Search Results

If recent forays into my genealogy have taught me anything, it's that I'm descended from multiple continents worth of ancient royal lines, no matter which branch of the family tree you shake, both sides. Me? I'm a disabled Michigander with no money to my name. I have decided that location, time period, and circumstances be damned, I'm just as much of an ancient queen as my ancestresses, and I'm going to act like it. See, I studied archaeology in college, I know what the quality of life was for ancient queens, and I know I can replicate it within my modern means. It simply means rejecting modern standards, and going back to ancient wisdom. Where applicable! I'm writing this as I've been unusually inconsistent with my prescription medications this week, and I'm rolling into suffering territory because of it. I'm not giving those up for the world. But when it comes to other things about my body... Ancient queens were eating lavish food - that was very minimally processed. I'm eating a lot of cuisine from France, Greece, Slavic regions, Africa, the Levant, India, and SE Asia. And yeah, I'm cooking it myself - I'm not ruling a kingdom at the moment, I have the time to do that. And the "lavish" part is the use of salt and spices, the food itself is very simple and nutritious. Now, I know full well that humans have been genetically modifying the flora and fauna on this planet to their benefit since we made friends with wolves. I am not saying I am against GMO's. I am saying that between industry farming practices, and genetic modification like "Roundup Ready" seeds to benefit industry farming, our food doesn't have the same nutrition as it did 5,000 years ago. Which means strategic daily nutritional supplementation is important to enjoy the same level of health and energy as an ancient queen had to rule her kingdom with. Same with rest. Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat fame was so beloved by Egypt because of his prophetic dreaming. He had to have lots of time and allowance to sleep to have those dreams. And Joseph may have been particularly talented as a prophet, but dreaming was considered an important time to commune with the gods for everyone, which meant everyone got plenty of rest. Now you see why modern society wants us all sleep deprived, and stuck in Mall World when we do sleep... A recognition of the spiritual in every aspect of the human experience. Which leads to prioritizing hygiene - both of the physical and spiritual form. Often at the same time - a hot bath with Epsom salt and Dettol does a whole lot all at once. So does a good scalp oiling with a rosemary infused olive oil - "thou anoint my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Psalm 23, if you're somehow unfamiliar). Anyone with the Clair's to be able to visualize the crown chakra knows it looks kinda like a big, white martini glass to catch the Universal Energy and funnel it into your spine, so it's pretty obvious we're talking about scalp oiling aiding in opening the crown chakra here, and strengthening your direct connection to the God source. Plus, it makes your hair grow like a weed, and thicken up like whoa. But if you oil your scalp, you have to cleanse it properly, too, you can't just layer a new layer of oil over an old one, that'll clog your hair follicles. And that takes a more targeted cleanse than a standard shampoo, which I use a combo of African Black Soap and Kojic Acid Soap to maintain. Those are also the soaps I use, along with an African Net Sponge, to maintain the rest of my body hygiene. It's a very inexpensive and low-packaging shower routine. Which is important because a queen can't succumb to the vanity of only considering herself, everything she does should consider the health of the community, and that means her impact on the environment. This is where veiling comes in, too - I have always wanted long princess hair, and have never been able to achieve it, and if keeping my hair wrapped in silk all day will help me achieve my goal, and will also symbolically protect my hair and crown chakra from evil eye energy? How luxurious is that? I'm in. Remember, head wraps can be sprayed with Florida Water and adorned with protective stones and symbols, too. There's your crown, queen. No need for some useless tiara when you have a lovingly maintained and protected direct connection to the Universal God Source. As for veiling the rest of my form, I'm clothing myself in styles and fabrics I feel are both comfortable, and reflect