LOTUSLIKE

🌑 Libra New Moon on the 10/10: a reading and meditation on pleasure

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hi loves, my voice was in and out today but we still showed up, live from the shoppe with the rain coming down, which y’all know I love. If you missed it, the replay is right here, and I wanted to give you the fuller picture of what came through because this one really landed for me.

Libra gets talked about for her beauty and her sensuality, and people tend to forget how intelligent she is. The surface is so captivating you end up staying there longer than you need to, and you miss all the depth underneath, her need for justice, for harmony, for things to actually feel right. So yes, beauty is always part of the conversation with me, but this new moon is really asking about pleasure. Are your days pleasurable? Are you moving through even the mundane parts of your life like, damn, this is satisfying to me? And if you’re not, this retrograde season is giving us all the REs to work with, so we can refine, review, and reconsider until we can say with our whole chest that we enjoy our lives.

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🔮 The pull came from the Moonology Oracle deck by Yasmin Boland, which was my very first oracle deck. She’s so well loved and it felt good to bring her back out.

✨ Void Moon: Nothing Will Come of This Situation. If there’s a part of your life where the pleasure just isn’t there, pay attention to that. And I don’t mean toxic positivity where everything has to be a good time all the time. Pleasure can live inside something that stretches you and makes you a little uncomfortable. But if you look and there isn’t an ounce of it present, it’s time to reconsider, because we are not meant to just struggle and suffer, especially as Black women. Pleasure unlocks our creativity, our sense of safety, and relationships that honor us. Staying in a situation with none of it keeps you stuck in the void.

✨ Mutable Moon (reversed): Nothing Is Yet Set in Stone. In this deck a reversal points to internal work. We really are in a season of transition, and you have more say in what you’re about to experience than it might feel like right now. If what you desire isn’t showing up yet, stop staring at what currently exists and use your imagination to see yourself where you want to be, because that dreaming is pleasurable in itself. If that feels hard to do, it might be a call home to your relationship with beauty, passion, sensation, and feeling good in your body, mind, and spirit. Oh baby, we are here to feel good as often as we possibly can.

✨ New Moon in Pisces: Meditate and Contemplate. I told a story on the live about being in the Spotify podcast program with my homegirl Jamila, where everyone else was sharing these calm little updates and then she’s caring for a parent, shooting a documentary in Costa Rica, and flying out the next day, and I’m over here running down certifications and speaking gigs. What Black women do at our baseline is already a thousand percent, and we’ll still say girl, that’s literally Tuesday. That baseline can blind us to how much we’re already pouring out. So this card asks you to go in first. Sit with your higher self, your Ori, your ancestors, your guides, and let their love and protection fill you from your crown to your toes. Then, from that full place, start dreaming about what comes next. It’ll feel completely different than dreaming from anxiety or need.

The meditation was all about witnessing the pleasure that’s already here, whether that was the rain, the taste of your morning drink, or your body softening into the moment, and then breathing life into it until it expanded into your relationships, your work, and the people you get to serve. We closed by letting it pour over us slowly like honey, sweetening everything it touched.

If you want to go deeper into what October is carrying cosmically, my October Energy Reading is up for paid subscribers. I break down the energy of the whole month plus the tools and resources I’m using to move through this retrograde season, including what’s been going on with my throat chakra and these voice upgrades.

A few things coming up:

✨ Oct 17, Black & Spooky Ghost Tour: Historian and genealogist Morgan Lloyd is leading us through Washington Square in downtown Philly, once known as Congo Square. We’ll be pouring libations, honoring the ancestors who gathered there, and being spooky and Black together.

✨ Oct 24, Johnson House Historic Site: Morgan and I will be in conversation at this stop on the Underground Railroad about what freedom meant for Black folks in the early 1800s, with a charcuterie board sponsored by Johnson House and our Hoodoo Heritage bundles available.

👉🏾 Get access to all Beaucoup Hoodoo events here

✨ Scorpio season: My EFT audio on actualizing your potential drops in the next week or two, and my birthday wishlist is coming too since y’all ask every year.

✨ The Strict Shelf: I’ve been dropping so many gems on my book blog here on Substack, all Black fantasy and Black romance through my very peculiar taste.

Come see us at the Beaucoup Hoodoo shoppe Thursday through Sunday, 12 to 6, and if you want a personal reading, email me at [email protected]. I’ll be back live for the Full Moon in Taurus.

So tell me, which card resonated with you most, and what’s one pleasurable thing you’re calling into your week?

With love,Rev. Lo

Before I get into anything, let’s be clear about something. CultureCon came from an idea this Black woman, Imani Ellis (a brilliant fellow Scorpio baddie), had, and she started it in her living room, and now it’s a whole weekend where creatives from all over the country, maybe even internationally, are coming together in the same space to commune with each other. So whatever I share about my experience, I’m sharing it knowing this is still a celebration of Blackness, built by a Black woman.

And I think sometimes we forget that Blackness comes in all these different shapes and sizes. She’s covering Black in business, Black as creatives, Black as in sisterhood, brotherhood, siblinghood, Black in literature, Black in media, Black nostalgia, Black Afrofuturism, even how to go get a man, which again, I don’t think is necessary information for me, but it was there. With all of that going on at once, nobody’s having the same CultureCon, so I can only speak on mine.

People have been asking me how CultureCon was, so this is me sharing my experience. It is not a critique. This was my first time going, and I’d never really had the desire to go, because I don’t do big crowds. I feel a lot of energy from people, and being amongst that many can get overwhelming for me real quick. I actually came out to be an emotional support person for my homegirl, who invited me, and even with spending time with her as my North Star, there was so much going on that I didn’t get to see her as much as I wanted.

Someone described Imani’s vision as a homecoming for creatives, and I can absolutely f*****g see that. Fly ass, creative ass Black people, all together connecting, looking hella good. She hit the nail on the head.

And when I say homecoming, I mean a proper Black homecoming, HBCU levels of Blackness. If you’ve never been to one of those, that vision could go right over your head and honestly be really frustrating, because it’s still called a conference. But it’s a conference of culture, of Black culture, and that’s vastly different from what other conferences provide.

Will I share some ways I think it could grow? Sure. I’ve put on events big and small, I’m a trauma-informed practitioner, I’ve been a creative my whole life, and I’m a native New Yorker who lives out of state now, so I see things from a few angles at once. But none of it comes from having a terrible time. Things weren’t always smooth, and some things could have gone better, but there was never a moment at CultureCon where I thought, this is f*****g awful, I’m never doing this again. Well, one moment, and we’ll get to that AI talk. Everything else, even the bumpy parts, was never a bad experience.

Yes, I Came to Get My Fits Off

I’m starting with the fashion because I’m really passionate about it, and I grew up in it. I was a fashion model in my early teens, and when you live in New York City, you’re inclined to know about fashion, whether it’s because of Fashion Week or just the incredible style of everyday New Yorkers. Style is key. I know people assume the fashion side of CultureCon is superficial, like oh, you’re just there for the photo ops, and it’s like, yes, and I’m also expressing myself creatively through what I’m wearing, because I’m a creative…

So picking out fits was one of the things I was most excited about, because I knew I’d be getting dressed for a room full of creatives who would actually receive it. Outside of my new position as the healing artist at Beaucoup Hoodoo, where I can now dress to my full creative whimsy desires, I haven’t had many opportunities to dress at this level of fashion. Before that, I was working with kids, and there’s only so much you’re willing to wear around children, because they will absolutely destroy everything just by being alive and having sticky fingers. So I appreciate any chance to wear something really f*****g fly, and I planned the weekend around a theme: Saturday was dedicated to the sun, and Sunday was to the moon.

For Saturday I wore an oversized, drifty, giraffe-print-inspired halter dress, floor length, with the entire back out and a deep cowl neck in the front to show off my tattoos. Bone-colored thong kitten heel sandals, a cute little red toe, and a dark berry lip. Thick gold hoops, my honey name plate chain, the gold stack of bangles I have on me at all times, and my green jade gold ring. I was shimmering up to the Gods. I looked like an ethereal conjurer who called in the sun. The hair is where it went left. It was supposed to be a fresh braid-out that, in hindsight, I really should have tried beforehand. It was not that. I pushed it off my face and still looked beautiful, but if it had matched what I’d envisioned in my head, that look would have been everythinggg.

So Saturday night I got home, did a fresh blowout, and it came out way better. For Sunday I wore an oversized vintage men’s gray suit over a cut-out black crop top with white piping on the straps and around the breast. Silver pointy-toe stiletto boots that are actually comfy and kept my feet warm in the rain. I took a little baby blue and white silk neck scarf and wrapped it halfway as a belt for detail, with an evil eye charm. My NY beret that I love so much, cobalt blue mascara, my signature dark brown liner, and a glossed lip, an ode to being a New York girl through and through. For jewelry it was all silver: oversized crescent moon earrings with a really cute diamond ear stack, and these fun oversized silver rings, one with blue lapis and one with amethyst. Same honey nameplate chain. I got compliments all day, and it made me really happy.

Part Fashion Show, Part Networking, Part Conference

Someone said CultureCon is part fashion show, part networking, part conference, and I agree, because Black people and fashion go together real bad. We set all the trends, and we will continue to set all the trends. That’s just what we do.

