Spirit water
Reframing my self-care as a discipline and invitation; reimagining survival mode as a conversation between my body and my spirit.
Lately… it feel like eight of cups and some aja monet kind of heartbreak.
It live in my being the way a lie do, a malignant growth that make your body foreign to you.
This call for the dream blunt rotation, dial ‘em up and get it rollin
This call for curried stews, sick days cashed in, deep cleanin to get them corners dusted this call for laughter as our medicine prayer out loud no matter the tears it look like talkin to the crows and quieting down when they talk back
This call for spirit water on my chest
This call for spirit water in my cup
This call for spirit water libations on the ground and at the altar
There’s nothing some spirit water can’t soothe
There’s nothing some spirit water won’t heal
🎐 🎐 🎐
I’m going back on my word, dear reader. I’m exposing myself as a very real kind of human, the kind that is capable of change and expanding on long-held beliefs. I admit to growing in public. I admit to this-or-that’ing my way through life.
In the last few months, I’ve had a bunch of revelations around my relationship to self-care. The word alone gave me a sticky feeling of uncertainty and distrust. I’m skeptical of the wellness industry for its hyper individualistic approach. Why do people need another rose quartz candle holder and not a grief circle? Why am I even asking this, like we can’t have both and be rooted in something transformative?
At this time, I’m grappling with some big questions around what Community (with a big C, not to be confused with a big group of people who just want to be friends) can actually look like in my life. And the questions start with myself — where do I take on too much responsibility? Where am I eager to insert myself as peacekeeper and what does that say about my self-worth? What do my responses to conflict reveal to me, what are the narratives emerging around relationships and perfectionism and even authenticity? Does my behavior leave room for others to show up as themselves, and am I willing to sit with discomfort if the answer is no?
It wasn’t until I listened to this Moonbeaming episode on energetic hygiene that I started to make some connections between my social fatigue and my energetic state. It’s a tale as old as time, the one about trying to pour from an empty cup or having the weight of the world on your shoulders. For people socialized as women, especially if your identities are racialized, we’ve been taught to take on the emotions and sometimes responsibilities of those around us. Highly sensitive beings and people on the neurodiverse spectrum also fall into this trap that essentially equates our worth with our capacity to hold emotions that don’t belong to us. It’s no wonder Maryam Hasnaa refers to herself as a “retired empath.” It’s no wonder we all so damn tired, trying to fix problems that aren’t ours and secretly hoping we’ll be seen as worthy for how much we can carry. I find it ironic that in wanting to manage other peoples’ emotions, psychic and empathic people end up exercising power over the very people we want to help. There’s something in there about selfishly wanting to quickly move through discomfort rather than allow people to have their own human experience. The episode goes way more in depth and it’s totally worth a listen if you enjoy interview-style podcast episodes. I found the guest to be very relatable.
So anyways, I’m going back on my word that self-care is only wellness industry propaganda to get us to buy more things. And it’s not because I suddenly believe in the all-healing power of my rose quartz candle holder or anything, but it’s because I now see how badly I need to redefine self-care for myself. I’m a Black and Chinese non-binary autistic person with highly sensitive psychic abilities — and I have historically had overly porous boundaries, stayed in relationships that my intuition flagged as suspicious, stayed at jobs where I was repeatedly disrespected, and so on and so forth. My self-care right now is as much nightly baths by candlelight as it is restricting people’s access to me when I feel mal d’ojo. It looks like unpacking my relationship to labor that’s filled with shame and obligation, or even fear around taking a sick day that I am legally entitled to. My self-care is facing my tense relationship with my dad, it looks like creating enough internal safety to drop the avoidance and finally do myself the favor of being realistic about what our future can hold. Who I am in my relationships has everything to do with how I am perceiving and treating myself.
It’s been really easy to blame the wellness industry and the systems that push consumerism on us. I dislike escapism as much as the next leftist but I’m having to get real real with myself about my own vices. They look a lil righteous y’all, not gonna lie. They look tired and raggedy and still have the audacity to get up on a soap box about how other people aren’t pouring enough into mutual aid or caring for their neighbors or whatever whatever whatever. There’s no excuse for not doing my aura cleansing or receiving my body work or actually keeping my phone on DND all night. And I say this not to be hard on myself but to create spaciousness for accountability and discipline to emerge. I say this to affirm self-care as a discipline and an invitation, to complicate survival mode as conversation between my body and my spirit.
Looking at myself honestly and wholly is deeply uncomfortable at this time. I’m seeing where I’ve been in survival mode for a long time. Trying to take on more and more of peoples’ energy because I can feel my own source depleting. Neglecting the practices that would actually bring me near to myself again. It feels like my body and my spirit are at odds, with one wanting escapism and the other wanting resolution, but I’m starting to see how they are very much in a protective relationship with one another.
🎐 🎐 🎐
A prayer for my Self in survival mode
May I breathe the strength back
into my body, push the breath
of life into corners left undusted
and create spaciousness where
fear is clustered, lodged and heavy.
May I widen my gaze with a light
swivel, allow my eyes to take
in more possibility and dream up
where this can birth more safety.
May these knees have something
soft to kneel upon and may my
dead grant me grace now that I
finally got the strength to pray again.
🎐 🎐 🎐
If survival mode is a conversation between my body and my spirit, then my practices to stay alive and stay well must be rooted in my embodied experience. I must create a discipline that speaks to this temporary, material reality of my body as well as the timeless, divine nature of my spirit. I must turn to Black feminist thought, Black spiritual traditions, my ancestry and all the wisdom that rests there.
As I read Black Liturgies, I feel gaps being filled and a bigger picture revealing itself to me. I’m remembering where I do feel like the wellness industry has failed me, where the dozens of cacao ceremony flyers leave me feeling skeptical and disembodied. Who I am in this body needs self-care crafted with cultural competence, needs strong roots to place and needs to know names of the landkeepers of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
I turn to Black Women Writers at Work to connect with the powerful Black feminist ancestors in my creative lineage. Of course I want to know what Toni Morrison would have to say about the power of storytelling, how Ntozake Shange would create new forms to transmit spirit’s messages through song and dance. These stories deeply pertain to me and any other Black femmes experiencing burnout because it is the stories of our elders that point the way — or rather, a way — forward. I believe there is nothing more important for the survival of Black femmes everywhere than a strong spiritual foundation and siblings with whom to practice the art of being in relationship. Self-care as a discipline of and an invitation, survival mode as an embodied spiritual request for us to connect.
There’s a lot to sit with here. I’m still in the process of clearing away the cobwebs of what has been avoided for a long while, still got some corners left to dust. What I’d forgotten for some years is coming back to me, that we’ve all got rich lineages of those who came before us and also did the work of experimenting with wellness tools. That within our respective cultures and upbringings we have recorded practices for soul retrieval and guidelines for how to be in good relation with the world around us. Maybe this whole essay has been a call for going back to our roots, or at least using them as a compass to create new frameworks that can better suit our evolving needs as a collective.
I’m writing to you from a warm sunny patch. It’s moved across the kitchen in the time it took us both to finish this, but that just means it will be time to move onto something else soon. My day will likely be slow, infused with tea and flower magic. I’ll tend to the plants in the backyard garden and I might try to forgive some folks in meditation. This discipline call for fluidity, acceptance, and connection. Ask for cosmic help when you need it, dear reader. Let yourself be stripped down and reborn so that you can show up more fully, and be loved. Let yourself drink from that spirit water.
I leave you with a sonic offering. May these songs, which are more like spells and honey salves on the wound, bring you nearer to yourself. I’m rooting for us.
🕊️ Website