my personal style. I've always given a damn about how I present myself publicly, and made sure that I was dressed appropriately and stylishly for any occasion I was in. Nowadays, I'm doing that with an eye towards natural fabrics. Not that I'm going to give up my Adidas track pants or acrylic sweaters any time soon, but I'm prioritizing silks, linens, hemp, and higher-quality cotton if possible. Wools and real down are unfortunately off the table for me thanks to allergies, but the plant fibers (and worm butt fibers!) are all my friends. As for adornments, instead of "shiny expensive mass-produced metal bit," wearing jewelry designed by talented independent artists, using all kinds of materials, mostly chosen for their spiritual significance and use as well as beauty is a lot closer to what our royal ancient ancestors were doing than what Cartier or Jared are doing today. And you're supporting art in general, and an artist in your community by opting for independent jewelry over a mass-produced house or brand. I've always been a fan of perfumes and personal fragrance, and occasion and company specific, of course, I love wearing a good, strong scent. Definitely a personal preference, but mine is to smell delicious whenever I can. And that cycles back to personal physical care - Egypt deified the man who discovered oils and butters and compounds for skin health. And they're still very much available today - I just melted mangosteen seed butter, raw coconut oil, and olive oil together with Chebe powder to use as a hair sealant. This is not unlike what he was doing all those millennia ago. And I've already written multiple blog posts about how well that's been going for my hair growth, and how oils and butters are improving my wound and scar care, let alone how healthy my skin is layering single, nutritious ingredients over it instead of artificially-sourced ingredients in a drugstore lotion. Just like your internal diet, strive for feeding your skin minimally processed ingredients with optimal nutrition. And the results of all this royal treatment? Sovereignty and dignity. And an appreciation of true abundance over the modern, capitalistic concept of "wealth." This lifestyle doesn't require what we consider "wealth," which means it also doesn't require "hustle," it requires alignment with the God source in very literal ways, as well as an outward focus on community involvement and improvement, because direct alignment with the God source makes you see how that benefits you personally precisely because it benefits everyone.

I snapped this pic right before taking it down for my bath, hence the robe. I had tied it some six hours prior. No pins or rubber bands, just a couple of knots and some tucking. And I don't have an occipital ridge, it's hard for me to wear the circle kind of headbands without a hairstyle to hold it in place at the nape of my neck. Veiling in public started today. I took off my sleep bonnet and started to style my hair to go out to the grocery store, and then I was like "no, today is a head wrap day." So, I pulled out a Ukrainian scarf (might as well get as many points of ancestry in there as possible, right?), and copied one of the tutorials I've been watching over my mulberry silk lined, modal cotton outer beanie-style bonnet, which I could have stuffed for a taller wrap, but went just with my hair and the excess beanie material. Pretty impressive for fine hair, huh? I'm saving the tutorials I want to try in a public playlist, if anyone wants to check it out: I used the second wrap from this video for my wrap today: I also got the notification that my jersey hijabs are in the mail, hooray!! You may never see my hair in the wild again! In other hair news, I used up the yellow shea butter based chebe butter tonight, and promptly made a new batch with the kokum butter, so it has time to sit and solidify before my next treatment. This means I get to shake the jar every so often to keep the chebe from sitting at the bottom while it all hardens up again. And as for why I was out grocery shopping in the first place: Lentil sprouts were a rousing success, so I went out to pick up some mung beans and chickpeas to sprout next. Munching on sprouts and sea salt is going to be my new popcorn, I can feel it... And for something completely random, my grandmother announced today that her parents, my great-grandparents, were Freemasons their entire lives. She never thought anything of it, it was a lovely social club for both of them. Good grief.

