November 23, 2024
__________________
Alone,
with my soul laid bare,
I spoke directly to myself on camera:
“What will happen to Angel?
I’m nervous.
I’m not scared, but I’m nervous.”
And then I stared at myself on the phone screen for 2 whole minutes.
I watched myself touch my hair, my face, and I came closer to the screen to look into my eyes.
“I don’t want to lose my self,” I cried.
And I meant it.
I knew damn well that my intentions for self discovery were not going to leave me empty-handed,
and I had no idea what to expect.
This was 1 year ago, September of 2023.
Feeling The Shifts
I knew I was fading out.
I had been intentional about ‘figuring out what was inside of me’ for about a year at that point.
That same night I said,
“There’s really no going back from here.
I can already feel the transformation.
I only hope I am ready.”
With deep sincerity, I implore you-
don’t stop the shifts that you begin to feel
in the process of self discovery and self observation.
Trust.
Do not fear.
Stay open and lean into the flows.
Trusting The (not-overnight) Process
I hadn’t yet learned some important truths about the ego and its purposes
or how lower octaves of me could be transmuted into similar, higher ones.
I thought egos were meant to be killed
and ‘physical plane stuff’ was certainly for scorning and repressing.
Now,
I’m beginning to understand the alchemical process inside of me,
and I no longer fear that I will lose the woman that I am.
I will only transmute lower things into higher ones.
I’m refining myself as a woman-
not reinventing myself.
But my hesitancy and fear of losing everything about me was real.
I was afraid I would become someone unrecognizable
in the process of waking up.
And I truly didn’t want that.
I believe this was self love and self respect
in a really raw and fundamental sense.
I sensed, intuitively,
that there must be reasons for having my particular personality, my desires, and my natural ways of being.
Deep in my bones,
I felt that these parts of me shouldn’t be wasted,
and that surely there was a way to use them
for higher good,
never resorting to just discarding them.
And I was absolutely right.
The very fabric of me as a woman (personality, facial expressions, mannerisms, etc.)
are the raw materials my Soul uses to express itself and operate on this plane.
I didn’t care to hold on tightly to my identity, as some call it;
I simply didn’t want to lose the essence of myself.
I didn’t want to wander.
I didn’t want to be emptied.
In fact, I wanted to be really, really full.
Uncharted Territory
I’ll admit,
I don’t know what a woman
who feels like me
looks like.
I know how I feel on the inside,
but I can’t picture what that would look like
on the outside sometimes.
The image and energy of the women in my life thus far
haven’t resonated with what’s inside of me at all-
my mother, other women in my family, the Christian women I’ve been surrounded by.
Frankly, I’m thankful that I have no example of what it might look like to be myself-
I will make it up as I go.
Oftentimes, all I can do
is light a candle,
turn on music,
and open my mouth,
allowing my voice
to let out what I feel.
One phrase,
one word,
one noise
at a time.
I intend to give a voice to my emotions and my mind and my very Soul,
no matter how unrefined or chaotic,
how quiet or loud
it may be.
In this way,
I lead myself.
I follow myself.
I develop my independence.
I stoke the Alchemical fire in me,
and I let it burn,
slow and steady.
Till next time,
Angel