Nobody looked the same. I didn’t see anyone with the same accessories or fit, and that shows you how creative we are in our ability to express ourselves through clothing. I may not know all the fashion houses anymore since I’m out of the modeling world, but I know good style, and I know when someone is expressing who they are through their clothes seamlessly. I saw that everywhere I looked, on the line and inside. Hair laid to the gods. The amount of gold glistening off of well-moisturized Black skin in the m***********g sun will always be tea for me.

And everybody was complimenting everybody. “Girl, I love your shoes”. “Y’all are so beautiful”. “Girl, you smell good, what’s that?” Nobody was mean, rude, or had an attitude. I know there’s been talk in the past about it being cliquish, or people just coming for photo ops without giving a f**k about you as a person, and that was not my experience at all. People were kind, sweet and really patient, which could also have to do with the frequency I carry. Either way being Black is an incredible experience when you’re amongst other Black people who love being Black, and that in itself was an experience.

Day One: Getting Through the Gate

Saturday was hotter than many of us expected. We’d already been given fall weather, and then Saturday was like, psych, it’s actually fall summer, and for those who know New York City has about twelve different seasons, you understand what I’m talking about. We were in line for about two hours with no shade anywhere, and the staff were doing their best to keep the line in order, but when you’re standing in direct sun in an outfit that’s generating its own heat, you just want to step into the shade. Come to find out there was free water inside the whole time, so if I could add one thing, it would be volunteers walking the line with that same water, because people didn’t want to lose their spot and they were thirsty.

By the time we got in, we needed to go to the bathroom badly, so the first place we went was the Creative Playground. It was a bit overwhelming when you first walked in, especially after being on line for so long, but the activations were really cute and fun, and it was pretty spacious for people to walk around and mingle. The one thing I’d move is the arts and crafts section. I think the goal was to give people a space to decompress and tap into that creative wellness, and having it directly in the center of all the activations, artists, and vendors made it feel overwhelming and oddly placed. The top floor of the Creative Playground had a smaller stage, which I’m assuming was for another Brain Date, with little standing tables in the back for chit-chatting, and everything up there was so much more calm and quiet. That’s where I would have put it. Now, on Sunday, when it was raining and everybody was essentially stuck inside, that section got very, very busy, and it was super loud. So if the point was to network and commune, it hit the nail on the head, but if the point was a safe space to decompress, that wasn’t quite it, and I’m honestly not sure which one the intention was.

Once we made it over to the Creative Business Stage, it was running about 30 minutes behind, which was honestly a blessing in disguise, because getting in took so long we would have missed something we really enjoyed. We just didn’t know at first, so we sat through a session we hadn’t planned on, thought we were in the wrong place, left, and came back. Then someone from the CultureCon staff went up and spoke to the audio and visual guys to clear up where we were in the timeline. Once we knew, it wasn’t a big deal at all, it was just confusing until somebody told us.

I also don’t know if that delay was updated in the app. It didn’t look like it when we checked, but I can imagine updating an app in real time is complicated. Personally, I did not enjoy the app. The interface is beautiful to look at, but it overwhelmed me, and it was really hard to get back to the personal schedule I’d selected. I’m not a tech person, but I do consider myself competent, especially when it comes to using an app, and I just didn’t get that user-friendly experience.

Day Two: F**k It, We’re Wet

I don’t think anyone was prepared for the rain on Sunday, including CultureCon. We’d been blessed with really good weather the entire week, and we were told it wasn’t going to rain, so I don’t fault them for that part at all. We live in the subtropics on the East Coast now, so anything’s possible. The food trucks had their awnings out, which helped, but mostly it was everybody trying to get to and from, ducking and dodging umbrellas and doing their best to stay dry, until after a while it was like, f**k it, we’re wet, it is what it is. The rain also gave us a late start, so I didn’t get to enjoy the day as much. I will say I could tell the team worked fast overnight, because the signage was so much better on day two, and I hope they keep that for the next one.

I don’t think I went to a single talk on Sunday, at least not one I can remember. I went back to the bookstore to get some redemption content, because I needed to redeem myself from Saturday’s hair, and to say hi to my girl at the shop, because I adore her. This time she was in another Adidas two-piece, classic black and white, with the black and white Adidas ballet flats, and she looked stunning again, so it was just so nice to see her beautiful face. Then I spent most of my time at the Creative Playground, which is where I met some really cool people I’ll be connecting with. And for anybody who gets nervous about networking, especially if you’re a girl, let me tell you where I made my best connections: the girls’ bathroom on the top floor of that building.

The girls’ bathroom is a portal. Everybody was so friendly, holding the door, making sure you had space, making sure there was tissue in each stall, just being girls. You overhear something and it’s never weird to chime in, because it’s an intimate space. It’s like the club bathroom where somebody’s asking if you need lip gloss, that girlhood and sisterhood camaraderie. My homegirl got an interview out of it that she would not have gotten otherwise, I met girls I had real conversations with, and I learned more about the experience from people who’ve been to CultureCon more than once. Then we took those conversations outside and had someone to talk to. As an event organizer, if there’s a way to bottle that up, I want to figure it out. Honestly, that bathroom might have been the highlight of my Sunday, and who would have guessed? I would have, because anytime I’m in a girls’ bathroom with Black women, it’s always a good time.

After that, I left early. Walking across a whole campus from outdoors to the next building without an umbrella definitely sounds like first world problems, but the rain was just a lot to deal with, and I was like, yeah, I’m good here.

The Creative Business Stage

I never made it to the main stage. I can’t even tell you what it looked like, because getting in was chaotic, and I decided that was totally fine. I did want to see Olandria and Bevy Smith, but the chaos of the main stage just wasn’t doable for ya girl, and I guess that’s a side effect of being spiritually and energetically sensitive. Hearing celebrities talk isn’t really why I came anyway, and that’s the native New Yorker in me, because I’ve been seeing famous folks do regular things all over this city my whole life. I’ll probably catch glimpses on social media. Though I will say, as far as I know Tyler, the Creator has never been at CultureCon, and I’m surprised, because his creative talks with Converse are epic and absolutely scream CultureCon.

So I stayed at the Creative Business Stage, which I enjoyed because it was smaller. The bookstore was on that side, the Chase lounge was there, and so was the grandma’s living room activation by BLK MKT Vintage, who also designed BEAUCOUP HOODOO. You can tell they have a particular sense of style. It’s very Black, very authentic, somehow nostalgic and futuristic at the same time, and I would absolutely do my living room just like that.

The talks were good, some really good, and a few just weren’t for me, but that’s because they were all very niche, so there’s truly something for everybody. My favorite was the Dream Deck session with Shareese Bembury-Coakley of Business School Dropout. She was a phenomenal presenter, I followed her Substack immediately, and I plan on getting as many gems from her as she’ll deliver. Then there was the session from her best friend, Amber Mayfield Hewett, the founder of To Be Hosted, on operations and the SOPs you need to run a strict program when you’re putting on events. Also really, really good, and I took pictures of the slides. I realized I’m a slides kind of gal. Give me a good slide, baby, and I will take over the world. You can be a shitty presenter, but if your slides are on point, you got me, because I’m a researcher and I like to apply information almost as soon as I get it. The third was on negotiating and redlining, understanding what’s actually in these contracts as a creator.

The only thing I wished for was time. When I say everything was back to back to back, they were not playing. As soon as a session was up, they’d play one or two songs and then we were right back to the scheduled program, so if you needed to run to the restroom, that wasn’t happening, because the nearest bathroom was farther than two songs. It also meant I didn’t really connect with anybody outside of who I came with. And most of the time you were getting really good information, so after Dream Deck especially, I would have loved a cute 20 minutes just to sit, digest, and turn to the people around me like, “What the f**k, that was amazing.”

Two panels really landed for me, and I’ll admit they were both so inspiring that I may have blurred who sat on which one. On the storytelling panel was Darnell Lamont Walker, an Emmy-nominated writer for kids’ shows like Work It Out Wombats! & Karma’s World. All my active aunties and mommas know how crucial these shows are to kids, and my four-year-old nephew cannot operate in life without Work It Out Wombats!, let’s be f*****g for real. He’s also a death doula, so here’s someone working at the beginning and end of life at once. When he introduced himself, he said that as a death doula he’s intimate with something we’re all going to experience, which is dying, and you could feel the room go, “Whoa, whoa, that’s morbid.“ It instantly drew me in. Being a Scorpio stellium, I’m very familiar with death and very familiar with grief, so hearing someone be that open and honest about it, in a way that felt so embodied and so casual, had me like, oh my God, yes, I want to hear everything you’re saying.

Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of The Three Mothers, was there too, and I need to go get that book. She talked about using the money from being in predominantly white spaces in college to research and amplify Black women’s voices, and she was adamant about it. She didn’t say Black people or all of us, she said Black women, Black femmes, and I appreciated that level of clarity and courage. So often, especially in our community, it’s always Black people, all of us, when Black women have a unique experience sitting at the intersection of racism and sexism. We need people advocating directly for us, and our counterparts shouldn’t feel shunned every time that happens, because feeling left out whenever Black women are centered is truly a patriarchal mindset. Her first book was a New York Times bestseller in a moment when everyone wanted to be interested in Black life because it was trending during the pandemic. When her latest book, Erased, didn’t get the same love from publishing because she was still talking about Black people, she used her own platform to make it an instant New York Times bestseller. We hear all the stories about Black authors not being seen properly in these spaces, so I appreciated hearing that version.