Not only did we just have a whole night of some severe thunderstorms the other night, today the trees and scrub underbrush all have that green aura before it starts to bud out. And we don't tap our sugar maples, but you can tell the sap is flowing considering the big red buds they're sprouting right now. We likely have one more good snow storm coming off of Lake Michigan before it's really spring, but Persephone is definitely back topside. I saw my allergist the other week, and I'm stocked up on my nasal spray, I'm ready for the flowers! You want to kill a whole season? Have major surgery at the very beginning, and spend half of it on Oxy. I'm sitting here like "damn, summer event calendars are about to drop, I need to start getting with people and making plans..." while we're just coming out of the "is it late November or early March?" weather vibe, and I'm still not sure if I'm recipe prepping for Thanksgiving or grill season because that was a blip on the surgery timeline last year. The spring-ness is being emphasized by my main entertainment today being watching a jar of lentils sprout. "Riveting," I'm sure you're thinking, but this is just 78 cents of Aldi green lentils that started sprouting pretty much the minute they were hydrated and saw sunlight. This is fun to watch! And I'm going to have Buddha bowls for dinner once they have lil bb leaves! The birds are starting to come back up north, too, and it's blowing the cats' minds. This is Penelope and Milosh at the end of my bed as I write this post: The bird can and can't be seen in-between the branches of the shrub in the top right window frame. Bird is much clearer here. Milosh is obsessed. In more warm weather news, the bikini I ordered arrived today! Now, any physical stress triggers a migraine for me, and that includes ANY sunburn. 3% of my body? Migraine until the burn heals. So, I wear full-length UPF50 compression leggings, a full-sleeved UPF50 hoodie, and water shoes to swim. I am absolutely appropriate for a public beach in a Muslim country. But, you need to wear "underwear" underneath for support, and ease of switching out of wet bathing clothes to dry, not appropriate for the Dubai mall but totally appropriate for any Michigan coastal area "town clothes." Besides, the extreme UV protection is unneeded in an indoor hot tub, or at midnight. I am so ready for this.

TW: diets and diet culture, including describing extreme dieting techniques of the 80's and 90's. I've been waking up really late recently, daylight savings time is not helping this, and I had an 11:30am appointment yesterday. A normal person would have plenty of time to pull themselves together, but I slept until nearly 10am, and it takes my stomach a couple more hours to wake up than the rest of my body, so I went to that appointment on water, coffee, and collagen powder. And by the time the appointment was over, the McDonalds in the parking lot looked pretty amazing. Do I eat fast food? Depends on how customize-able the app makes the food. Taco Bell is my go-to, Jimmy John's and Popeye's are also favorites, but fast food is a once every other month kind of thing, maybe. That's road food. And I am so rarely on the road anymore. The last time I ate a quarter pounder meal was sometime last summer. And I should state, for the record, that I'm taking Contrave, aka Buproprion and Naltrexone, as a weight loss aid, as well as eliminating my diagnosed food allergies from my diet - dairy, soy, nuts, eggs, and tomatoes - and eating a "Mediterranean Diet" based primarily on beans & lentils, rice, lean meats, seeds, fruits & veg, and olive & avocado oils. Alright, according to the Maccas website, the burger is 520 calories, the fries 320 calories, and the regular Coca-Cola 270 calories, for a grand total of 1,110 calories. I typically eat around 1,600 calories per day. How did my body react? I spent the rest of the day sucking down water and electrolytes. But food? I finished my grandma's fries around 9pm, so maybe 100 more calories, and had two mandarin oranges, total 80 more calories. So, I ended up eating fewer calories than usual, but also got almost no fiber, and WAY more sugar and salt than I'm used to. Why bother blogging about this? As an OG Body Positivity girlie with an Anthropology degree who had Obesity Class 2 on my chart this time last year, I find the current Fat Activism pretty fascinating. Particularly the "What I eat in a day as a fat girl who dgaf about counting calories" videos where these women start their day with a meal like that, subbing in or just plain adding a coffee drink with double the calories of the Coke, and they just... keep eating normal-sized meals in the same vein after that. I used to be able to do that. And I just... can't anymore. Something I've been seeing a lot of these fat activists say lately is "diets don't work," but they just... leave it at that. Diets don't work, so that absolves them of trying. Problem being, since I am an OG, I remember the rest of that saying - "diets don't work, you have to make permanent lifestyle changes." See, I'm even old enough to remember what diets were before social media - I remember "a Slim-Fast shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a sensible dinner," essentially tricking your body into thinking it's consuming nutrition by feeding it two chemically processed 12oz protein shakes and nothing else all day, and then eating the current US