When light drips from the moon, I wonder what she sees in me.
As her light stalks through cracks, does she feel the longing threaded through the hairs of my arm, and slicing through the rim of my smile?
When light bulges from the moon, thrumming the water of my weight, does she sense my hunger for a lover’s hips touching my inner thighs, for a breath down my neck, in caress?
When the moon’s light fingers me from sleep, to wind circles over my skin, moth light, white light, does she taste
Every year for the past 5 I’d say I’d spend time at the end of/beginning of the year to create a vision board of intentions and dreams.
I say this, for the past 5 years, except the last one. 2022 was the year I never set out my intentions, my dreams. I missed the window of magic, I felt, and just couldn’t muster the mojo to set things down.
I missed this road map, this visioning throughout the year. There were times during 2022, that I was questioning what I was doing and where I was going. But I realise now that I needed that low, down energy to heal and recover after the last two years of Covid. And it’s not over even now, but I know I have better coping and managing skills today.
So thinking about 2022, and my lack of motivation and direction, I knew when 2023 came around, my vision board practice was coming back. Not to get all productive on my arse but because I love to have this beauty pinned to my bedroom wall at the bottom of my bed and see it every day.
Vision Board, 2023
Having my vision board in plain sight, everyday, the first thing I see in the morn and the last thing at night, is a gift and blessing. I get to see and feel what I want to manifest within the present moment, each day. It’s not a bind in anyways, but it is a reminder and commitment to myself to love. Myself and others.
It brings me joy to see my vision board because it is a thing of beauty. I know everything on it has been placed with intention and love for self. With joy. And it’s not used as a to-do list of productivity and perfection. It is a beacon or siren to make sure I’m {being} in my life how my soul wants to be showing up in life for me first and foremost.
Vision Board, 2023
That’s why I call it a quiet Revolution. I’m revolting against the system, this White Supremacy Culture, from the inside out. I’m rejecting all those beliefs and practices and ways of being that have been implanted within me since being born into a system which indoctrinates us into being machines to the system. Where we repress our true selves to fit in and be accepted. Where we do not question or reject the system but uphold it and perpetuate it through our actions and attitudes towards others and ourselves.
Vision Board, 2023
So here I am sharing my vision board of 2023. Not as a ‘look at me, aren’t I clever’ kind of vibe. But to inspire. I’m always about sharing my practice to inspire. Last year I gave up early, without creating a vision board. Along with using excuse and excuse afterwards for not trying to create one.
I share with you mine so you might feel inspired to create one or not even a physical one but a space in your heart and mind for your intentions and dreams and ways of being. It’s never too late is my motto. Something I could have used last year, but some how couldn’t muster the energy to. But I think this might have been a demonstration of my lack of commitment to myself and my dreams last year and being content enough to just get by. I know I needed this time of rest in place to move onto 2023 with renewed energy and a massive intention to heal.
Swings and roundabouts. I just know everything sits better with me when I know I’m on a mission to heal from the inside out through this quiet revolution of a slow, listening, restful practice.
When I was teaching, I used to experience ‘Monday Morning Blues’. That dreaded feeling of going back to the grind after the weekend off. Going back to the bells and the timetables and the disruptive kids. One of the many reasons to leave the profession without a safety net in place, without anything lined up, was that I knew if I didn’t go then, I’d never get out. I was getting too comfortable, too used to the regular pay check at the end of each month, justifying the slog, the staying put within an environment that was slowly eating away at my soul.
I used to see cows outside my classroom window and I vowed not to become one of them; a cow put out to pasture, giving up on life and life giving up on them. I knew there was more to life that the 9-5 job, or as it was when teaching 7-7 job. I put my whole life, heart and soul into that job to the point of probably neglecting my child at the time. But I was after perfectionism, acceptance and recognition. I was defining my whole self -worth by how good or bad I was at teaching. And teaching shite I may add. Shite filled up with the words and opinions of mostly white dead men who probably didn’t think much of me being a Black woman.
I was duped into the belief that work was meant to be hard and difficult and long and mostly unrewarding. It was what we were put on the earth to do, to be. To work for most of of our lives for others, propping up the system and if we worked hard enough, we’d get time off at the end with a pension that would be taxed again. This is what I bought into and what was fed to me through family, education and society. To step out of this construction to pursue creativity, to do my own things and be my own boss was seen as weird, a risk, stupidity and misguided to say the least.
