My Hair Doesn’t Get Longer, It Gets Tighter: A Symbol of My Path

My path is a continuous evolution of unwinding spirals, leading to a place that is still unknown and yet very magical. My hair is often a metaphor for my life in that I am not sure how I will be by the end of the day, but it is certain that it will be different than I started.

I have come to understand that my life is not getting less complicated, just like my hair doesn’t get any longer. The longer my hair grows, the tighter the curl becomes, and the shorter the strand appears in its natural state. It is only until you pull the curl out of its natural pattern that you can see how long it really is, and how complicated it has become.

I love my hair like I love my life. It is complex in nature, looks full by the sight, and has a pattern of bouncing back after being extended. I see the parallels between my life journey and my natural hair journey, totally different in process but yet quite the same. I started with one theory in mind, to try something that felt right. What I ended up with was a beautiful mess of chaos that makes a lot of sense, and yet no sense at all. It is the understanding that a certain amount of letting go is necessary to navigate the twists and turns on the daily walk, and I do not have to control the path, I just have to follow the wave.

Every time I pull a strand of my hair out of the coily pattern and stretch it to see how long it is, I am quite amazed. My hair is growing at a rapid pace and is the longest it has been since I was a child. I cannot imagine what it would look like if it were straight. It is healthy and beautiful.

On the average day, my hair doesn’t look much longer, though. It looks about the same as it did 6 months ago, or a year ago. It wraps around itself, and its hard to decipher whether growth is happening at all…. until I pull down the curl. One of the things I love about my hair today is that it knows pretty much what to do on its own. I don’t have to micromanage the patterns of the curls… it knows its pattern and needs little supervision. I have to have faith in the process.  I wet my hair, put on a few products, and leave the house. It will dry how it sees fit, it will curl the way it wants, and it will look how it is called to look. I have little control in the outcome.

The more I become use to the mindset of having natural hair, the easier it is to let go of control and my preconceived notions of what must happen. It will do what it will do…… big hair don’t care, and I have to remember that.

And then I reflect on my life as a priestess. Much like my path as a social worker, I have come more and more to the realization that I have little control in how the path will unwind, but the reward is in the journey. It is the process that matters the most. It is the process that might have the most impact, not always the outcome.

I don’t have all the answers, and that is okay. I just have to hang onto the journey as a means to an end, and allow my training and spiritual foundation to be the kick off point for what I am to do. I walk the road of the spiritually and academically trained, and use that knowledge as a guide. I don’t have to control the path, I just have to be conscious in my path, and trust that the outcome will be as it should. Kind of like my hair except I don’t add water and product, I add intent in my workings and a cultivated connection with the Gods instead.

It is hard to see how much I have grown in my path as well, until I stretch it out and evaluate it from the standpoint of the long and winding path. At face value it doesn’t always appear like I have come a long way in this area either. But I know that I have.

You see, the beginning and end to living a spiritually grounded life has been to “let go and let God”, as they say in 12 step programs. I have to continue to trust that the Gods I am in this relationship with have a plan that goes beyond my ability to see, and therefore I have to just be in the moment with the motions of the universe.

My natural hair journey and my spiritual life journey both remind me that the journey is the reward; the outcome is often unknown. Both a reflection of each other, both important in my process.

The twists and turns, the kinks and curls, the coils and beauty of living in the moment, rocking natural hair, and being the Goddess in brown skin that I am.