administration's recommended budget dinner of a small piece of baked chicken, a couple of broccoli florets, and a single tortilla. I also remember the one where you eat nothing but a cabbage and tomato soup for a whole week, nothing else. Or the "Atkins Craze," where you only consumed protein, to the point where it was causing brain damage from lack of carbohydrates. When people say "diets don't work," they're specifically talking about these "quick fix" starvation techniques that might get you "fast results" if you want to lose 15 pounds for your vacation next month, but you'd never be able to take significant weight off, let alone keep it off, with any of them. You need lifestyle changes - you need to re-shape how you feed yourself every single day for the rest of your life, and you can't set yourself up to fall back into your old food habits. That means learning to cook from scratch for yourself, and having a stocked pantry and go-to recipes. That means meal planning. That means knowing where and how you can eat out while still maintaining your food habits. That's not a "diet" in the "diets don't work" sense like we see above, that's making healthy lifestyle choices. Learning how to independently care for your electrified meat sack, like the Sovereign Being you're supposed to be. And for the record, people with epilepsy have been eating Keto since the 1920's, and the Mediterranean Diet has obviously been eaten for millennia even though the book wasn't written until 2014. As a matter of fact, that's my biggest piece of advice for anyone who wants to make healthy food changes - don't try to eat like an American, but in a calorie deficit. Pick a culture or five that prioritizes whole foods and traditional recipes in their daily food system that you really enjoy eating cuisine from. And find cooking content creators from that country demonstrating what they're actually feeding their families on a daily basis. And learn their recipes, start to incorporate them into your meal rotation, keep the ingredients to make them on hand. WIX is riding the technical struggle bus today, and I just took a pause to reload this post, finally (at 12:45pm! Damn, McDonalds...) eat my usual breakfast of dairy-free yogurt, flax seed meal, and raw honey from my neighbor's hives before taking my meds. I also brewed a pot of masala chai, and discovered my sprouting jar lid just delivered, so I put a cup of lentils on to sprout, which I'm excited to eat in a homemade flatbread wrap with all kinds of sauces and spreads. As I was doing this, I was describing Japanese-style rice in tea broth to my grandma as a way to serve the smoked salmon we picked up yesterday. Lifestyle changes. Learning from cultures that prioritize whole foods. And taking responsibility for yourself. That's the other thing I hear so much, "I tried [diet and/or exercise] and it didn't work." Okay, but did you fight to find out why? Did you get tested for food allergies or try an elimination diet to see if there's a particular food that's at the root of your symptoms? Did you try therapy or any other treatment for any neuro/psychological issues that could be contributing to your failure here? Did you just jump into a full exercise routine right off the bat, injure yourself, and not recalibrate your routine so you could build your strength and endurance slowly? Before you "but..." me here, I learned to strength train at a fibromyalgia pain clinic, where I was also diagnosed with non-EDS joint hypermobility. The method is called "greasing the groove." It trains your nerves as it trains your muscles, so even a brain with Central Sensitization Syndrome like mine finally realizes what you're doing is a safe move. And it trains your muscles at a reasonable pace, so you'll see fast results without injuring yourself. I lost 29" total and got buff af using this method with multiple physical disabilities. Y'all always talk about how healthy you are... And as for the people who are mad that people who were into "fat activism" are now going on GLP-1s or hitting the gym, because they profited off of being fat as a fat activist influencer on TikTok and now they're going to just cast off that identity... repeat after me, feminists: MY BODY, MY CHOICE. You only get to make decisions about your own physical form, not anyone else's. And I hate to break it to you, but being bitter about someone's personal choice about their own body just comes off as you being mad that they're proving that you can do it, too, no matter how much you claim you can't. OG Body Positivity is about loving yourself, no matter what. Let's just say that Acts of Service is your body's primary Love Language. Feeding yourself nutritionally dense food and moving your body in functional ways is an act of love. And if the result of that self-love is fat loss, that is not a "betrayal of the movement," that's being fully successful in your Acts of Service, you're seeing real world results of loving yourself enough to care for yourself in real ways. And you get the benefit of living in a strong body with all the tools at hand to function correctly, which, trust me here as a person with MANY chronic physical disabilities that have nothing to do with my weight or my general overall "soft bits" health, makes a massive difference in your life experience. I'm 100% for everyone doing whatever they want with their body, but let's at least be real in the discourse about it.

