I imagine that this is what a baby in the womb may feel like. Tucked in its comfort zone, nestled and protected from the outside world, oblivious to what the next phase of its life is going to be. Suddenly it begins to feel pressure. The environment that once felt safe is now changing. Floating in the warmth of the amniotic fluid the muscles all around contract, compressing its tiny little body. To this baby it has no idea what is about to happen, no understanding that this womb that has been its home for the past nine months will no longer be the comforting place that it has always been. And it can never return.

But hiding never kept me safe. In fact in made me more of a target. Folks could sniff out my fear and then I would do this awkward dance back and forth of coming out of my shell and then quickly retreating. I don’t judge myself for doing this dance. Somewhere in my DNA the dance of hiding one’s light had been passed down. Not to mention my own experiences in this life. I believe that we are born to break lower vibrational historical patterns that have been repeating not only in our families but also in our previous lives.

When I look at it from the angle of spiritual alchemy and energy then this scripture would make even more sense. The moment I succumbed to the rage I was no longer living from a place of love and light. I do want to say that it was important for me to express that rage, if even for a moment. So often I was taught that anger, even rage, are emotions that have no place. It’s been within the past couple of years that I have allowed my anger and rage to have its moment in the sun. Before I thought that if I gave it enough space that it would burn the whole world down. But I just needed to release enough of the pressure so that I could let that light back in.

Last year I made a request, sent up a prayer. I asked Jesus if he could help me love the way he loves. Yes I was sober when I said this, and I said it with my whole heart. I was in my right mind and knew exactly what I was asking, though I was apprehensive because I know that when you ask for something you get a heaping dose of adversity specifically tailored to your prayer request. So yes, I knew stuff was about to hit the fan. But I was honest in my request and truly wanted to understand this way of loving which surpasses any earthly way that I have come to know and understand love to be.

I believe that sometimes I am putting so much effort into getting through something that I rarely allow myself the space and time to just collapse. Lately I’ve had to hold space for people who have been going through their own shifts and transformations and I could do was sit with them or be with them as their pain swelled and crashed time and again. This is not an easy practice and I realized as I was being with others in their grief that I was trying so hard to avoid mine.

I think we should interrogate a religion that was taken over by the very people who considered Jewish people (which Jesus was) to be less than them (the Romans) and then turned it into a weapon for control and obedience for the masses. That would be like the United States suddenly adopting hoodoo and then repurposing and weaponizing it until its original essence was but an imagination. Gaslighting the leaders and followers, saving only the truly powerful stuff for the those who would use it for domination, giving the scraps back to its chosen people as legalism and then spreading it across the entire globe of this earth through war, violence against women, mass incarceration and killing.

Dim, hide, survive. But hiding never kept me safe. And I never could fully hide anyway. There would always be moments when I would let my light shine enough for me to feel the warmth of its glow and just as I would do that here would come some negativity to manipulate, control or siphon off the oil that kept my light lit.

When I heard the words and felt them surface in my mind I scrunched up my face. Self-blame?! What the hell is that and where in the hell did it come from? I had been working on unworthiness all this time and acknowledged that narrative as a core belief that had been planted in my mind when I was a child. It took time to get to that belief and now here Spirit was telling me that there was another layer to this shit?! I threw my hands up (not technically cause I was driving).