October’s Alchemy - Wave Jump 22 to 24

It’s 7:24 in the the mo(u)rning on October 6th. 

Yesterday I completed the pilot of Litm(us), after sending Black Beauty School out to sea 2 years ago.

I am riding the train back from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles and as we are preparing to stop at Lompoc-Surf, I look up.

The sun has just burned through that freaky west coast pollu fog just as mami wata’s waves lap the shore in sun salutation.

Stretching out the day

Calculating new flow

I wonder how wata feels to look up and see a large piece of unseemly metal

ripping through seams of landscape and coast crafted by their shore?

bodies of water in transport

beside bodies of water

movement maybe

flow I don’t know

I almost missed this train

amtrak is crumbling

the world is crumbling and no one is slowing down to pick up the pieces

we’ve obliterated them in our need to simply go

no destination in mind

But to stop means death. I would know because I had no choice but to stop in 2022.

it was time for change

they knew

I had not a clue

maybe an inkling

but I was tired of going with no end in sight

no equity to be had

This trip is the first long trip I’ve taken since my autism diagnosis, homelessness, this whole process of initiation and review that the ancestors have been guiding me through.

The world, my family might’ve abandoned me

but I sure as hell wasn’t about to abandon myself.

and so I jumped

freefall off the cliffs

into the deepest depths of me

it felt like drowning

but I had to remember who I be

part mami

part me

I can indeed breath underwater

a child of mami wata

born with wata in my lungs

my capacity to breathe would tested to extreme

like those deep sea divers who plunge to depths unseemly

where blood becomes mercurialy poppy

The first swell

removing the poison from my body of wata

I was an alcoholic

alcohol made my watas cool and numb

The first time I got drunk was my 2nd or 3rd semester in college. I was 19. I had just moved in with 2 vanilla ice thrice from high school (iykyk anotha story for anotha time)

Getting liquor in a college town ain’t hard.

And my first time getting drunk was with soft (malt) liquor. Zima’s to be exact. Remember you added a jolly rancher to ya malt bevs? that era

As the stomach churns.

There was a freedom and a boldness that alcohol gave me access to, it made me less uptight, it made me appear normal and not like the deeply abused person I was. It also slowed that onslaught of autistic thoughts. I could sort through my mind even if it was ineffective and warped.

Alcohol on turtle island is positioned as a milestone.

Turning 21, people making plans to get you drunk, as if to say this is how we survive this place.

The buying of strange shots

cement mixers and jello

Black femme at a PWI (public yt institution) it is a right of passage as an artist. I was a theatre kid.

Have ya’ll ever been to a theater party? (I gots stories fah dayssssssss)

That binging in my 20s, turned into a serious habit in my 30’s. The world ain’t have to like me. I had my favorite bars and bartenders. Everybody knew my name, cheers. I got bougie about the bevvies I like and the coordinated outfits to match.

By the time 2017 rolled around I was no longer bougie. I wanted whiskey straight, and that led me to my father’s rage and blackout land. While swaths of memory lost, subconscious now made conscious, and I was a deeply wounded alien thing.

The loss of memory didn’t bother me much until folx started pointing out things I didn’t, couldn’t remember.

My memory had already been playin hide and seek. CPTSD, educational abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and being an undiagnosed autistic child, my mind would protect me whether I was in control or not.

Lockdown hit and there wasn’t anything else to do, so I drank.

I was beginning to hit my limit. My body swelled in response.

You could put a match to my watas and they would surely go up in flames

It would take until October of 2022 for me to quit. I was on a deep fungi journey of the magical kind, to free my mind colonial captivity since 2002.

I had stepped into a heavy ritual praxis with the sacred fungus, which also helped in my being able to quit cold turkey.

sidenote Bruuuuuuuuhhhh (non gendered) I’m so ready to talk to Black femmes about fungi, but ya’ll are still to scared. The healing we will be able to tender because of this plant. my god, my god, it is how we will sustain these actual fight for liberation once we move out of capitalistic savior mode. **

I kicked my partner out of our bedroom and psilocybe cubenisis , ancestors, spirit, and me we got to work on the nastiest bits of me.

I let my body lead for the first time and for the last 2 years I have been on a journey of uncrumbling and undoing myself from the tight, frozen ball of tangled emotions and chaos, that this system creates in Black femme bodies.

A restoration of me and my bold audacity.

A restoration of wild ancestral flower and discernment.

A new me blooming from acrid acidity.

A rebirth of someone I had never been given a chance to know.

A swipe and reset of my tech(know)logy, my body of water. Planetary proliferation.

The planet and atmosphere of me restored

Something wholly new

yet ancient too

So this October 2024 is a huge milestone for me.

An autistic child who was forced, groomed, and assimilate to “normalcy.”

It almost meant my death.