I've obviously had a lot of time to think about all of the things recently, and one thing that's been on my mind is how to keep my hair protected from the environment while I'm outside, especially for long amounts of time like camping trips. I typically used to put my hair into two cornrows, and just not touch it while I was in the woods if possible, and if not to just brush it out and re-braid it. This was also before I started wearing bonnets to bed, so I wasn't really aware of just how harsh this kind of exposure was on my very fine, very porous hair. This was also pre-chebe, so those highly porous hair cuticles gripped each other a lot more than they do now that they're properly sealed. Keeping cornrows intact for a weekend in the woods isn't as easy as it used to be. This issue is easier in winter, satin-lined beanies are a dime a dozen, and I mean that almost literally. But in the summer, when I have the power schvitz combo of post spinal cord injury + perimenopause? I need both breathe-ability, and something to hide my soaking wet hair 😅😅 So, I think to myself, "self, you're using an African hair care regimen, they must have a solution for this." Head wraps, duh. And I happen to have this realization as Sister Minnie's mom is having a big sale on her website , so I ordered some jersey hijabs to start with. And I've spent the weekend watching video tutorials on how to tie them. Holy katoot, I never realized just how versatile a good head wrap can be! Which is just one thing I like about this already. I believe I now know more ways to style a wrap than I do to style my hair. And I'm pretty good at braiding and styling! So, that's even more looks for my wardrobe. Why else? A simple wrap takes less time than a simple style on my hair, and is less damaging than a baseball cap. Which makes it lower in spoons than a hairstyle on 8am doctor appointment days. I'm not one of those people who can wear a brimmed cap just because, I need to be actively out in the sun or the rain where the brim is useful or it's a sensory issue for me. Wraps are one of the few non-brimmed headwear styles that's out there to choose from. It's one of the easiest ways to incorporate the 2026 brooch trend into a light summer wardrobe. This isn't something I'm really formally including in the Hair Growth Challenge, but I do consider my recent post-spinal cord injury kundalini re-awakening as a part of my hair growth, and have been attending to the spiritual aspects of my hair and hair growth as I attend to the physical aspects, hand in hand. I chose black, white, and plum for my first three colors. Black because it's my neutral - I have a very cool olive tone to my skin, those "clean girls" were killing me there with making their cream and beige and yellow gold jewelry trend so hard. But also because it's a protective color. White because it'll reflect the sunlight off the top of my head, which will be amazing after having black hair my whole life. But also because it's the color of the crown chakra. And plum because it made me gasp when I was scrolling through the color options - talk about a royal crown 👑 It's also really close to violet, the other color frequency associated with the crown chakra. And, well, considering all the spiritual gunk out there right now, and considering how used to spiritual attacks I am, putting a barrier between me and the world that combines physical practicality and spiritual hygiene? For the record, this is spiritual, not religious - aka you seeing or not seeing my hair has nothing to do with why I would choose to wear a wrap. This is to keep my hair from UV rays, friction from rubbing on my clothes, and bad vibes. So, yes, I will still be posting monthly length checks. I also took advantage of Second Fool's Spring to shift my closet around from winter to summer, to assess what I have, and what I need. Which is practically a snow summoning ritual, but whatever, I did it anyway. And past me set 2026 me up for success! For instance: The pair of muslin bloomers I sewed for my Pirates of the Caribbean inspired pirate wench costume 20 years ago that I found hanging in the way back of the closet. The pair of Thai "balloon pants" I bought for spine surgery number one, five years ago now, for the wide, comfy waistband. The pair of linen drawstring pants I ordered on off-season clearance last fall, and completely forgot about until today. Same story with the brand new package of tank tops in the perfect size I found in a doom pile. This... might be the first time in awhile that I've been excited about my summer wardrobe! Summer clothes used to be my favorite while I felt frumpy all winter. But my summer wardrobe has been in such a state of flux since 2020 that this is really the first time I've looked forward to enjoying wearing my hot weather wardrobe and feeling good in it since my 30's. It's not my body size, I was a size 20 my entire 30's. It's having light, fashionable