This is my Jupiter in Pisces freewrite.
Writing prompts by Jeanna Kadlec.
Luckily, my parents were only perfunctorily religious and we really only went to church when we were hanging out with the grandmothers. They both went to church but one of them really went to church. You know, like several days a week. My heathen grandmother was the fun grandmother. My sister’s son is named after her, Jesse. Jesse smoked pot, drank whiskey and cheated on her husband--when he was at work. My mother called her “Mother.” She had no idea who “Father” is. She assumed it was the guy who lived with them. She would be wrong.
What I remember about church growing up: Clothes pressed and laid out the night before. Sunday school in the basement. That little white girl who could recite all of the books in the bible in order. It kind of felt like school. It was boring. Sometimes the music was awesome. Food afterwards. We all looked good. Some people really believed like my cousin, Idrissa. She was a Christian at nine. I liked to brag to her that I smoked cigarettes at boarding school. I didn’t tell her about the drugs and the sex.
So, I grew up loving the theater of church. Loving the community of church but not really understanding what all the fuss was about. Why did people cry in church? Side note: I am now and A-#1 church cryer. I get moved and I get weepy. When your heart opens and love floods in, you cry. Or at least, I cry.
So, I go to church. Don’t fucking judge me, ok? I go to a cool, really gay, non-judgemental church. We study spiritual law and believe in God but not the same god that my Sanctified Grandmother talked about. So, my Sanctified Grandma, I called her Nan, had...has a daughter, my father’s sister. Sister is also Sanctified. She loves that I am what she would call, spiritually mature, but we disagree on the details. She believes in Hell. I do not. She believes that God has to be called God. I do not. She believes that these are the end times. I do n…..well, I guess the verdict is still out on that one. But really, I do not.
So, Sister of Father is the definition of old skool black church. She’s played the organ since she was three. She lived with Nan, her mother until Nan died at age 93. She doesn’t date or do anything fun. She covers her neck, ankles and wrists for some reason. She will sing her ass off in church. I love that about her. And then she will talk major shit about everyone and everything that doesn’t agree with her version of God.
So, all that to say, I rejected Religion growing up. By high school, I was officially a pot smoking party girl. I burned incense that I bought at Epcot (graduated HS in Orlando) and I wrote Bob Marley lyrics on my jeans. This was my teenaged attempt at Spirituality. Oh, that and psychedelics (boarding school). So, upon moving to DC to go to Howard, I found myself haunting black book stores and tiny health food spots. They often had the same type of folk inside. Super Black and Health Conscious, I thought the Black Muslims were cool, but I also knew that their doctrine wasn’t quite for me.
I was not yet out to myself as a Queer Black Person, and I was getting newly turnt out sexually by my first boyfriend. That was spiritual. I definitely worshiped at the Church of That Nigga. I still look back on my first year of college and think, Damn, that boy could fuck. More reggae, more splifs. Side Note: I am not a Reggae lover. I thought that I was supposed to be because Rastas were spiritual. Currently, the uber-masculine Jamaican type scares the shit of me. They’re so homophobic and I am such a big gay.
It wasn’t until 1993, that my non-defined amorphous spiritual life began to take some shape in the form of Goddess Spirituality and Astrology. I found hippies and they turned me onto The Chalice and The Blade, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Luisah Teish. I began to worship the moon and to learn about Spider Medicine Woman, Kali and Kokopeli. We’ve now entered the phase of my life that I lovingly refer to as the hippy years. The hippy years. I was surrounded by well-meaning white women who taught me what (White) Radical Feminism was. I had to find the colored version for myself. Toni Cade, Alice Walker, Tracy Chapman. These were some of my life rafts.
What was your relationship to spirituality, religion?mindfulness, or wisdom traditions in 2010-2011?
In 2011: I was living with my girlfriend/domestic partner and I was doing a lot of local downtown theater stuff. My spiritual practices didn’t take up that much space. I read my tarot cards from time to time and looked at the placement of the stars almost everyday but I didn’t have any practice.
I did, however, go back to college and finish my undergraduate degree. I was 40 when I did this and it was awesome. I am an excellent student. Always have been. I had an almost perfect GPA. My natal Jupiter is in the 9th house in Sagittarius. I’m thinking, ok, Jupiter is transiting Pisces. Cool. Where is my Jupiter? 9th house? My Jupiter transit is going to be very 9th house-y. It was last time. Travel, anyone? I could get another degree.
Was it skeptical or idealistic, fundamentalist or inclusive?
My spiritual style is definitely inclusive. I want everyone to know. I feel like I stumbled upon the perfect mix of New Thought and Black Church and it serves me perfectly. We love to sing and the music is tight. The outfits are gay and brooklyn AF. It is my happy place.
Heavily present or nonexistent? How have things shifted since then?
Since graduating, I have found a spiritual community that I am perfectly aligned with. I study spirit avidly and daily. I am currently studying A Course in Miracles with a friend. And I am in a workshop at my church. It’s kind of a book club. We’re studying The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovall-Shinn. Also, I am teaching my mother about prosperity consciousness.
What in your creative life could do with a bit of healing? A bit less restriction? Some medicinal joy? How can you begin to incorporate that?
I wish I gave myself more time to write in my journal.
Make a note in your calendar, journal, or notebook for July 28th, the last date that Jupiter is in Pisces until it ingresses at the very end of 2021.
Will do. Nappysnatch out!
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