I scream raging gratitude that it didn’t.

Leaving the safety of my home, where I can control unknown variables, to teach this class, wasn’t easy.

No matter how ya’ll perceive me within those stupid tropes you love to lob at Black femmes like heavy boulders.

I am not resilient or strong. I am however capable of making my own change. But I require the consistent help of community, in order to do so, without ya’ll there is no me.

When I launched BBS in 2020 I did it on my own, yes there were folx (a small few) to help me, but inconsistently, they were more concerned with being attached to my clout than recognition of the vision.

This go round. I don’t even have the words. I am tearing up just thinking about the way ya’ll poured into me.

To my friends and chosen framily

ya’ll I have community

like actually

this is an living altar to ya’ll

To Dimah The CLOUD

You are my Storm from X-men a physical planetary force to be reckoned with. Forever rain/reign down ova me because the depth of you. There are not words to explain the magnificence of you. We gon burn it down then build it back up rightfully. I love you.

Himbo Yejin

You’ve been creating care plans with me. Shoutout to Oumou. Seeing you in me and me in you, you just made your post similar to this after a first trip too. You have loved and cared on me, reminded me constantly that I am never scary. You have fed me in the literal and spiritual sense. I got you back. I mean that. I love you.

Shannon

Thank you for your trust in me. You are something amazingly true. You have restored my faith in my hair talents and also renergized the importance of our collaboration one between another in Afrikan community. The power we have when we decide what we want to do, you for helping to set this foundational framework for Litm(us). I love you.

Debo

I coming to walk the shores with you to hum and too fish. To love on that land we come from. You have embraced me deeply in Afrikan sibling hood. The magic of you, bebe it runs hella deep. I love you.

Zina

I am in awe of you and your talent. Finding another multi disciplinary artist like me has been a game changer. you inspire me to dig deep into my creative wells, me in you we got big big work to do. Where I go, you go, fah sho.

Sas

You sent me a video or you lighting candle and altar for me and I almost lost my shit in the best of ways. Super hella proud to call you hom(e)ie. Keep doing the work and healing too, I got you. I love you deep.

Bre

You deserve the life that was taken from you by so many. you came to class, were the first to speak even if it wasn’t the best of days for you. That is priceless to me. We got healing things to do too. I love you deeply, you deserve a love that is all yours on all your fierce AF terms. I love you.

Roxy

You go hard without fail. Like you don’t stop so many people could stand to learn so much from you. I know your ancestors are girded around your waist and they are asking you too rest. You showed up and engaged fiercely I love you to the moon and back.

Latifah

You have had my back when I couldn’t see how to have my own. You have hung in there with me always encouraging and always keeping it real. You were one of the first supporters of Black Beauty School. You are a bravely bodacious wondrous human to be reckoned with. I got ya back frfr. I love you.

Rita

you opened your home to me. you did a supa scary thing and took a leap. i’m sitting here in your bed as I type this. You are a forceful ball of punjab power and imma keep reminding you till we turn those flames inside out. You are being molded and i’m glad I get to witness and hold hands with you thru fire and flame. Let’s burn it up bebeeee. I love you.

Ratna the Divine

Watching you coming into your own power, recognizing that all you need is you and the rest will fall into place. I am honored to know you, you might be one of my OG followers who hung around through the hella messiness of the last few years. Imma always have ya back. I love you.

To Courtney at Texture

Thank you for taking a leap of faith with me. I wasn’t sure what to expect and the moment I stepped into your deeply intentional and curated space I felt at home. You are doing what we need in community. Imma be singing ya praises and sending good ya way.

To the In Person Attendees

I know ya’ll ain’t know me, but you embraced me in full. Thank you for allowing me to share a little bit of my cosmology. Y’all set the foundation for what the rest of litmus will become. I could not have done it without you and you all were my teachers that day. Kim thank you for being there and I am glad I was able to get you the virtual link in time. Keep going you got mad power.

I love ya’ll. deeply.

Thy Siir Cole

my sir cole (non possessive)

we are doing what we said we would do

not the performance but rooted in commitment to one another

we will change

and when we do we come back to the drawing board

we recess

we change

we grow

we recommit

I know helping me heal ain’t been easy but I couldn’t have done it without you. I love you hella deep cherry chapstick. To infinity and beyond.

Imma stop here cause this is a 2 - part piece

Part 2

I will have up soon, expounding further upon the myths that are no longer true about me and what I require when leaving the safety of my home when it comes to accommodating all of me.

I know today is an important date. Imma talk about it. But not with trends, everyone posting today is playing games for visibility with the algo.

We can no longer be playing performative games when nothing has changed and won’t until we do.