clothes again, and places to wear them. And I had my first eye exam since... before the pandemic today. Early 2019, according to Zenni. So, I'm changing up my eyewear look, too. The pink lenses are the FL-41 tint for migraines, the avs are at 25%, and the latte shades are 80%. The round black shades have a 50% grey tint. I have all light situations covered. My life was really dramatically upended when I was 37-38, and since I've always tailored my wardrobe to what I wear my clothes for, e.g. for the office, for meeting tarot clients, for cocktail events or backyard parties, for being outdoors, etc, etc, I was really focused on what I would wear in my 40's as I was working through the identity shifts and shifts in my physical form that I was going through during that time. And here I am three years in still figuring that out 😅😅 But I could not have predicted my body or the crazy fashion shifts of the past six years, either. And we are NOT well enough informed about what peri/menopause does to the 40-something year old body, and how that tends to start informing your clothing choices. The muumuus make sense now. Let's see if I'm up to regular-ish OOTD content as the weather gets warmer, and I get out more so I put on more than cotton shorts and a tee, freeboobin' it and all. Just remind me to somehow overcome the ADHD time blindness and get ready to go out early enough to take pictures before going out, since my spoons are shot to hell afterwards 😅😅 Or have an accountability buddy to take pictures of me an my 'fit during said outing...

After hearing about my surprise overnight scar improvement, my grandma tried my scar combo this morning. Now, I'm not taking care of her wounds, so I'm being told that now that she's started on my daily collagen and electrolytes regimen, her wounds have healed, and she's working on scar management now. Turns out, she was dealing with scabbing that was refusing to come off, and that she thought she'd have to go to wound care to have removed for her. I'm told the minute my moisturizing trio hit the scabs, they started to fall off. They're gone now. One application. Again, no before and after pictures because of the "ew, gross" factor 😅😅 As for my scar, it's doing great. The incision went to the bone, this scar is a part of my body now, I'm not going to heal it like it never happened. But it's way less tight and restrictive on how the skin moves than it was. To recap my method, I layer from thinnest to thickest: Hyaluronic acid serum Full spectrum Vitamin E oil Raw cocoa butter Funny enough, searching images gets a lot about the smell of cocoa butter, which is understandable since it smells amazing, but what's so funny about the raw stuff in particular is that it doesn't have the Palmer's scent that triggers the usual childhood scent memory associations, but it does for some reason trigger the scent memory for me of a particular cocoa scented scratch-and-sniff sticker from the 80's that we'd get in elementary school as rewards for good work. Don't ask.

A few days ago, I saw a YouTube dermatologist say that topical Vitamin E doesn't do anything. Now, I recognize that this is anecdotal evidence and no scientific study, but I have to disagree... To be fair, there's the question of synthetic vs. natural, and percentage in the formula, and etc etc. Now, most naturally sourced Vitamin E is a soy derivative, so I have to be careful which Vitamin E products I use, and I generally stick to CocoJojo's Full Spectrum Vitamin E Oil (not a sponsored or affiliated link). To recap, this is my evening skincare routine: First cleanse with African Black Soap and an African net sponge Second cleanse with Kojic Acid Soap Spray down with HOCL Hyaluronic Acid serum Frankly's "The Closer" pore refining serum CocoJojo's Vitamin E oil Pure cocoa or kokum butter My surgery scar has been giving me a bit of grief, healing very hard and inflexible. Considering it's over a major joint, I decided I needed to do something about that, so my skincare routine is being brought down to my hip now, at least for a few months. All but the pore closer serum, no reason for that on my hip 😅😅 I kept thinking last night that I should take before and after pictures, but it's a gross scar, ew. But damn, I should have taken before and after pictures. Last night, the incision scar itself was purple, and the area around it where the mesh bandage was for the first month was reddish. This morning? The mesh bandage scar is barely perceptible, and the incision scar is red. That's overnight. I expected it to take WEEKS before I'd see any improvement. The FUCK. I had no idea the body could even work that fast. Just in case you were wondering why the skin on my face is so supple despite my advancing age and lack of expensive dermatological procedures. It's like I keep saying, your body actually works the way it's supposed to when you give your body what it needs to function properly.