And there was playwright Jocelyn Bioh, the mind behind Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, a cool ass, weird, creative Black girl who was honest and open about that. It felt like I could be friends with all of them, like I was right there in it with them, and the host did a really good job of making it feel that way. Both of those panels found fascinating people who are actively living in their creative genius, and that struck a chord with me. That wasn’t true of every panel, but it was definitely true of those two.

The last one I didn’t even know about until my homegirl Ryen Watkins told me about it. She’s an author, and shameless plug, go grab a copy of her book, Creating Your Chapter Harmony, which was selected to be a part of CultureCon’s first bookstore activation. The session was The Art of Audio by Audible, geared more toward the BookTok crew. I’m on the book scene with my blog, so I stayed. The Capricorn side of me is a big girl boss, but I’m working on harmony, so I told myself I can’t always be about business. I’m so happy I did. I left with real gems about the listening experience for the solo listener, which gave me great perspective as I bring my podcast back out.

I have a bias, and I’ll own it. I enjoy women presenters so much. It reminds me of the conversation about DJs, and why people don’t really enjoy parties with a male DJ: he plays for himself and his people in the booth, not for the people on the dance floor. Women DJs blend. They’re on top of trends, they add in cultural nuance, they look at the crowd and see whether it’s being well received. They aren’t just running the set they prepped. They pivot in the moment so the experience is really great. That’s how I feel about presenters. The men were a lot of, “Baby, I love this, and if I love it this way, you’ll love it,” saying what they’d planned to say without reading the room. That could be for many reasons, neurodivergence included. But the women were talking to US. They let the information make them relatable and make them the expert, instead of telling us they’re the expert because of their long history. To a certain extent, I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I need to know what you can do for me now, and once you’ve shown me that, sure, tell me your story, and I might care. Even on topics I wasn’t super interested in, the women found a way to bring interest, and I noticed people didn’t leave when there were women on stage. That’s my firsthand observation from that stage.

Where Tech and Creativity Collide (When They Should Be Collaborating)

This is the one part of the weekend that was honestly not great for me, and I’m not going to act like it wasn’t. It’s my experience, heavy on the my, and it comes from one talk, the workshop on how to create an AI agent. I didn’t go looking for it. Because of the scheduling delays, it just happened to be on while I was waiting at the Creative Business Stage for the next session I actually came for. The description promised we’d learn how AI agents can handle repeatable tasks, support our workflow, and become a personalized digital assistant built around the way we work, and none of that happened, not even a little. I don’t want to sound like I’m eviscerating the person who presented, because that’s not my intention. It just wasn’t what I received at all. There were maybe 50 people in the crowd, with seating for at least a couple hundred, and I watched a lot of people get up and walk out. With no real breaks between sessions, a lot of folks used that talk as their bathroom run, and I don’t blame them.

To be fair, I went back through the app, and CultureCon did make room for AI on the schedule. There was a panel called Owning Our Narrative: Protecting Black Stories in a Changing Industry, which sounds like it was speaking directly to what I wanted to hear, and Google presented a workshop called Evolving the Canvas, where creators walked through their AI-assisted workflows in film and music, and that one would have been nice to be a part of. There were also sessions on AI glasses and accessibility and on spotting misinformation. So I can only speak on the one talk I sat in on, not the AI programming as a whole.

The energy in that room was, “I’m really excited, you see what I’m doing with AI, isn’t AI cool?“ Meanwhile there are people sitting there who might have lost an opportunity because somebody wanted something AI-generated instead of paying them what they deserve, who got undercut because of it, or who had their IP stolen. AI and creatives are essentially at war digitally right now. Are you going to take my position as an artist? Are you going to study my work, take it, and commit fraud? Those are legitimate questions, and they deserve to be held in every room where AI is being presented to creatives, not just one. I hate the narrative that this is what it is and you’re going to have to f*****g use it. We were surviving without AI before, and plenty of people intentionally keep it out of their daily lives beyond what Google and Meta are forcing on us. You could also see through the sponsorships that some talks were pushing products more than helping creatives. That’s how they get their bag, and it’s how we got the big space, the cute activations, and the free water, so I’m not going to hold it against the CultureCon team. It’s capitalism.

The presenter said he hates when creatives say they aren’t technologists, because we work on laptops and all of that, which is true. But he was speaking from a technologist’s point of view, and if you don’t consider yourself one, I can understand why what he said didn’t land. Bridging that gap is the whole thing. It’s the same conversation I have about STEAM, and how so many initiatives drop the A and just say STEM. You can’t have STEM without art. Everything is art, from the way you write, to the symbols used in math, to how engineering works, to the architecture of buildings. Making art seem unimportant is ludicrous and stupid and makes no f*****g sense to me, and it genuinely makes me angry. So I would have loved that talk geared toward AI: yes, AI is tech, but tech is also a part of art, and here’s why. People would have cared more, and it would have opened them up to the resources AI can offer to streamline their creativity.

I’ll be honest about where I stand. I’m not a big AI person. There are data centers destroying predominantly Black and brown communities, so I’ll never be 100% on board. Meta glasses are surveillance. I won’t wear them, and I don’t want anyone around me wearing them, because that’s surveilling me without my permission, and I don’t care how much great content you get out of it. There needs to be consent. I wasn’t at the session on AI glasses, so I can’t tell you whether consent came up, and I hope it did, because we are human first. But AI is being forced on me either way, so I’ve had to figure out what I can do with it and what I’m absolutely not going to participate in.

What has softened me is my close girlfriend Iman, who is an educated Black woman in the tech space. The way she teaches it, she talks about the elephant in the room instead of acting like it doesn’t exist or isn’t important, and I appreciate all of that. She was walking around CultureCon tapping press-on nails she made that send her information straight to your phone. She talked about using AI agents to pitch herself to brands automatically. And she literally made a CultureCon playbook that pulled together everything we learned from the panels and talks we sat in on and made it digestible, so we could review it after the weekend was done, get the gems, and remind ourselves of what we were inspired to work on. She built that in real time, in those one or two songs between sessions, every single time. I learned more about AI from her sitting next to me than I did from that AI talk, and she did it while teaching me about something really tender and tedious in technology, especially AI’s role in the creative world. AI is still so new, so I think a lot of it comes down to who’s pitching ideas for these presentations, and I’ve already gotten on Iman about applying next year, because what she does is incredible.

Where’s the Wellness?

This one is bigger than CultureCon. It’s something I’ve noticed in creative entrepreneurial spaces in general: the wellness conversation needs to be more prominent for creators, and it usually stays surface level, while actual practitioners who do this and live this are walking around the building. I knew sound healers and yoga instructors there, and I’m one of those practitioners myself with EFT, so maybe that means more of us need to be pitching. But when we do, it often gets treated like it isn’t valuable, because people want to know how to make money and make connections.

The thing is, if you don’t know how to regulate yourself, slow down, and tune in, it’s going to be very hard to make money and very hard to network, because you’re going to be too overwhelmed to do either. The arts and crafts section I mentioned was cute, and I can tell it was meant to give people that space. I can’t speak to whether any of the Brain Dates were wellness-centered, because the way my app worked I couldn’t access them, and I’d like to think there were a few, but that’s hopeful thinking. Either way, I’d love to see wellness get its own Brain Dates, or a little meditation station tucked somewhere quiet. Everyone I talked to who went to the wellness sessions said they could have done without them, and the one people were really excited about, Rachel Cargle’s, got rescheduled, and I’m honestly not sure if it ended up happening. If it did and you went, let me know how it was for you, because Rachel is a gem and I know she brought the heat. Maybe this needs to be its own experience, a wellness conference for creatives, and maybe that’s something I’ll be inspired to help co-create one day.

Literature & Libations

I didn’t do many activations, because I knew there would be a lot going on, and the one I cared about was the bookstore. For a first iteration, Literature & Libations was really great, and I’m excited to see how they expand on it. They did a great job selecting the books. I didn’t get to meet the owners, who were pretty busy, but the woman helping everybody out was my girl at the shop I went back to say hi to on Sunday, and she was a breath of fresh air all weekend. She reminded me so much of how I am inside my own bookstore, making sure people get what they need while they have a good time. Once I mentioned that I work at BEAUCOUP HOODOO, she introduced me to a filmmaker working on a film about Hoodoo, and we connected, which I thought was so cool. She knew exactly who to put together, which meant she was really taking the time to talk to people about their interests, and that was really bomb of her.

And of course, in regular fashion, I was posted up in the romance and fantasy section giving out reviews and recommendations to everybody, and people were so receptive. Ryen’s book being in the store is a big part of why I went, and it was nice getting to see her shine. I shouted her out, because that’s what I do for my homegirls, baby. I’m going to put a spotlight on you because your work needs to be seen. So many women came up saying, “Oh my God, this book is so good,” they bought it, and it sold out, which I was so excited about.

But it would have been nice for the store to do that itself. Let the owners know when a featured author is on site, and give a cute little announcement, like, “One of our authors is in the house, Ryen Watkins of Creating Your Chapter Harmony is here for the next 10 or 15 minutes if y’all want to grab one and get it signed,” and let her raise her hand. It wouldn’t take much. It doesn’t have to be on the level of Rachel Rodgers coming through for a talk and a signing. And the official book signing side was pretty empty most of the time unless a major author was there, so let on-site authors use that dead space to sign the copies the store already has.