Social media, the gov’t, the west ain’t saving us, it brought us together and now it is time to move beyond. On the other side of…

secret society simbi

The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot 

South Node Eclipse in Libra

Tomorrow, October 2, 2024

Pull, September 30, 2024

Cards - 22 Roads 

Secret Society (Justice/Adjustment) #11 

synonymous with Possession (Lust, Strength) #8

40 Spirits - The Four 8’s

Rada, Simbi, #8

Miss Ones Numbas 

• 8+8+1+1 =18 

• 8+1 =9 

• Also the number 8 because it's shown its face twice

• 9 & 8 

• 9 represents completion and the start of a new phase 

• It is also associated with yang and masculine strength ( colonia wild fire)

• 8 is connected to infinity, balance, karma ebb and flow, it is also the highest femme number (indigenous wildfire), it is connected to the cyclical pattern of breath in the body, and the recycling path of energetic flow. 

The Reading

We are being asked to to look at the depth of the sea (subconscious bodies) 

To take our time and look through the murky watas 

Removing rose colored glasses 

In order to see and know the truth of a ting 

Instead we are distracted by the the sea’s reflective 

Every moving surface 

Playing tricks on the eyes 

Flashes of true horror below 

Lost to the promise of a shine future 

While the present sits in rot 

And the past calls us back  

we have been here before 

We are being asked to make and adjustment 

To do the work 

And be the work 

Not just to simply speak on it 

We are being asked to recognize our exclusion 

Cosplay inclusion 

How it has been pandered back to us as freedom 

When it is slavery by another name 

No justice 

No Peace 

We say we want justice served 

The truth revealed explicitly 

About our 

Pretty 

Shiny 

Leaders 

And yet because we know nothing else 

Because we are scare of what exists on the other side of 

We go back to the distraction of the shiny wave playing at the surface 

Cept the flicker of the surface 

Is indicative of the deep swell 

The monster that sleeps below 

We are being asked to empty out our secret societies 

And bare all of use our human souls 

The Secret Societies card bares the #11

A number which is often seen as a bridge or parallelism between the spirit and earthly realms

The card carries a human dressed in blue and white, hands lightly bound, while 6 wild beats look out from the dark forest. 

This is the moment right before judgment

The first thing that came to my mind when I pulled this card is the way that femme bodies are being used as a tool of war, the way that pinkwashing and the quee(a)r has become a part of war time propaganda.  

This card represents earth, water, and air. 

The blue and white of the clothing represents Agwe of the sea and their cleaning power. They control the currents and the depth of the sea. The loa of direction we are being asked which way we will sway, in the same way that the winds have always blown or in opposite direction in search of new. 

Agwe is a guide for souls newly crossed over on the way to Guinan/Alkebulan (also the name of whoopi in star trek). 

Agwe is credited with driving the colonials away from Haiti. So it is apt that I pulled this card which is in deep connection to the way in which colonialism is trying to bother Haiti yet again and Haiti ain’t havin it.

We have been here before. 

I pulled this card upside down as if the secrets of society are being emptied out. From Sean Combs, to helene and the infrastructure of turtle island, to the west being full on complicit in genocide, while trying to distract from our sitting on the eve of war with the chaos of elections. 

The orange man promised to stop WWIII but we are already in the thick of it.

Will we go willingly into the night of our judgment as we kneel, waiting on decisive implementation, from the animals (empire is a mad beast), or will we stand up, untie the hands of one another, and move in the opposite direction. 

Too many of us have decided that our hands are tied, that there is nothing to be done except wait it out. The apathy, the lack of intention, care and drive. We have been made numb to our own suffering. 

We have been here before. 

We are looking dead (zombie) in the face of our oppressor and calling it liberation,  eventually those lightly tied hands will be completely bound. We will be complicitly carried away, like property being led to the fields so massa can live for anotha 100 years, as you watch your own wither away under the melting heat of colonial wild fire. 

Secret Societies and Possession are the same card. This card also connects back to Simbi and Le Grande Zombie which is represented by the Possession card and my second pull which we will come to momentarily. 

Those cards are connected to Deluge which was a card pulled for the first eclipse of the season is Pisces. 

Possession involves poison but can also be a baptism of spirit. 

We are being asked to burst forth from binary thinking, with ancestors and spirit energetically charging us forward, to walk and talk that which we perform to be. 

Deluge has given us an overflowing of truth that should lead the way for discernment and by extension our reconnection to ancestors and spirit. 

Has our baptism been merely performative possession? We have made small gods out of who we can build ourselves up to be, while the soul, spirit, suffers in silence. The job of caring for our earth and communities has turned into shallow support of ego and personality.

In order to repair we must re-pair. We must recognize that we need one another. 

There may be only one person on the card but I imagine someone to the right and the left of this human, in the same position, afraid to look at one another. We can change this judgment but you have to look at who is by your side. 