February was kind of tough, health-wise. I ended the intro post saying that I was transitioning from healing leg to growing hair, but I definitely had more leg to heal 😅😅 Not to mention two weeks of Fool's Spring gave me a preview of migraine season, and I wasn't about to get into scalp massages when I have inflamed dura mater right underneath. Or get into showering in general when I'm in that much pain 😅😅 I think I managed four full wash days and chebe treatments for the month, which isn't bad, but is only about half of what I was aiming for. I did keep up my internal part of the challenge! Daily hydration and nutritional supplementation, as well as very minimal "cheat treats" aka foods I'm allergic to but eat anyway sometimes with the help of Benadryl, damn the torpedoes. Pizza is my biggest weakness, and I didn't have any in February. So, I felt like I was mitigating the stress of the healing leg and the migraines by not adding to it with any undue stress I put up on myself with my food choices. And I basically lived in a silk bonnet, and when I did take it off I immediately pulled my hair up into a ponytail, so yesterday's growth check was news to me! I did give myself a trim the other day, nothing that affected the length. I did default to techniques and shapes I'm used to, I need to check myself on that and explore different styles as my hair grows. So, how did February go? To compare, here's where I started: Not a lot of length overall, but the front really grew in! I did that, and healed a whole hip joint! As a preview of March, I only have about two treatments of chebe butter left with the yellow shea butter. Functionally, it's working great, but the yellow is making my greys look brassy. I purchased ivory kokum (or mangosteen, it's a seed butter) for my next batch, so there'll be a report on how kokum compares to the cocoa butter and shea butter I've used for my chebe butter so far. As well as on my skin, I usually slug with cocoa butter, but kokum is supposed to be good for pore refining, so let's see...

Getting back to this topic from a couple of weeks ago, my friend sent me this last night: Dear Universe, if I am a goddess somewhere back there, don't let me know about that past life. Or lives. I don't care how free of ego I may become, I don't need those kind of mind games. That'll just interfere with my purpose. I am who I need to be right now. And if I'm embodying anything, I'll embody it knowing the why or not. Also, anyone who's been in the spiritual community for awhile has already met multiple self-professed incarnations of all of the above goddesses already, we're aware 🤣🤣 So, I thought this worthy of blogging thanks to an interaction I had not too long ago when it came to people coming together to share their experiences of connecting with Mary Magdalene. One person, who claimed to be in the Magdalene bloodline (hi, cuz), came into the discussion and said that Mary Magdalene had reincarnated as a human and is peacefully living her human life somewhere, and therefore we're all in a fit of spiritual psychosis, as she couldn't be appearing or speaking to any of us. Babe, you're completely forgetting about the Higher Self. Mary Magdalene, who likely herself was an incarnation of Auset/Isis, likely is here in the human realm, assisting with midwiving the New Age of the Earth into being. Her Higher Self is not here behind the veil of forgetfulness, and can continue its spiritual function while she's also here in the trenches doing the work. We all have this capability at the soul level. So, Mary Magdalene, and any goddess or god who currently has a human avatar can definitely still appear to humans, in the form they're accustomed to seeing or hearing them in, and can still advise or aid them as needed, while also still supporting their human avatar. They could each have multiple avatars operating on Earth right now, while still continuing their functions as deities. The most Millennial reference. For instance, I dropped that gif, and got up to do a few things, including clearing out one of my "doom piles," finding new homes for everything in the pile, and cleansing the space both physically and spiritually, because we're going back to the Indian supermarket to get that Kali Ma statue tomorrow. Is Kali Ma currently incarnated in a human body? I'm like 99.999% sure yes. Is the Higher Energy of Kali Ma very present in my life right now? You bet your boots. Am I Kali Ma? Doubtful. Does my dad's dad's family have a very deep ancestral tradition of Kali veneration? Yep. And I'm betting Kali will be bringing Sarasvati and Lakshmi onto the altar by May 24, as well. iykyk. So, please don't see that meme and think "OMG, I need to find my patron deity in their physical incarnation in order to communicate with them!!" No, no. In their human form, they are not "The Goddess Kali," they're whatever name their human parents gave them, or whatever chosen name they took on when they were ready to express their true human identity, if they needed to. Keep communicating with their Higher Self aspect the way you normally do, that part remembers being a goddess or a god, and can advise or aid accordingly. Their human avatars? May be more spiritually advanced than most, but are still here on Earth operating an electrified meat puppet like the rest of us. It comes with some limitations. They're consulting their Higher Selves, too.

