence, of how we knew ourselves before 2020, are the things we are collectively dismantling; either consciously or unconsciously, now. This time on Earth is about coming into our truer nature and not yielding to only some of us being so-called comfortable and free.

The call is to true, real, and lasting abolition.

Liberation for all.

And that truth is what drives my heart and my feet. What drives my head are the Ancestors that keep showing me the way as I walk forward. 

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I’m currently in Chapel Hill, NC, where I’ve been for the last few days, nurturing collaborations with the Southern Futures Project at University of North Carolina; sitting with legacy-making folk artist, Rhiannon Giddens, as she transmits and traces the history of folk music from Africa to the the present day, listening in on interdisciplinary landback conversations between professors, students, artists, and archivists; and conspiring with local artists and activists at Culture Mill in the unincorporated town of Saxaphaw; all in service of the project I’ve been collaborating on for four years and counting with my fellow incredible artists of Reconstructing.

As I sit inside of buildings that were built by enslaved Ancestors to “educate” the landowning planters, on the land that the university stole from indigenous tribes to fund the school’s endowment, I am seeing and praying with the true root of power: when we know who we truly are and act from that place. When we dream and create and dismantle from that root…is how the Ancestors are guiding me.

My point, lovey, is that there are so many doors that are opening because of my decision to fully embrace my calling. Not in spite of it. These are the doors we all actually want to walk/move through. There are invisible doors that can only be opened when we stop contorting ourselves to walk/move through the known thresholds, and get into the somatic truths that as we walk/move, new thresholds, pathways and doorways are being created for us.

Mostly, these are things we could never have dreamt up or thought of on our own. Mostly, it is magic constantly meeting us in the open space of the dark when we’re nervous about where it’s all going or what it all means (because magic is a natural state, not a special phenomenon).

More doors open and open and open, as we go.

I keep praying to be ready to walk through with humility, gentleness and a steady spine.

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