I also think if there were book bloggers or BookTokers in attendance, giving them some kind of situation with the bookstore would have been dope, like a special preview before the doors opened. That might be something Literature & Libations would have to take on themselves, since CultureCon may not have the capacity for it, but it would have been really, really cute. The BookTok community goes crazy, especially Black BookTok, and they’re always looking for ways to amplify Black literature and Black voices. There were some really cool books and some really dope authors in that store, and I’ll be sharing a specialized CultureCon book stack on my BookTok, so keep an eye out for that.

Feeding Yourself

I was staying in Brooklyn, so each morning started at Sweet Sundays, the one near Beverly Road, and it’s Black-owned. Y’all know I like to shop Black and eat Black as much as possible, especially this October, since we’re boycotting white spaces, shout out to Deanté Kyle of the Grits & Eggs Podcast. I had their BLT, and I had to take the tomatoes out for obvious autoimmune reasons, but it was so good. The garlic aioli on that sandwich and the ciabatta bread were so yummy. Then the matcha, oh my God. I had it hot, a chaga mushroom matcha latte with Kremas, and it’s my new order whenever I go there now. That matcha was clutch for keeping my energy up, and the sandwich was really filling, so it was the perfect start to each day.

I can’t tell you if the food trucks were good, because I didn’t get any, and that’s no shade to them at all. There were a lot of food trucks, but on day one the lines were so long for all of them that I just was like, no. I do appreciate that they shared the trucks and menus ahead of time, so you knew the pricing and what was being offered, because when you’re very particular about how you eat or you get decision fatigue with 15 trucks to choose from, too many options can leave you eating nothing at all. But you can make up your mind beforehand, get there, see that line, and be like, girl, I’m not doing that.

So bring a backup. I packed instant miso soup packets because I knew I’d get a little peckish, and I had a little tangerine in my bag on top of that. On day one, Ryen got me a nice cup of hot water from the Chase Ink cafe, I added my miso to it, and it was the perfect pick-me-up to sip on until I got off campus and got food I knew I would love. I’ll honestly be carrying that around in my purse in general now, because some days are really long. I let them know at the front why I had food with me, and security and the CultureCon team were really cool about it.

I do think that’s worth keeping in mind for events like this across the board. People have different dietary restrictions and won’t always be able to buy from a food truck, and we really don’t know what people’s money situation is like in 2026, because the economy is crazy and capitalism is rampant. Letting people bring in something to eat isn’t going to kill anyone, especially if they have an autoimmune disease or some kind of dietary issue, and being a little more relaxed about that helps make the space inclusive for everybody. So shout out to my autoimmune girlies, these are my tips not just for this conference but for any big day you might have: keep a little something on you, and make it clear at the front why you have it.

If I Could Add Anything

None of this is a critique of the team. Every volunteer I talked to was incredible, super kind, sweet, and well informed, and Imani did a great job. These are just thoughts from someone who produces events and wants to see this keep growing.

The biggest one is information. There are a ton of resources, a ton of activities, a ton of things happening, and I honestly think the people who had a miserable time mostly just weren’t well informed. So the question I’d keep asking moving forward is how do we get all of this information out, and how do we get the right information to the right people? If someone’s looking for something, how do we make sure they find it? Imani had over 40 events happening during CultureCon Week, and I’m going to double check social media, but I don’t think they were very visible until after they happened. They were listed in the app, but I didn’t know they were in there until the week was over, so someone else might have had a better experience with those events than I did.

I also think it needs to be a three-day situation, personally. An extra day would help so much. Friday could be the get-to-know-the-campus day, maybe that’s when the fashion show happens along with all the funner activations, so people can get the lay of the land, see where the food trucks are, get their fits off, and just see where everything is. Then Saturday and Sunday you get into the work of it all, with real breathing room between sessions.

The volunteers were hard to find, though. Their dark blue t-shirts blended in, so a brighter color would help. I’d say hats, but I hate having to wear a hat, so maybe not that. Putting two or three of them at the intersections and near the doorway of each stage would help a lot, especially on day one. And like I said earlier, if things are running behind, an alert through the app or an SMS would go a long way, something like, “We’re 30 minutes behind at the Creative Business Stage and on time at the main stage,” because running late was never really the problem, it was not knowing.

The data situation made that even harder. With thousands of people in one place all calling, texting, and using the app at the same time, my data was really, really low. I could barely get the app to function, and my texts were coming in slow. That was probably going to happen regardless with a crowd that size, but it’s something to work on in the future, especially if the app is where all the important updates live.

I didn’t know about the free water until my girlfriends told me, and I didn’t see it on the campus map, so put it in the app and say plainly that it’s sponsored by Vitaminwater or Smartwater and you don’t need to bring your own. If that was said, I didn’t get the memo, which speaks to how much people want to be well informed. The map was super freaking cute and colorful, and I know the theme was the Museum of Us, so the buildings were drawn like other museums. In person they’re brick buildings, and there were other buildings on campus that weren’t being used, so it was confusing. A lot of us are neurodivergent, so a video tour on the stories beforehand, here’s the bookstore, here’s this stage, would let us see the space and not just read it on paper.

The pamphlet was the same kind of thing. Imani looked beautiful on it, loved that, but there was so much information and so many questions on there that it was overwhelming, even with the color coding. I honestly can’t even tell you what was on it, because I took one look and was like, whoa, this is too much. In that moment I’m trying to figure out how to get to the next place without ruining my outfit, I see somebody I know, I see somebody I want to meet, and I’m still getting familiar with the whole environment and energy of the space, and now I’m being asked to read something in depth that’s supposed to help me but isn’t helping me right then. A QR code to an audio version of the pamphlet, not the app, would have been clutch. And the back of it was dedicated to the sponsors, which could have moved to the bottom of the back so the top section could hold a physical copy of the campus map, so people actually knew where they were going.

Brain Dates were a favorite with everyone who got into one. I’d actually followed the conversation when the Braindate founder pitched to Imani, and from what I overheard, the smaller, capped sessions made it really easy to network with whoever was presenting and with the people sitting next to you, which is exactly what I couldn’t do at the Creative Business Stage. Between them selling out so fast and the way my app worked, I couldn’t get into a single one I was even remotely interested in, or even ones where I was like, girl, I don’t care about this topic, let me just see. It’s amazing that people want that level of intimacy, but it sucks that we can’t all experience even one. Next year, maybe cap each person at three, and if you have VIP, you get to choose five, so everyone has a chance at one. Or spread some of them throughout CultureCon Week, with themed days like tech on Tuesday, wellness on Wednesday, and self-care on Friday, the day before.

The last-minute additions also shifted the schedule a lot. You’re not going to get to every panel, workshop, and talk, and I’m obviously not saying you should. But when you’ve already picked out your schedule a week or two before and then someone gets added the same week, like Mayor Mamdani, it’s like, f**k whatever this workshop is, even though I wanted to go. People were sacrificing, like, do I go see Michael B. Jordan and be inspired, or do I sit down for the workshop that could really help me build out my business? Some extra padding in the schedule would help with that, open time that can hold a last-minute addition, or cover for a speaker who can’t make it because something came up. And if nothing fills it, that’s just dead time for people to mix and mingle, which isn’t a terrible thing at all, because it was too jam-packed as it was.

The porta-potties were the nice ones and they were fine, but they’re really just for going and getting the f**k out, and they aren’t size inclusive. A lot of women’s fashion is big and long, oversized pieces, layered tutus, things dragging on the floor, and you’re trying to manage all that in a small ass stall. We make it work, because that creative hustle spirit is always in us, but we need space.

And then the totes. The GA totes came in two colors, a Chase blue and a muted dark gray with white lettering. I understood the blue, since Chase Ink is the presenting sponsor, though I would have loved a deeper blue, more toward the indigo of the Chase Ink color, instead of that faded cobalt. I got the gray one, and honestly, it’s kind of growing on me, even though I didn’t love it at first and didn’t understand the color selection. What I don’t enjoy is Chase Ink plastered across it. If I’m going to carry a logo, I’d much rather it be for a Black company, and when you understand Chase’s history with the slave trade, it’s a lot, but that’s a conversation for another piece. I’ve seen the bags from previous years, so I was a little bummed ours went this way. I have no idea what VIP got, and I’m sure their goodies were better, so if you were VIP, let me know what your experience was. They also gave out Chase Ink notebooks at the Creative Business Stage that could have just gone inside the totes, alongside a pen for taking notes. The Camille Rose tote, on the other hand, I loved. The logo is massive and I’m not a big logo person, but the color is cute and the fabric is waterproof, which was clutch in the rain.

Who Should Go, and How

General admission and me do not get along, and I realized that a long time ago. GA is so massive that connecting with other people is something you really have to mentally prepare yourself for, and as someone who manages social anxiety, I’m not naturally an extroverted person unless I’m in a position like running the event. I naturally keep to myself, and I’m okay with that. Let me be very clear that I’m actually okay with missing out on connection, and I’m only sharing this as a reference for other people. There just weren’t a lot of opportunities to really connect outside of telling somebody their outfit is beautiful, and even that was in passing on the way somewhere. Ironically, people weren’t standing around, they were going places, doing things, and getting content, so keep that in mind too.