I may not have an audience, but damn it, I have opinions! I logged on with one more post-op update - I used my favorite cane for the first time since surgery yesterday, a single-point offset-handle aluminum model that's engraved so it looks like it's covered in shiny dragon scales. When my hip joint is fully functional, my left leg is my "strong leg" thanks to my balance issues and the foot drop in my right leg caused by the spinal cord injury. Which means that when I'm supporting my right leg, I use the cane on my left side. And when you're using a cane for support, you size the cane so the handle sits at your hip. I grab my cane yesterday, and... had to adjust it up a full notch to fit my new leg length. Damn! I should probably get re-measured. I lost an inch when I lost the disc at L5S1, I wonder if I regained a bit with the new hip. We're talking between 5'10" and 5'11", so I'm not exactly talking short and shorter here... I then took my longer cane to do a little light grocery shopping, where I walked the perimeter of both Meijer and Aldi with no pain issues! I haven't been grocery shopping in months!

I downloaded a free little macro & nutrient tracking app yesterday. Who am I?? I guess when you remove the toxic control element all of a sudden you can see the utility of the practice. Turns out, you can be eating the healthiest foods the earth can provide, and you can still fall short on some nutrients if you're eating it on vibes. Especially if you're #FIBERMAXXING. This was 2/22/26. Ignore the sodium & calcium, I couldn't figure out how to track my electrolyte drops. I planned on fixing myself Mujaddara for dinner, I even caramelized the onions, and when 6pm rolled around... I ate a big apple and an open-face SunButter & Jam sandwich instead. I wasn't meal kind of hungry. Had I had that Mujaddara, I would have hit my calories and protein and not hit the seeds so hard for the fats, but I fibermaxxed a little too close to the sun yesterday. The good news? I'm going to keep an eye on it for a few days, but I think I can drop spending $20/month on Benefiber from my budget. And you're probably looking at the calorie count and freaking out. Contrave has me eating purely for my physical needs, and I am so sedentary. I really only get up to cook myself meals on a daily basis. So, I do keep myself in a calorie deficit, but for me it's more of a maintenance diet, though I'm obviously losing weight. I can tell you from post-op healing that I get hungrier if I need to. I expect the more active I get this summer, the closer to a real maintenance diet I'll get.

Things I have learned in the last 72-ish hours: It's a lot easier for me to track my macros and decide on what to make for dinner based on what I still need in my diet that day, and what I have on hand. For instance, today's been heavy on the healthy fats, I had two chicken thighs and some olives for lunch, on top of my usual seed consumption. So, I'm chasing carbs and protein for the rest of the day... smoky pinto beans and cornbread from scratch for dinner it is. Edit: I originally thought my cornbread, like my white bean bread dough, was super low calorie, but I finally found the calculation error, my bread recipes are actually quite nutritionally dense! Good grief, I just charted it - the whole dinner is 531 calories, 18 grams of protein, 16 grams of fiber. Y'all want a healthy, easy meal that'll fill you up and tastes delicious? Pinto beans and cornbread without any dairy, eggs, or nuts.