***This post was originally written in 2021. ***

What does it mean that Black Lives Matter signs are ubiquitous in some neighborhoods in the US?

Every now and then as I am driving out of my neighborhood during evening rush hour, I pass a church and see mostly white elders holding up “Black Lives Matter” signs. The church is on a major street so lots of people are seeing this activity. I’m pretty sure at some point I have heard horns honk supportively. My husband — who is Black — has even done it.

Today, I saw it again. Of course Black lives matter. Initially, I think I am contented to see white people out there holding these signs. I don’t know what else they’re doing towards racial justice, but a year after all of 2020’s supposed racial reckoning, they are reminding others of this truth. Yet, something is strange about it to me.

Sometimes when my little Black family of three is on a stroll through our neighborhood, it devastates me that my seven year old daughter has to walk pass these reminders that other humans — mostly white people — don’t think Black people matter. We live in a progressive and intentionally racially integrated neighborhood. I’m waiting for her to ask me, “Why do people need to be reminded that Black lives matter, Mommy? Is there something wrong with them?” And I’ll have to say “Something is wrong with people and systems and structures that don’t believe and don’t always behave as though Black lives matter. So yes, they, maybe even we, need the signs.”

In order for Black people to matter, white people believe they need to hold up signs and put signs in their yard reminding people of this fact. There are a few conversations going on when these signs are on front lawns and front-facing windows. “Hello there, white neighbor!” One might hear the sign say. “Don’t forget on your way to work, back from a run, going grocery shopping, home from the bar — Black lives do matter!”

For Black people, seeing the sign may signal that we might be safe in the home or on the block where the sign is prominent. It let’s other white people and Brown people know just what kind of white person that homeowner might be too.

How sickened we are by anti-Blackness and racism as a society that this display and performance of solidarity and awareness making are believed to be necessary. It’s not a reminder to me. I’m a Black person. I’m like, do people really need to know this? Of course they do! A movement led by Black people is underway towards racial and economic justice declaring that Black Lives Matter. White people definitely need them.

Or wait a minute. Do Black people need the signs too? Do we need white people sending this banner reminder to themselves and each other every day in order to coexist? Do we need them to display them along with the “In this house…” signs in order for us to trust them? It’s reminiscent of the brief wearing a safety pin to signal “I’m a safe white person” moment. But how long are the Black Lives Matter banners, posters in front windows, and yard signs going to be needed?

How long will white people and others who subscribe to anti-Blackness need these signs to bring awareness? Is that what they do? Are they awareness-raising efforts? Gateways to anti-racism conversations? Is this an unending campaign with a sign that keeps getting replaced? Do people buy new Black Lives Matter signs when theirs get worn by weather, pissed on by a dog, or otherwise damaged?

Y’all, I just don’t know. I’m mostly pretty sure that it’s just fine for all of these Black Lives Matter signs to be an unspoken part of contemporary landscaping in neighborhoods far and wide. Some neighborhoods, not just Black ones, don’t have any or many of them. Does that mean that Black lives don’t matter to those people?

My husband and I were in another part of the City — a pretty affluent residential area — and as we strolled the streets so as not to arrive at a dinner party early, I noticed that I hadn’t seen any Black Lives Matter signs. Noted, this isn’t a part of the city with sprawling front lawns, but I didn’t even see them in windows. I got concerned.

Are we safe here? What kind of rich white people living near Center City Philadelphia don’t have Black Lives Matter signs displayed at their homes? Are they Trump supporters? Are they not progressive or woke? Well, we did see a front window decorated with pilgrims for Thanksgiving, so there’s that sign of where we were.

I guess when I think about it, maybe I do feel safer when I am around white neighbors who have these signs on display. I feel safer when I enter businesses that have them too. Perhaps some of it is performative, and most of it is well-meaning. I hold no grudge nor harbor ill feelings toward anyone with a Black Lives Matter sign. And of course it’s totally fine for white people not to display Black Lives Matter signs too, no judgment.

Overall, I just wish it wasn’t necessary.

Every morning after dropping my daughter off to school, I return home and go to my office. Not to start the work day, but to start my day. I am able to work from home and am fortunate to have a very flexible schedule. As such, I claimed the 9am hour for myself.

During this time I light incense and a beeswax tealight candle that’s on my altar. I turn on a meditative playlist that usually includes soft piano and water flowing in a creek kinds of sounds. I pull my lap desk off the shelf and put it on the couch. On the lap desk are a Christian daily devotional, Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening, my journal, and a purple ink pen. Then, I open the Insight Timer app on my phone to find a five to ten minute guided meditation to practice.