I knew how I felt. And I know how I feel. And even then I put a lot of store by how I felt. How I was uncomfortable in my own skin. How I felt a fraud. How I felt unbelonging and always striving for something that would never be mine. Acceptance. Whiteness. The Norm.
Now I don’t have ‘Monday Morning Blues’, because I don’t put that kind of pressure on my days, on my weekends, on my time. I pick and choose when to work or not. I try to have a 3 day week. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday being the work days and the Monday and Friday flow into a long weekend.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not idle. I’ll always be practicing my creativity ( I prefer using practice to work). I don’t think I’ll ever retire because being creative is who I am. And when I reserve certain days of the week for outside commitments, ‘work’ the other days are mine to create, to rest, to dream, to plot, to {BE}. And I’m grateful for the circumstance to be able to {BE} this way. I’m also grateful to my younger self who wasn’t afraid to jump and believe and trust that a net would appear to catch her fall. Again and again.
When I consider where I was this time last year, I was knee deep in hospital visits and worry. My daughter was in hospital fighting an unknown infection, not getting any better. The hospital had reintroduced one parent one patient rule. I thought it best for her father to stay in hospital with her instead of me. I wasn’t coping well within a system set up to ignore the Black body.
I also wasn’t prepared to handle her father’s anxieties and worries if he wasn’t by her side. It also made sense as I had the car so I could come and go and bring in what was needed. Everything was centred towards my daughter getting better. It was like time stood still and all other things paled into insignificance. It helped me sort out my priorities.
Thinking about where I want to be a year from now, I want to be in a better relationship with my body. Yes, lost weight but more so made peace with her. I want to be knee deep in self-love and no longer considering or settling for being second best. I’ll no longer be satisfied with accepting someone else’s scraps. I know my worth and do not accept anything less
I’m in a state of constantly becoming and at the heart of this journey is my own healing and well-being. I’ve got a toolkit of practices which I use to support my health and well-being and protect my mental and emotional health also.
I might be dating and I might not. But that isn’t my life or will be taking over my life. I am my life and what I choose to be and do is my life.
A year from now, I’ve also completed a major writing project which I’m super proud of. I’m ready to launch it into the world and accept the increased exposure it will bring. Good or bad. Because I am in a secure, loving and trustful relationship with myself.
I don’t remember when I gave up on myself being enough, being worthy.
I don’t remember when I gave myself away to others at the expense of not keeping any goodness for me.
I don’t remember when I started to hate on myself and wishing myself away, wishing myself into something or someone else. Anything else but this. Anything other than who I really am.
I don’t remember when I started to hide myself away became secretive and dishonest as a means of protection and advancement.
I don’t remember when I stopped being my own best friend and started to seek this relationship, this love and attention elsewhere.
I don’t remember when I betrayed myself by thinking that I was someone who didn’t deserve to be here, as someone worthy of love and happiness and joy.
I don’t remember when I started to listen to others, the outside world and stopped listening to my heart, to my own wisdom.
I don’t remember when I stopped just {being} instead of doing. When {being} was enough.
I don’t remember when I stoped paying attention to what lights me up, my wants and needs, what makes me smile.
I don’t remember when I stopped being a child and took the burdens of the world on to my little shoulders like they belonged there.
I don’t remember when I stopped being in love with myself and gave this love to others who were not deserving of my love, who could not see me as me.
I don’t remember when I began to think I needed other people to love me instead of me just loving on me.
I don’t remember when or how or why all this happened, I just feel it. And now, here I am trying to get back to me, to me loving on me, the most important treasure, lost.
This year, I’m being brave by saying ‘yes’ to the things that light me up from the inside out. This will help with gaining clarity around what I’m doing. The things that are worth doing are the things that bring me pure joy.
I’m being brave by putting my trust in myself. To get rid of the doubt and questioning of self and to trust that I’ve always got my best interests at heart.
I bravely offer myself grace instead of judgements, making peace with myself as I’m tired of the battle. Instead of fighting myself, my instincts and my best interests, I’m gonna be loving on myself at every opportunity.
What does this look like in practice? I don’t know. But I’ll know what it feels like because I’ll be glowing and full of joy.
What will support me on this brave journey is my creativity. And offering myself creative solutions to problems and issues. Sobriety will help. Along with water inside and outside of my body. And rest and journaling and healing slowly and deeply.
Deciding to love oneself unconditionally is bravery especially when one lives in a world, a dominating system which doesn’t recognise one’s worth beyond oppression and exploitation.
Living Wild Studios 