“If people knew half of your history and how you’ve just been naturally protected in the past, they’d know that the Divine is what’s protecting you. And they just wouldn’t fu(k with you,” she said; ending with “They’d also know that to enter into your energy is to enter into this same protection.”

This is her baby, the latest addition. She doesn’t let her grandparents hold her, but this little fire-storm took to me after we checked each other out and measured each other up.

She ain’t bad.

What she said has been rolling around in my head since she said it.

But first, let me please put a marker down regarding the absolute and unyielding sexiness of a man in a button down unbuttoned just to there. The hint of a secret, and a lip swell. It’s what I might lean into, a gentle landing on your skin, a taste of salt, before I pull the rest of your buttons from their fabric prison. Undone, a little story waiting to tell itself only as good as my story-telling and my imagination. A little dip, and a sun-kiss; it’s an afternoon in a hammock and a summer evening’s entanglement on a dock. I don’t think men have a clue how sexual a button down is when worn well.

Where was I?

Right. Since 2019, nothing anyone has done has resulted in my thinking any less of them. Maybe for a handful of days, when rage slammed into me, yes. But then recalibration rooted in trying to walk through this world a little more gently.

When was the last time you gave yourself the instruction to not judge someone’s choices? For me, it was on the morning of May 16 – a roll of nausea, quickly met with the grounding that this is a thought and it does not need to be judged. No meaning needs to be assigned to it, remember? (Just let a thing rest in its nature, devoid of meaning from us.) Release.

It became funny. The thought just moments ago bringing nausea, suddenly became funny. I retold the January story as though I were a comedian, and I began howling with my cousin who was also laughing hysterically. Saucer-eyed, the both of us at the absolute fu(king insanity I continue to attract into my energy.

Transmutation, then?

Transmutation, then.

None more than this last year. Had you asked me a year ago if I’d be here today, I would have said Not a chance. Dummy me. But also grateful me. I had a choice at every turn – either unfold and grow in a direction that is unchartered, terrifying, and demands actual new neurological pathways, or stay in my comfort zone. Shrink from the challenge.

I will keep repeating this – comfort zones are lovely, but nothing ever grows there. And none of us feel the chains until we start to move.

I am grateful. Especially because I am able to confirm that nothing is as terrifying as we might convince ourselves it is. Every unfolding has brought nothing but a more understanding, mature, softer me. I hope that means it will also allow me to create safe(r) spaces where others are also encouraged to unfold and be themselves fully fully fully when they’re ready. But first, they have to learn who they wish to be when they choose to unfold.

Yesterday, I challenged his use of the word love. That word can’t be used when you are not transparent or completely forthright, and when you’re giving your energy consciously and willing and intentionally to another. You appreciate her, you care for her, but you do not love her. Not if your energy is with another; not if you’re falling asleep thinking of another, and waking to the same individual on your mind not the one next to which you’re waking.

That is not love.

That is fear. Possibly, it is spiritual lethargy and slothiness. Maybe even financial obligation. Certainly, it is always the social chains of “not failing.” Which is so wild, when the alternative – a shitty, toxic, unfulfilling relationship where neither needs are met or seen is considered a success because it remains paralyzed for decades? Suffer! That’s what’ll make you a success!

Jesus Christ, 95% of people are ass-upside.

Call it whatever you want, but do not ever call it love, and disservice this word.

He accepted gracefully and acknowledged it was no longer love, and had not been for near a decade.

Love happens only when we can hold our chest open, point and say: this is my shadow self, do you love me still? And the answer is Yes. Unconditionally, yes; always, yes. Even when I don’t like you, I will love you.

It’s absolutely wild how society and expectation and demand dull the fullness of us. Demand we remain huddled in a corner, rather than completely at rest in our own skin. (Because most people are never so comfortable, they not only don’t want it for others, but they will judge the unfolding because then they don’t have to do any introspection and wonder if they too should unfold.)

Everything around us exists in abundance – kindness, goodness, beauty, love. While there’s never a shortage of any of these things, I’m watching so many people, too many people, hold tight onto that which no longer serves them but rather erodes and harms them.

Sidebar: To believe in scarcity is to freeze oneself in the unhealthy.

Oh, baby.

The fu(king heartbreak I have for you.

With grace, I am also watching a few people disentangle themselves, and slowly unlink the chains of decades. May every single one of them be met with softness, and may their healing lend itself to a stronger tomorrow, more aware and rooted in their true needs. May they each be strong enough to identify what they need, not shy away from it, and then pursue it unflinchingly.

My entire world is premised on the excitement of what’s around the corner. Divine guidance and intervention.

David Bowie got sober when he met Iman. This is what I want. Marker. Manifest.

He knew he needed to do better. Men always do. Iman demanded better because she knew she deserved better. And she got what she demanded.

Every man – every single one of them – will make the effort for the woman who won’t be so easy to reach. It doesn’t mean he will treat her better should he in fact reach her, just that he’ll make more of an effort to get to a particular point, is all.

Sidebar: A woman who is elevated enough herself to demand that a man elevate his own ass to reach hers. Literally and figuratively. This isn’t a trope. This isn’t toxic masculinity. This is that men generally, bluntly, need to work for a thing, to value the thing. Whether you want to chalk this up to capitalist ideations or nature, I couldn’t give less of a shit. It is what it is, and this includes the loser bros, those with narcissistic tendencies (why they are drawn to the strongest of women; no win when taking down their perception of weaker low-hanging fruit), as well as the actual clinically narcissistic, all the way down to your pedestrian dumb-dumbs whose di(ks gets them into trouble, because they don’t have the courage to do and be better. It is also a part of the ecosystem which men use as excuse to commodify and slot women into categories – women of value vs those of not, ultimately neither of whom is seen as a human but rather a thing, a tool, a means to male ends.

Ooooooof. This dunya. And goddamn that January day. Judgement is colouring it all, ain’t it?

Back to the point of this thing.

Here’s the bottom line – we are each of us a little puzzle of everyone we meet and how we choose to carry them in our skin. Especially those we love(d). Everything exists in abundance and there is never a time or place to be unkind. Wanna judge? Challenge it quietly and then make a joke of it. Then remind yourself that Allah brings your way what you bring to others. Do you want fidee7a or do you want suttor? Make a choice, and then align your actions, love.

The Universe will respond in kind. Promise.

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