My morning ritual to start the day is to meditate, read something inspiring and affirming, journal, and pray. This is one of the rituals that I have cultivated over the years to get myself ready to face the world. This ritual is sacred and necessary. At times, especially when my depression flares up, this ritual saves my life.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a ritual is defined as “an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner.” Rituals are often associated with religious, spiritual, and cultural practices. Yet they can also be secular and public in nature. They can be performed with other people or alone. Ritual is a little bit of a fuzzy concept.

They are different from habits or just having a way of doing something. Rituals can elevate what you are returning to do because it has purpose, meaning. Performing a ritual is an elevated way of being present. Or, a ritual is just a thing we do like sing happy birthday and then add the Stevie Wonder version at the end because Black people are cool like that!

For many of us, rituals begin early in life. Reciting the “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” prayer before going to bed with a parent or other caregiver on bended knee next to you. Saying grace before a meal. Singing your favorite sports team’s song (Fly, Eagles, Fly) after they score a touchdown is a ritual.

In the context of the Black Women at Home Project, however, rituals are relevant because of how they can benefit us. In this space, the focus on ritual as a pillar for how Black women can be well at home, serves a higher purpose.

According to Pew Research Center, Black folk are among the most religious people in the United States. The connection between enslavement, Christianity as well as the Civil Right Movement and religion (Christian or the Nation of Islam, for example) root the notion of ritual in religious tradition or spiritual practice for many contemporary Black women. Even a cursory google search about Black women and rituals will reveal a plethora of scholarly articles about Black women’s religious experiences sprinkled in with our haircare regimens.

And, ever since landing on these shores, Black women have held onto the practices of their indigenous culture. Weaving orishas with saints, many of us have never let go of the old ways. In fact, many embrace rituals as old as time. In the 21st century, some Black women have left the Church in search of connecting to traditional religious and spiritual practices of West Africa. We’re re-finding the Diasporic advent of those African practices in expressions such as Santeria, Voodoo, Candemble, and more. Others of us have finally learned that it’s okay to give thanks to Ancestors, maybe even call on their energy to help us, while staying on a Christian path. All to say that for many Black women, ritual is deeply connected to the spiritual aspects of our lives.

We can participate in rituals with community as well as by ourselves. While at home, we can engage in all kinds of rituals to lift us up, help us heal, renew our focus, and express our gratitude. We can make up rituals, share them with others, keep them to ourselves, and practice them together. It’s really a choose your own adventure way of life.

One of the themes emerging from the Black Women at Home Project interviews is the importance of access to nature. Whether it’s prioritizing having outdoor space, natural light flooding in through the windows, a new found connectedness to Mami Wata living close to the beach, or tending to houseplants, nature is an important part of how Black women find healing and restoration at home.

Whether it’s prioritizing having outdoor space, natural light flooding in through the windows, a new found connectedness to Mami Wata living close to the beach, or tending to houseplants, nature is an important part of how Black women find healing and restoration at home.

For Northern hemisphere dwellers, the winter time can make us feel disconnected from nature. The cold weather along with dreary periods of rain or snow encourage that hibernating energy. Leaving home can feel difficult. Yet, while we nest and cozy up in slipper socks around the house and nestle in blankets to read a book, Mother Earth continues to provide and sustain us. We must not forget Her.

She is feeding us nourishing food, still providing us with air to breath, water to drink and cleanse ourselves with. We see and hear fewer birds, but many of them are still around. When I go for a drive I keep feeling shocked when I see a flock of geese in an open field pecking for food. Those moments remind me that even in the conditions of winter, life is still active. The stillness of the season is not death.

In February my husband goes on an annual skiing and snowboarding trip with his boys. This group of mostly Black men will hit the slopes, embrace the frigid temperatures, and find joy and play in the snowy landscape. My daughter asked if she and I could go away again too while he’s gone. I was happy to say yes and immediately imagined escaping winter’s often shuddering embrace for nature that includes palm trees, warm beaches, and humid air.

How might I find joy in nature by following the cycles? That is, how can I find pleasure in winter’s nature? What would be different if I was present for the cold? What am I missing by pretending that this season is just a dud that should just be skipped by staying indoors as much as possible?

Nature is inescapable and the diversity in her seasons offers hardships and pleasures in each. Maybe my daughter and I will have a seaside vacation in a few weeks, taking in the chance to walk the winter beach and be embedded in the serenity of a scarcely populated town. Perhaps I’ll take more baths with frankincense oil to honor and receive the season’s healing. We can make an offering to Mami Wata and enjoy the element even in the Winter.

The holiday season is in full swing! For many of us this means added tasks and responsibilities from shopping for gifts to hosting family gatherings. Still, for others of us (including me), the season is complicated by grief as we think of loved ones we’ve lost during the holidays. Work is still going on. Kids are still in school. The days are much shorter and the nights are long and cold.