Card 2 represents magick and the mind, intellect and discernment. Simbi (mercury) and Shango (uranus). Quicky and mighty. Communication, Information and Rebellion for Justice. We are being present with the truth and trying to make it anything but. 

I think, therefore I am, but silver breaks rock. 

A quick tongue and wit can distract and cast a spell before you even know what has been done.

You look up 

Head on chopping block  

Politicians masters of words and little else

We have been here before

400 + years ago, vanilla ice thrice seemed to be like magick. 

Having now set loose within mad colonial wild fire 

Those years allowing your lineage to arrive here 

We know their magick was simply not that 

It was a deception 

And now that deception reeks of rot turned second skin

And “you’d need a golden calculator to divide 

The time it took to look inside and realize”

That these rose really smell like boo boo”

Some of us have learned to smell rot 

And call it everything else except for what it is 

Shit 

This card shows a human, one hand over head, and the other at the waist. 

A powerful energy and air is about while snakes seem to be charmed, they are the holders of the illusion of the magician. 

There is an oversimplification of things to come because we are numb, mesmerized, cognitively dissonant to the show. 

This is the “ending of a thing, yet undone”

We are watching the source of earthly power (presidents, politicians, world leaders) drain the actual SOURCE. When the source is gone, dried up, we have been poisoned/possessed. A full on zombie to source instead of SOURCE, belonging to the ego of power. 

There is no separation in the community and yet we have decided to leave it to our so-called “chosen leaders” when we are the proof of record, the walking dead. 

Killing a Black man, or any man because you believe you have the power of life and death is not magick its cruelty. It is a possession of power.  It is lack and hollowness. 

The sun at midday casts the strongest shadows while the moon at midnight illuminates the darkest of shadows. 

We are being sold pipe dreams, told we are making something out of nothing, when death has been at the swipe of your fingertips. 

Our energy is in our emotions, feeling is how we put our energy into the forward motion of liberation. 

When we talk about oppression it means our emotions too. We have been numb for so long we cannot identify our emotions, let alone act to change. 

We fear ourselves placing our trust in those with power, dependent on our safety and well being as something external to SOURCE. 

This is by design

Of the Vanilla Ice Thrice kind 

That trust we so easily give is a delusion and they are pimpin our power 

Aren’t you tired of being eclipsed when you are the SOURCE? 

The Veve

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire Eclipse

Waterings

Wata(Ring)s

Ring Shout

Ring out Loud

Siir and I will be married 4 years tomorrow 

And we aint got no rings 

Aint need em 

Cause the ring is in the work 

The action between us two

The dance we make 

Create 

And disintegrate 

Then phoenix from the ash anew 

I can do this too 

And who knew 

Cause I ain’t even make it a year with my ex husband or any other pitiful relationship I had before them

I have evolved in this relationship ting 

The last four years have felt like me in boxing ring 

against the world

Hell who am I kidding 

My life has felt like me 

Boxed in 

Caged in 

Ready to fight at a moments notice 

And I should clarify here 

As clarification is always needed with people like me

Its funny I am writing this to release 

and yet I constantly have to remind people not to place their anti Black assumption on my face 

Constantly eclipsed in this place

I couldn’t fight to save my life 

Like actually 

But people have engaged me for the entirety of my life as if I were 

Mike Tyson 

Or 

Muhammed Ali 

Float like a butterfly 

Sting like a bee is all people get and feel from me 

This last eclipse in Libra is hittin the South node 

And my entire life has been about trust and family and how the two are not synonymous

how to restructure the two? (Chani-Leo Rising)

For the most part my strategy has been flight 

I'm not going to fight where I am not wanted 

I will not even enter the ring 

I will allow you to win and I will set my sights on different 

wata(ring)s

Deeper waters 

Perhaps 

Where some will finally see the depth of me 

fighting in rings where colonial wild fire is the law of the land 

where rules shape shift 

And acquiesce to needs of too powerful masters 

I cannot win 

And why would I want to?

How do I add my full self back into the fight when flight is all I have known?

I step into the ring of me 

I don’t know if I will never not struggle with abandonment 

It's a feeling multiplied to madness 

when I add my ancestors in me 

That feeling of you don't belong 

Forrest Gump

You can't sit here

That doublemint gum

Bittersweet synastry

Or looking to my skin

And knowing I belong

Because earth and me 

We same 

Yet when I look up and at 

Those who look like me 

And those who don't 

I am expelled from the ring into the fire

This eclipse asks us to look back at October 

March 

Ask how we have changed? 

How the world has changed?

Or how it hasn’t?

Big on the hasn’t 

As we find ourself stuff in the same time loop 

Hoping where it has no business being 

Shielding reality 

Cottling cognitive dissonance  

And the most frustrating thing for me 

is that I have been doing this work alone

all along 

Litm(us) 

Bead + Cowrie

Be(spoke)curry

all of these things that make up me