I’m a VIP girl, and I realized that if I were ever to go to CultureCon again, I would have to be VIP, talent, or part of the event programming. I’d say that about any conference at my age and with my level of experience and expertise, and that’s no shade to GA at all, because sometimes it’s just about getting your foot in the building, and there are people with that movers and shakers mentality who are going to make something happen and get that motion going. I’m not that person. I can’t speak to the VIP experience, since I never saw a VIP wristband in any of the spaces I was in, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m assuming they had a totally different, more intimate experience wherever they were, enjoying whatever perks came with it, and I love that for them. That’s the experience I would go back for.

If you’re in your twenties and just starting out, go for it. Look around and see what’s going on. And go to CultureCon Week for the smaller, intimate events. I only came out from Philly for the two days, but I’d go back for the niche ones I care about, like the BookTok event I didn’t know about, or the event at the Met, because I love museums and the theme was the Museum of Us.

If it’s your first time, or you don’t really know how conferences work, here’s what I’d suggest. Pick one talk, one workshop, and one panel for each day and make those your North Stars, and if you can get access to a Brain Date, add that in too. Let those be your compass for the day, and then in between, go to the activations, check out the food, get your photo ops, and go to the restroom. And if you’re more specific like I am, where you don’t care about the celebrity talks at all and you’re there for the business side or whatever the case is, build your day around that.

I also think you have to come into a conference with thousands of people with grace and realistic expectations. I know some people had a rough time, and from what I’ve seen, it mostly comes down to not being well informed. General admission means general is the key word, baby. You’re getting access to the space, and once you’re in, it’s on you to be well informed about how to work it. If the team has done its job, the information is there for you to connect with. You just have to connect with it. If you want something more intimate, support smaller conferences, because CultureCon isn’t that one.

And remember what Imani’s vision is, a homecoming for creatives. Alumni, freshmen, friends and family, everything in between, it’s f*****g chaos, and you need to know people and know where to go. Your first time is probably going to be overwhelming, and it gets better as you meet people who connect you to where you need to be. Homecoming is an experience you build on, and it doesn’t come out the gate perfect. I went to CUNY, and we never had one, so whatever get-togethers we had were nothing compared to a proper HBCU homecoming, which is the kind Imani is talking about. If you’ve been to one of those, you’ll probably do well at CultureCon. Imani is from Atlanta, so again, she hit her concept on the head.

One more question I’m left with: there weren’t a lot of native New Yorkers there. Everyone I met was from out of town. So where are all the native New York creatives at, and what are they doing? If you’re one of them and you didn’t go, let me know what you were up to.

The Rating

I’m not a conference girl, so fun is relative for me, but there were so many good moments where I genuinely enjoyed myself, and the places I set out to go, I enjoyed once I got there. And let me be clear about what my weekend actually was, because this rating is my experience. I went to five or six panels and workshops across the whole weekend, I didn’t have access to a Brain Date, I never made it to the main stage, and I didn’t even eat there. Even with all of that, the information I got from the sessions I did go to was that valuable for me, and I’m really happy I had access to them.

Getting around campus was the overwhelming part for me, and with an event this size, some of that comes with the territory. I know we’re all working to make things ADA inclusive and to make sure our neurospicy people feel seen and heard, and as someone who falls somewhere on that spectrum, I can’t wait to see what that looks like in the coming years.

I also loved getting to see my girlfriends and be in the space with them, even though it wasn’t quality time and it wasn’t a lot of it. I don’t know if that’s a testament to CultureCon, but it’s part of my rating. And of course, the fashion, baby. I love looking at beautiful people, especially beautiful Black people, and seeing their creativity, and I’ve been to conferences where people did not give what CultureCon gave. That, plus the overall kindness of being amongst Black people, where everybody was so sweet to me, counts for a lot.

So I was going to give it a 6.5 out of 10, because I’m somewhere between a six and a seven, and honestly, both feel accurate. But between the gems I left with, my girls, the fashion, and that kindness, I’m going to land on a 7 out of 10.

That’s My Two Cents

I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing reviews of the things I go to, but CultureCon was such a major thing, and I’ve seen so much discord around it that I wanted to give my honest, objective take as someone who was actually in the building. One thing I’m not going to stand for is people carrying on about a Black woman who is absolutely changing the game in her field and operating in her creative genius, and that’s exactly what Imani is doing. At the same time, there’s always room for improvement, and I think these are the kinds of conversations that create long-lasting, sustainable success for everyone involved, the team, the speakers, the sponsors, and all of us who show up dressed to the nines looking for something to take home. I hope I’ve added to that conversation thoughtfully, with love for what CultureCon already is and real excitement for what it’s becoming.

Thank you Nia, Duncan The Sage, and many others for tuning into my live video! Whether you caught it in real time or you’re reading this because you couldn’t make it, I appreciate you being here.

If you want to jump around the replay:

* Live begins — 2:29

* EFT directions begin — 34:00

* EFT meditation begins — 38:33

Fall Equinox Message

Equinox is a crossroads. That’s something we don’t talk about often enough — how this is a shedding and a becoming. We’re leaving behind summer as a season, and moving into fall, where things are dying, things are falling away, things are shedding. It reminds you to slow down. Summer is a very external season, we outside, sun shining, let’s go. Fall is more introverted. You’re coming back in, and you’re realizing you’re at the crossroads of this journey.

We always talk about how we prepared to get here, and we talk about what happens after the crossroads, once we’ve made our choice and picked a direction. But what’s actually happening at the crossroads itself? Are you panicking? Are you freaking out? Do you feel ready to make that choice? Do you know exactly what choice you want to make, or are there too many options for you? Are you taking the time to sit and see if you feel prepared from the past season you just lived? Are there any gems you want to take with you moving forward? Is there anything you know absolutely will not be coming with you? Are you trying to move backwards at the crossroads because you don’t feel prepared to move forward? Are you really aware of the options in front of you, and do you trust that no matter what you choose, it will leave you where you need to be?

Equinox is encouraging us to remember there are plenty of crossroads through life, each day and in each moment. They happen at noon, at midnight. Are we present in the moments when we’re there — when we can see the paths ahead and the paths behind and we’re like, I’m right here right now, I don’t have this urgency to move forward and I don’t have a desire to go backwards, I’m at the plateau. And that’s okay, because this is a space to regroup, to reconnect back to yourself, to take inventory, and then to move forward. To be in the moment, to be present, to see what the crossroads have for you, and also to see what you have for the crossroads — maybe there’s something you’re supposed to leave there.

The Dark Divines is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my art, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What Virgo Season Gave Us

Virgo season has this emphasis around clearing out your house, whether that’s physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and getting organized. That’s where we get this innate desire to want to get our houses in order, to see what’s staying and what’s leaving, to begin witnessing the beautification of our spaces and our relationships because we’ve been cleaning house, because we’ve been organizing.

I know it can feel a little cliché to say Virgos are organized, but they are, they’re very organized. Virgo energy knows how to streamline, how to make things efficient. They appreciate sustainability because they know that’s what’s going to keep things going, and they understand the importance of sustainability and streamlining, because you really cannot have one without the other. Without streamlining, without sustaining it, are you actually going to enjoy the journey?

Libra Season and the Power of Beauty

Libra season is less of the internal work up front. I like to say Libra season can catfish you, because you immediately focus in on beauty and pleasure in general, things that can feel super surface level. But real ones know that beauty is power. It’s raw, and it can be refined, and access to it will radically shift your world.

The only way to truly sustain consistent change in life is through pleasure. Virgo season should have been where you got to highlight the spaces in your life where there was some level of emptiness, or too much clutter that you removed. Now you’re entering Libra season to fill in those voids, those gaps, whether that’s in your community, in your relationships, in your practice, with beauty. That could be beautifying something, beautifying yourself physically, shape-shifting. It could be revamping your beauty ritual to deepen your connection and your respect to your own magic, to your own ancestry. It could be exposing yourself to more arts and music, being in places and spaces with people that feel beautiful to you.

What power comes from centering beauty? When you decide you’re going to fill these voids and gaps with beauty, what can come of that? Are you open and ready to receive those blessings and miracles? Because let me tell you something — only good things come from adding more beauty into your life. And I mean beauty as it has always been: the expression of source’s love for you and all things.

How I’m Filling My Own Gaps

As a beauty practitioner, pretty much everything I do is a beauty ritual. Even now, it’s like brushing my teeth. The tool I’ve been really connecting back to is tarot, particularly a deck I struggled with in the past, an Afro-Brazilian deck. It had been calling to me, and doing the reading, it was just such clarity — I needed to hear this.

With the body, I’ve been doing butters and smell goods, new fragrances, new body oils and body butters, and I’ve been enjoying reacquainting myself with my body that way, allowing my skin to glow. And with spirit, reconnecting back to the Divine Mother. That has been so important for me. My journey with the Black Madonna has been incredible.

What’s Waiting in Scorpio Season

When we leave Libra season heading into Scorpio season, Libra season is like death for me, and then I have my rebirth during my birthday. But if you’re prioritizing beauty throughout Libra season, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s less fear when you enter Scorpio season, of having to experience deep transformation or explore the taboo of who you are, because you’re so rooted in and nourished by beauty that it’s almost an adventure. It becomes exciting to look at those aspects of self and see what’s there, see how it can add to your beauty, contribute to it, or see how it’s been deteriorating your beauty and why you need to let that go, or alchemize it into something else that feels beneficial for you and yours.

If this felt really good to you, share it with somebody so they can also prioritize beauty in their life. And let me know how you’re doing — leave a little heart, a little comment underneath, so I know you were here.

