Where two or more women are gathered…

Last Friday, I packed and flew out to New Orleans to join some sista-friends for a Pisces-Aries birthday celebration. Initially I wasn’t sure if I’d go because this and that kept popping up on top of exhaustion, but that gentle voice of Spirit kept nudging me and nodding. So I went. And my one-word summary for this trip is: open.

 

Open in the sense that we didn’t pre-plan our agenda, so there was a bunch of “it’s whatever” in terms of what we’d eat and do next. Also open in the light of fearlessness. The four-bedroom house was brimming with love, compassion, connection, and acceptance. Divine feminism. Fearlessness. Essence.

 

I like to think of essence as the person beneath life’s stuff. The woman up under the hurt and betrayal and fucked-uppedness of the world’s ways. That’s who surfaced while on that trip, times six. Crystal wasn’t afraid of joining me on the floor for an impromptu session of yoga. Brandiss just unraveled and danced her back loose, honey! Cheyenne dared to take my hand in hers and speak unto me what was being spoken unto her about me. It was deep, y’all. Angel wasn’t afraid to randomly express how much she loved and appreciated who we were as women. Sharise trusted us with her desires/visions, even though it was our first time meeting. And I opened my heart to share aspects of the strained relationship between me and my sister, and in doing so, I got an aha moment that led to this picture…

 

Super brief background: Once upon a time my sister wanted to be a makeup artist, but exchanged that goal with nursing school because she felt it’d be more secure. It came to me to invite her over to do my makeup at one o’clock in the morning even though I wasn’t about to go anywhere. Just because. It gave us the opportunity to get physically close, yeah, but emotionally too. I was able to dismiss the judging, preaching sister to her that I’ve become, and be with her–unforced. It was beautiful.

 

Without a doubt that was my highest highlight of the trip, one of my many breakthroughs while there. Another breakthrough that came up for me (again) were the words “divine timing.” Yo, we gotta trust that shit! Have to. Or at least it’s in our best interest to. From conversations about starting families to losing jobs to becoming entrepreneurs to rebuilding bonds with our parents to near-death experiences to…all of that. Down to me just so happening to find a parking space near the absolute dopest tour guide in the city. Divine timing. It’s going to be okay, even when it doesn’t look like it. As I read on a meme a while back, be open to the outcome being better than you expected.

 

It still amazes me that for about a decade, I distanced myself from other girls and women. I didn’t feel they were worth my time or energy. Now I know better. Women really do need one another and we need to get away (often) and be together. Goddess gatherings such as these four days that I experienced in New Orleans are the why behind my upcoming retreat, Between Words and Water.

 

Note-taking and networking at a writer’s conference in Florida, chanting over an open fire in Jamaica, sipping and tripping in a cabin in North Georgia, sliding my manuscript across the table at a workshop in South Carolina, confessing my deepest desires at a soul sister’s Sunday meeting, etc. Each experience plants something in me that supports me in being the woman I am utmost proud of.

 

I want to establish more spaces for women to come together under a shared purpose and roof to open up and release and heal and laugh and create and get away from the titles/expectations and just…be. Know what I mean? Much appreciation to Angel, Brandiss, Cheyenne, Crystal, and Sharise for co-creating so many magical memories.

“Where two or three women are gathered, I’m right there with them.” -Spirit (excerpt of Women Who Ain’t Afraid to Curse When Communicating With God)