Tap With Me: Prioritizing Beauty and Intentionally Seeking It Out

Sequence: side of hand, top of head, brow, side of eye, under eye, under nose, chin, collarbone, heart, underarm. Three rounds — one negative, two positive.

Setup (side of hand, 3x)

Even though I haven’t always centered beauty, and even though I haven’t always let it be a form of liberation, I’m still here, I’m still worthy, and I am still capable of choosing differently, starting right now.

Round 1 — the negative round

* Top of head: Here’s what happens when I don’t center beauty.

* Brow: When I treat it like it’s optional, like it’s extra or frivolous, I feel incomplete.

* Side of eye: I will push past any gaps and create these endless voids, and it feels like I’ll never be able to fill them. I forget that beauty is necessary.

* Under eye: It also means I haven’t fully believed I was allowed to experience and receive pleasure.

* Under nose:I’ve stayed stuck in the mud without moving, forgetting that there was more for me.

* Chin: I bypassed what I was going through instead of letting myself feel it.

* Collarbone: I’ve cut myself off from the power of beauty, and I realize if I hadn’t, it would have cost so much less.

* Heart :I lost access to that power every time beauty was not at the center.

* Underarm : And that’s what it’s cost me: this confusion, this lack of confidence, being unmotivated, the list can go on and on. To live a life without beauty woven through it is a life I no longer want to live. I want to let that old mindset go and allow myself to be reborn.

Round 2 — positive

* Top of head: I am choosing to prioritize beauty in my life, to intentionally seek it out.

* Brow: And in doing that, I’m accessing power that can radically change my life.

* Side of eye: I am ready to receive pleasure, for it to be at the forefront of my practice, of my experience.

* Under eye: Pleasure is becoming the baseline for me now. It’s no longer the exception.

* Under nose: I’m learning to instinctively identify beauty, even in the darkest of times.

* Chin: I’m not going to spiritually bypass what I’m going through. I’m just acknowledging that two things can be true at once.

* Collarbone: Even if I feel like I’m in the mud right now, I know it’s not the end of my story. Beauty still lives there too.

* Heart: I can bloom, the same way a lotus blooms out of the mud and into the light.

* Underarm: I’m becoming the beauty I’ve been seeking this whole time.

Round 3 — positive

* Top of head: I have bloomed like a lotus flower.

* Brow: I am a beautiful entity that nourishes the environment it’s in.

* Side of eye: I bring inspiration to everything and everyone I meet, and they do the same for me.

* Under eye: I bring joy to everything and everyone I meet, and they do the same for me.

* Under nose: I bring peace to everything and everyone, and they do the same for me.

* Chin: Not just my immediate environment, but the world at large.

* Collarbone: This is what happens when I choose beauty.

* Heart: This is what happens when I’m ready to receive.

* Underarm: I am living proof of what beauty can do. And in that itself is beautiful.

Temporal tapping — close

Starting at your temple, lightly tap behind the ear, coming down almost to the chin, on either side.

While you tap, say: I receive beauty. I receive beauty. I receive beauty.

Then switch to the other side and say: Beauty is my baseline. Beauty is my baseline. Beauty is my baseline.

When you're ready, place your hands over your heart, take a deep inhale into the heart, feel it expand and warm, let your shoulders roll back. Exhale with a sigh, let a smile come to your face, drop your shoulders, and come back to the room.

Thank you for spending this time with me, for tapping alongside me, for being present in the space we created together. This is something I want to keep doing monthly, so keep an eye out for the next one.

If you're new here, I'd love to hear from you — talk to me, ask questions, let yourself be curious in the comments.

And if this gave you something to sit with, share it with somebody you love so they can prioritize beauty in their life too. Leave a comment and let me know how you're feeling, what came up for you, what you're choosing to fill your own gaps with this season. I love you all so much, and I hope to see you soon, somewhere, somehow, in person and online.

This sermon is about the wild woman and the civilized woman — the two sides of you that society has taught you to treat as opposing forces instead of what they actually are: twin aspects of the same divine power.

Drawing on Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves and bell hooks’ Sisters of the Yam and Communion, this video goes into what it actually costs us to keep these two sides separated, and what it means to become your own container — strong enough to hold both sides with equal fierceness.

This is a continuation of part one, where we laid the foundation for who the wild woman and the civilized woman actually are.

Books used for this sermon:

* Women Who Run with the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés

* Sisters of the Yam — bell hooks

* Communion — bell hooks

Songs to meditate on:

* “Twin Flame” — Victoria Monét, on what it feels like when you’re in internal divorce, wild and civilized pulling against each other instead of together

* “Gemini” — Princess Nokia, on what it feels like in divine union, fully accepting all of yourself

Go deeper:

* The complete 2026 syllabus : the full theological and literary framework behind this sermon and the year’s theme of duality

* My Divine Union sermon : go here for a deeper dive into what union actually looks and feels like once both sides are integrated

Reflection questions:

Come back into your body before you sit with these.

* Place your hand on your chest. Which one of them is closest to the surface today, and what is she trying to tell you?

* Where in your body do you feel the split most — your throat, your stomach, your chest? What has staying silent or staying small actually felt like physically over time?

* Think about the last time you felt completely like yourself, not performing or managing or shrinking. What did that feel like in your body? What shifted when it was over?

* Who in your life knows both of your names? Sit with that one. What does your body say before your mind answers?

* If your wildness and your civility can exist together without one canceling the other out, what becomes possible for you that hasn’t felt possible before?

Share this: Tell me what surfaced in the reflection questions. And if it named something true, send it to someone you love — repost it, get it in front of the person who needs it.

This sermon is about the two sides of you that society has taught you to treat as opposing forces instead of what they actually are: twin aspects of the same divine power.

Drawing on Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves and bell hooks’ Sisters of the Yam and Communion, this video lays the foundation you will explore who the wild woman is beneath everything media taught us to fear about her, and who the civilized woman is beneath the language of “well-behaved,” and what it costs Black women specifically to sever ourselves in half.

The Dark Divines is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my art, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Books used for this sermon:

* Women Who Run with the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés

* Sisters of the Yam — bell hooks

* Communion — bell hooks

**feel free to grab your bell hooks books from The Lit Twist! My girl Petra is also having a summer school all about bell hooks if that sounds like a vibe for you! Tell her I said <3

Songs to meditate on:

* “Twin Flame” — Victoria Monét, on what it feels like when you’re in internal divorce, wild and civilized pulling against each other instead of together

* “Gemini” — Princess Nokia, on what it feels like in divine union, fully accepting all of yourself

Go deeper:

* The complete 2026 syllabus : the full theological and literary framework behind this sermon and the year’s theme of duality

* Haven’t read the story of Manawee? I read it directly from Women Who Run with the Wolves in part two, so you can catch the full story there, or pick it up in the book beforehand if you want a head start.

Share this: Tell me what came up for you watching this. And if it named something true, send it to someone you love — repost it, get it in front of the person who needs it.

Part two picks up with what that separation actually costs us, what it means to build the container strong enough to hold both sides, and what divine union looks like in practice — plus reflection questions to sit with after you watch.

💫 Not a paid member yet? This one’s for you first.

This month’s meetup is already up BUT if you’re not subscribed, you won’t have access to the full video. But here’s a taste of what your people inside got to sit with today. 👀🖤

Here’s what we covered:

🕯️ Ancestral Veneration: not the performance of it, but the intimacy of it. What it actually looks like to honor your lineage in ways that are personal, doable, and deeply felt. Including how to handle the complicated ones — the ancestors the relationship isn’t simple with — and how to stay centered and stand your ground when working with energy in general.

🌕 Capricorn Full Moon Reading: the two-sided nature of this moon and what it’s asking of you right now.

♌🪐 Jupiter into Leo: what this shift means for your power and your presence in the second half of this year.

🃏 Two-Card Pull: specific guidance to help you move through this lunar energy with intention.

🎵 Song Recommendation: leave you with a song to help you embody the energy of what we covered, not just think about it.

The whole session centered on one truth: your darker instincts deserve a seat at the table.

Wisdom lives there.

Power lives there.

And if you found your way to this community, some part of you already knows that. 🐍✨

The Dark Divines is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my art, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

When you become a paid member, you get:

🌕 Access to this full video + every monthly meetup going forward🗂️ The complete archive — past meetups, rituals, EFT scripts, and somatic tools built to help you navigate your life with clarity and intention🕯️ Practices that will help you dance in the darkness and live in your light — for real, not for the aesthetic

This is the space for the ones done pretending the light is the only place worth being. Come on in. 🖤

Happy Gemini season!!! As a Gemini rising with Mars in Gemini, this is one of my favorite seasons baby! There is something that Gemini energy that tells you to WAKE IT TF UP and we all need that boost of adrenaline for real.

Here’s what I want you to do (before or after reading this) pay attention to where Gemini is showing up in your own chart, because that’s exactly where this season is asking you to move, speak, and grow.

You’ll notice that the reflection questions overlap and even repeat - this is to ensure that you are showing up to the moment with as much clarity as possible. Take the time to answer them based on the wisdom expressed beforehand and then weave all the like minded answers together to build out what you need to focus on in this upcoming cycle.

These notes are the deeper layer of everything we covered in the live so you can sit with it, study it, and come back to it whenever you need to.

What to Expect in This Replay

🌌 A full sky reading broken down so the astrology actually makes sense and you know what to do with it.

🔮 A two-card pull for the Sagittarius Blue Moon one card for what is completing, one for what this portal is opening. If you are watching on replay, your timing is not late. It is right.

🧪 A live look at the rum-based signature blend I have been fermenting since the Scorpio Full Moon — every ingredient, why it is in there, and how I actually use it.

🧿 The full framework for building your own intentional blend from scratch so you walk away with a method, not just a moment of inspiration.

📑The research and selection process for herbs, spices, and oils that are actually aligned with your energy, your lineage, and what you are calling in right now.

Let’s get into it!

The Dark Divines is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my art & magick, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I know what people see when they look at me. They see someone intense, who doesn’t hesitate, who has probably always been this way. And they’re not wrong. I’m not a person who is big on giving grace just for the sake of giving grace, and I know that gets me a bit of a bad rap, which I am totally ok with. I’m the type of woman who has been thrown to the wolves and came back leading the pack. My Nana (a very dangerous yet loving woman) taught me that at a super young age. I remember me, my baby sister & cousins getting a lecture before school that if anyone tried us “you make em hurt so bad that they will never think of hurting you again” essentially I was taught that at the first sight of disrespect you eradicate it before it becomes too big to handle. Now Nana may have meant that in terms of bullies putting hands on us but there was nuance there. There are many ways to remove a threat to your well being that doesn’t equate to being physically violent - and yet at some moments in life that may be exactly what you need to do. Discernment is key here. When I seek out justice or retribution, I receive it — because I come letting people know that if I need to be deadly, I will. For my well-being, peace, community, whatever it is I’m fighting for. I will not hold that back.

And because I am a fully embodied multifaceted Black woman there is another side to me that people don’t always see: I am as equally cutie patootie as I am bad b***h. I am very much a whimsical la-la girl. I LOVE that about me. And I can be that way — fully, without apology — because I have no problem showing my teeth. I don’t lose sleep over it & have never felt bad about it. I’m not concerned if someone says I’m too much or too aggressive. At all. Those two sides have always lived in me at the same time. And this piece is for the girl who has that same duality inside of her but hasn’t let both sides fully breathe yet. The girl who is bubbly and joyful and half-glass-full but has been told in a thousand different ways that her softness is the only version of her that’s welcome or allowed.

The Dark Divines is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my art, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

That is a conversation I will probably always be having thanks to patriarchy (eye roll) so I wanted to put it here, plainly: it is okay for you to show your teeth. Actually, in order to fully get everything you want from this lifetime, you will have to.

I was raised by women who showed their teeth all the time. And I saw how it protected them, how it allowed them to live in a way of freedom that most Black people didn’t even know existed. That forever shifted my understanding of what it means to call in matriarchy, the real deal not the weird whitewashed version trending currently. But to call that in, you have to be able to show your teeth. You have to be able to protect your being, inner God, higher self & inner child. You cannot do that without showing that you can bite back.

I have this strong belief that Black women are like wolves.

I’ve felt this since I was a child. I actually got an A+ on an essay where I defended the so-called Big Bad Wolf in the Three Little Pigs — those pigs sounded like terrorists to me, like Karens before the word Karen was a thing, harassing a wolf that was just trying to live in its natural habitat and survive. Anyways I’ve always had this kinship with wolves because I see how they’re portrayed in media as vile, irrational creatures that are always out for blood, with no warmth or care in their bodies. Things to be terrified of, to eradicate.

And it always bothered me because reading Women Who Run with the Wolves confirmed what I already felt: wolves love and care for their community deeply. They only become vicious if you attack what they love. They are sweet, loving, intelligent creatures. That reminds me so much of Black women in particular. I’m not saying all women. I’m saying Black women. I said what I said. We are portrayed in media the exact same way as wolves, wicked and dangerous. Yet we are the exact same way as wolves — nurturing, community-oriented, instinctually protective of our young.

Even those of us who have dealt with immense trauma. Part of our healing and spiritual journey is coming back home to that understanding: we are designed to take care of ourselves, and by taking care of ourselves, we take care of our communities. That is why I believe deeply that Black women who are fully embodied, who can operate in their light and their dark, will absolutely shift this world forward. Not save — I’m not calling us into becoming super mammies. My goal is for us to really live out our lives exactly how we see them in our mind’s eye, to be so clear in that decision that we fearlessly live it out loud. And that requires showing teeth.

But society has tried to defang us. Remove our canines, our claws, so we would cower and be afraid of extinction and stop operating in our natural way of wildness. Too many of us have stopped showing our teeth because of it. Whether that’s through assimilation and just wanting to succeed with capitalism/racism/sexism or any of the myriad things we have to deal with as intersectional beings we are constantly told not to show our teeth. And when you grow up with that understanding, it is dangerous. It is you forcing your bigness into something so small that it is crushing you. There are parts of you that are being unseen and compressed and pressured into a shape that is not your Divine self. Hell not even your fully human self. You’re operating from a space of smallness. And I don’t want that for us anymore.

It can cost you everything to not show your teeth.

Even just hesitating a bit. It impacts your confidence. It becomes detrimental to your dynamics because people aren’t fully aware of all you are. You end up actively suppressing your bigness, so you make choices from a place of fear or desperation instead of power. And suppressing your true feelings, especially as a Black woman, can literally make you sick.

There was an article that went viral from the Atlanta Tribune ‘Silent Rage Is A Hidden Health Crisis Among Women Of Color, Fueling Autoimmune Disorders’ and it laid out that the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype pressures us to suppress our emotions to avoid being labeled, and that cultural silencing is making it a matter of life and death. Women of color who frequently suppress their anger are 70% more likely to develop conditions linked to heart attacks. Women account for nearly 80% of autoimmune disease cases. And the traits that get rewarded in us by society like agreeability, extreme selflessness, suppression of anger — are the same traits making us chronically ill. Your body will say what your mouth has been forced not to express. That’s clearly what the research is showing us.

I have witnessed incredibly bright, brilliant women go through pain and humiliation simply because they were taught to be nice first. That leads to something else that happens when you swallow your teeth for too long you start questioning other women who you actively see using their teeth. Women who do know who they are, who are aware of their power, who do not hesitate to remove whatever is in the way of their joy — you start projecting yourself onto them.

You start thinking, well, I did this, so they might go down this road too. But you’re not considering the fact that a woman who is comfortable showing her teeth is fully aware of what she’s experiencing precisely because she is not hesitant. She’s clear. And when you can’t see that in her because you can’t see it in yourself, it makes it very hard to be in circles with women who are actually showing up and living life. It costs you proper community and support, sisterhood. Because if you’re constantly projecting and not taking the time to allow another woman to be who she is because you are realizing that you are not all of who you are, you will push away the very women you need around you.

There’s a deep wound underneath all of this, and for many of us it starts with our mothers.

We talk sooo much about daddy wounds (which I think is hilarious because it just speaks to patriarchy) but it’s the mother wounds that tend to cause us the most pain. Because we lived inside of a body that we didn’t really get to know, or that we only knew in one capacity. We didn’t get to see the full dimension of who that person was, whether or not we know our biological mother. And that disconnect can create a real disassociation from your fullness and your power.

If you were a golden child, a goody two shoes (I know that’s exactly what I was) you learned early what it meant to make yourself small so that your existence felt worth the sacrifice. I knew at an early age that my mother had sacrificed a lot for me to exist, and my main goal as a child was to make it worth it. I know that sounds heartbreaking. But that is something I intuitively felt the need to do because I was really grateful for my mom, I loved her and I could see, even at a young age, that she was suffering.

Or maybe you were the weird girl, samesies. And depending on your environment, that weirdness might have actually shielded you from some of what society was trying to force on you — but you still felt the pressure of people wanting you to assimilate and be normal. Whether it was because being normal gave you more access to community or resources as a child, the pressure was there to not be too weird. To tone it down & fit somewhere recognizable.

Or maybe you were the rebellious one. Who questioned authority, had her own thought process, was outspoken in a way that made the adults around her uncomfortable. And eventually that got weathered out of you — either you fell in line, or you were isolated and became an outlier to your own tribe. And that kind of exile as a child is devastating.

Any one of those veins of bubbly Black girl origin can lead you to the same place: not wanting to show your teeth anymore.

There’s the narrative of children should be seen and not heard. Lyvonne Briggs talks about this in Sensual Faith — how dangerous it is to continue that narrative, but also understanding where it comes from, especially for Black Americans. Keeping your child quiet was a way of trying to keep them safe, making sure the white terrorists we had to coexist with weren’t going to harm our children any more than they already were being harmed. bell hooks speaks about this as well in Sisters of the Yam. That narrative of being quiet, being proper that could easily have been the beginning moment where you stopped showing your teeth. There are so many spaces where the fierceness got trained out of you for survival’s sake, corrupting protection into a pattern.

But showing your teeth is one of the first ways you get to expand. That snarl, that dog in you, it shows people: I am not to be played with. Whether I am wounded or not, whether I grew up in suburbia or in the hood, you are not to play with me. You can not minimize me, my feelings or my expression of self. You could NEVER tell me that I am not enough. And if you do, there are dire consequences for you. I am fearless in protecting myself, my loved ones, my ideologies, the fullness of who I am as a Black femme. Yes, the snarl is probably aggression. But it is rooted in you being assertive and making sure you have dominance over your own life. And because of that, it leads to expansion.

Showing your teeth is also an act of healing your inner child.

When you are able to protect yourself, it does so much for your reparenting experience — and many of us will have to do that on our healing journey, especially if you are someone trying to become fully embodied and get comfortable with your darker urges and desires. Part of reparenting is becoming the protector you needed as a child.

Women who are fully embodied never hesitate to show their teeth. What I mean by that is they don’t need more than one reason, more than one experience with somebody, to take what that person has done to them at face value. It reminds me of Maya Angelou (a woman who was deeply embodied) and her statement: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.“ I absolutely live and breathe by that. It has saved me a lot of heartache, it has allowed me to change my conditions, to ensure that nobody takes from me and that I never doubt myself just because someone thought they could push further.

And sure, sometimes people are just having a bad day. That’s true. But if we’re always operating out of making sure other people are at ease in the lives they’re living, we’re never really checking in to see if we’re at peace in our own. I’d rather make sure my house is in order first, and then extend that courtesy outward. What I will NEVER be okay with is when someone isn’t comfortable where they’re at, they think they can make me feel uncomfortable too. Aht aht. It does not benefit you to ever give someone the benefit of the doubt. Especially people you don’t know.

And I know someone will say: but what about turning the other cheek? People love to invoke that s**t. They love to hold up Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa like they all belong in the same sentence, as though they all represent the same thing. They don’t.

Let’s start with Christ. Jesus made a whip out of cords and flipped tables in the temple (Matthew 21:12, John 2:15). He was about THAT life, ok? He showed his teeth often and with good reason — and it didn’t stop the people who loved and valued him from doing so. The haters were everywhere and they were loud, and he still had community, devotion, and people who would ride for him. Because showing your teeth doesn’t repel love. It clarifies who’s actually capable of giving it.

Now. Gandhi and Mother Teresa are a different conversation entirely and should never have been in the same sentence as Christ. People hold them up as pillars of grace and nonviolence, but what they actually practiced was performance. The appearance of being passive and loving while doing real harm behind closed doors. Gandhi, the man who is considered to be a “North Star” for nonviolence, was documented in his own autobiography dragging his wife Kasturba out of the house by her wrist, and later in life subjected his teenage grandnieces to what multiple historians have identified as sexual abuse under the guise of “celibacy experiments.” Mother Teresa’s legacy carries its own well-documented record of harm. These are not people who turned the other cheek. These are people who performed niceness while being genuinely terrible — and their mythology was used to teach you that silence and submission equal goodness. That is propaganda. That is media being used to oppress and suppress. And that brand of performative passivity has nothing to do with the whimsy Black girl either. You are not performing softness. You are soft. And that is exactly why you need your teeth.

There is an inherent ugliness to showing your teeth that pushes people away from doing it. Particularly Black women.

Because we were taught that having access to some form of pretty privilege benefits us — and that is true. I use my pretty privilege often. However, I have never minimized the so-called ugliness. The wofulness. The blood dripping from your teeth after you tear into somebody. I acknowledge that too, and in itself, it is beautiful. Women are not just prim and proper. It is not just the civilized side. It’s also the wild woman. The woman with dirt under her nails, with hairy legs and unbrushed hair. The woman who may have an undesirable societal feature like crooked teeth or not the idealistic body type. There is beauty in the full spectrum of what we are, even the parts that are considered taboo. Especially those parts.

The more you practice showing your teeth, the better you can discern when it’s appropriate to bite back and when to hold someone close because they actually need it. And yes, there will be times when you bite back and it’s the wrong call. That might require a little more compassion on your end. You’ll learn that in the moment. But you have to try first. You have to be aware of your teeth. You have to sharpen them and that means becoming more clever, having more wit, really studying yourself to know what you like and what you don’t like. These are the things that help you discern when it’s time.

If you’re someone who is hesitant about showing your teeth, about standing up for yourself, about backing your beliefs — it’s probably because you haven’t studied yourself enough to know when and how and where.

There are layers to why that is, especially if you are a Black woman from the United States. We are such intuitive beings, but we have been forced to operate from a space of logic and intellect first. And the reason that’s dangerous is because most of the schools of thought and education systems we learned through were built by white people. There is a s**t ton of decolonization that has to happen in your education to realize that you could never really lead with intellect alone. It is a disservice to you to use one without the other. Intuition is foundational for Black women. When you lead with your intuition and then layer on your intellect, you experience levels of embodiment that change everything.

With that internal adjustment you begin wielding personal alchemy. The thing that was meant to be poisonous, meant to deplete you — when you are fully embodied, you repurpose its energy to benefit you. You can feed off of it and transform it into something life-bringing and nourishing. Like sipping on your baby daddy’s tears or siphoning energy from a man that is being dishonest. These are things that get looked down on, that get called cruel or unnecessary. And usually it’s because the person judging is afraid to show their teeth. They are afraid to get to the wild, gory gritty all that comes with being a woman. But that grittiness is where the power is. That is what showing your teeth actually unlocks not just the ability to protect yourself, but the ability to take what was thrown at you and make it feed your life instead of drain it.

So as you move through this season, as you’re reclaiming your access to the dark feminine, as you’re choosing to show up as your full self, embrace the duality. You can be whimsy and wicked when needed. Will it piss people off? Absolutely. But they were already mad that you’re as soft, happy, and bubbly as you are. So why not double down for the plot?

Here is what’s on the other side of showing your teeth

you are fully in your body and power with a clear understanding of your intuition and what is actually possible for you. It’s like unlocking the final boss version of yourself because you know that if you need to protect yourself, you absolutely will. You also know that the universe and your Ancestors will protect you too. If you need to have access to your prosperity, you know you will go for it, you will allow it to come to you, and you will not let anyone get in the way. And the universe and your Ancestors and your spirit teams will show up with that same level of fierceness and determination. And your play — because you understand that you can protect yourself, it allows you to be softer. It allows you to play with the power dynamics between yourself and others. It is a completely different experience mentally, spiritually, and physically when you allow yourself to show your teeth. It is you being shameless & unhinged. It is also you understanding that within that, you know how to operate in society when it makes sense for you to do so, and you know you can stand against society, stand by yourself and your own beliefs, anytime, anywhere. Ultimately you just have more access to fluidity. And it really is like a superpower.

Protect your deservingness of pleasure and play and prosperity. By any means necessary. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. Show your teeth. You don’t always have to use them. But people need to know they’re there, that they’re sharp, and that you will not hesitate if needed.

Love you deep babes.

5:44a start time

So many of us begin our spiritual journey because we are subconsciously trying to mend a split inside ourselves. We spent so much of our lives before that moment feeling off, broken, misunderstood and not really having the language for why.

This split was never our natural state. We were divinely designed for union, to access the full pow…

Thank you Otissia Lynette, Sierra Jeter, Jack, Tori Rerick, Sea, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

This is the final week of this experience for the Anti-Blocked Artist Club with The Artist’s Way framework, and I am proud of us for completing it. I hope Week 12 has been good to you, and honestly I hope every week has been good to you in whatever way you needed it.

This week is recovering a sense of faith, and the essays we went through were Trusting, Mystery, The Imagination at Play, and Escape Velocity. I’m touching on each of them here, and you can go deeper with the replay video. I’ll drop the task images and check-in below so you can move through it at your own pace.

Thank you to everyone who completed the 12 weeks, whether you were here live or circling back in your own timing. This is evergreen. Take what you need, when you need it.

Trusting

Faith had to get redefined for me. I struggled with it for years, especially in my 20s, because the version I was taught didn’t fit my life or my body. What finally made sense was realizing faith is confidence — confidence in who you believe in, whether that’s God, Source, the ancestors — and confidence in what they’re capable of in your life. When that clicked, movement got easier. Courage felt less like pressure. Following my bliss wasn’t naive, it was alignment. That’s what trusting looks like here: confidence that lets you move.

Mystery

This is the one that feels like dark feminine energy for real. So much of what we create is going to come from places that aren’t well-lit or logical, and that doesn’t mean danger — that means depth. Mystery asks you to stop demanding clarity before you begin. It asks you to stop treating the unknown like a threat. There’s adventure in the parts of yourself you haven’t met yet. There’s creativity in the dark. That’s where some of your best work is going to come from.

The Imagination at Play

Art can’t survive if you strip the fun out of it. If your inner child never gets a turn, everything starts feeling like work you didn’t sign up for. Play isn’t immaturity — it’s oxygen. It’s relief. It’s what keeps the process from suffocating you. When joy disappears, the struggle that follows isn’t growth, it’s self-inflicted burnout. Play brings your nervous system back online so you can actually create, not just perform effort.

Escape Velocity

At a certain point in your growth, you’re going to feel a moment where it looks like you’re being “tested.” I don’t fully agree with the language, but I do understand the pattern: there are points where life checks whether you’ve integrated what you learned. If not, the season runs again. Not as punishment — as repetition. If you have integrated it, things open. You move. Creativity gets louder. Access gets wider. It’s not about passing anything; it’s about readiness.

💡 Tasks for the Week & Check-In

I’ll drop the images for the tasks and check-in below.

This is evergreen. Do it in real time or come back later. Either way, if you’re applying this framework even a little: morning pages, artist dates, somatic practices, check-in questions. - you’re shifting the trajectory of your artistic life.

I LOVE YOU!