This is just the time when I need to pay extra attention to my mental and emotional wellbeing. As fall emerged, I brought back an old tactic from my childhood to give myself some extra comfort. I call it my nook. Ahzjah-Netjer Simons calls it her bliss bubble. During the Black Women at Home interview I did with Ahzjah, we cut up about both having created a sacred spot in our homes where we seek peace and reclaim our center. I asked Ahzjah to describe her bliss bubble and she shared (watch a brief clip from the video here):

When I was a little girl, I created little nooks in my bedroom from time to time. This nook might be set up on the carpet between my desk and my bed or, in a corner anchored by my stuffies. It was a place to hide out from the world, to create my own interior life of imagination. I would read there, listen to music, or cry when I needed to. The nook for me, has always been a place to be grounded.

For the first time as an adult, I made myself a nook in my office. This nook is on the floor too. It is a grounding space, a place for coming back to myself, connecting with Spirit and the Ancestors. I sit cross-legged there sometimes. At other times, I recline against the large pillows and let my legs stretch across the futon mattress giving me padding and support as I find connection to Mother Earth.

Most times I am sitting in my nook in the hour before daylight comes. I leave bed and come down to my second floor office while the house is dark and quiet. After lighting a candle, I will stretch for about 15 minutes and then go sit in the nook to meditate. Then, I plug in the fairy lights I strung up to give me lighting so that I can read from my day books, review cards that I pulled, and journal.

Creating your own nook or bliss bubble does not require much. It’s just a space filled with intention and some comforts. Whether you have a room of your own or some unused closet space, having a sacred space to check in with and nurture yourself is a balm. If creating a quiet escape at home is on your wish list for the holidays, consider the following:

1. Find a spot, preferably somewhere that is quiet and where you can be alone.
2. Decide what you want to sit on — a chair, small sofa, or a mattress on the floor.
3. Gather comfy items like a blanket and pillows to prop yourself up with comfortably.
4. If you can, add a small table or shelf to the space. If that’s not possible, use a serving tray or lap desk so that you have somewhere to put stuff down.
5. Give yourself some lighting — candles (safety first!), a small lamp, or twinkle lights
6. Have some wall space? Write down some of your favorite quotes and affirmations on sticky notes. Use washi tape to put them on the wall.
7. What gives you inspiration? Is it a daily devotional, the Bible, a book of poems, a tarot deck, pictures of loved ones, crystals, seashells, or music? Make sure your inspirations are accessible within your designated space.
8. Finally, try it out! What’s missing? Is there one too many pillows in there? Make the space your own, adjust and change it up as you go.

If a specific spot is not available consistently, consider gathering some of those items and storing them in a box or bin that you can pull out when you need them. It could be that you keep a box with your sacred materials along with a special pillow or blanket under your bed. Your bliss bubble might even travel with you! Get a small container (even a metal Altoids container would do). Place some meaningful objects (a quote on a small strip of paper, a feather or dried flower, etc.) in it, put it in your pocketbook or bookbag and carry your bliss bubble with you.

As we move through the holidays and into the slumber of winter, I wish you warmth, comfort, and times of intentional solitude to restore yourself to yourself. You need you!

My morning began as most do. I stood at my altar in my office to light a candle and incense. That morning I made a commitment not leave the house. Whatever was going to happen would be within the sanctuary of my home.

I had just returned from spending 3 nights and 4 days with over fifty work colleagues. It was a good time, but I needed to cleanse and recover from drinking more alcohol than usual, difficult conversations, and lack of good sleep. My husband and daughter were away for an overnight trip, so I had the rare opportunity of having a day alone at home!

I decided to reset my altar. This one is in my office where I spend most of my time each day. Here, daily rituals are undertaken to ground me in connection to Spirit, the Ancestors, myself, my work, and my family. My altar includes items that centers its purpose in love, connection, and service.

Representation and Meaning

My altar rests on the fireplace mantle and faces East. I honor the Catholic lineage that my paternal line carries. Items are placed atop a piece of fabric from Mali. I have carried this fabric with me for over twenty years. I danced in it when I took West African dance classes. As a descendent of enslaved Africans, I am disconnected from my blood lineage to people in West Africa. This fabric represents that connection to me.

A wood framed mirror is positioned in the center. The mirror represents a portal into which I can reach through to the Ancestors and they can reach out to me.

Candles on my altar are a reminder of the Light we all carry in this world and beyond. It is a beacon of love, hope, and energy. As such, the fire it emits is elemental and grounds me to the Earth. I am an Aries and am charged by looking upon the fire to be curious, honest, and leaderful.

I am a lover of the ocean — its vastness, its wrath, its embracing calm. I feel safe at the beach. I place seashells on my altar to connect to Yemaya — Orisha of the seas, mother of all, and protector of children. She reminds me of who I come from — the line of mothers — and who I am as a mother. Pictures of my children are on my altar so that they are always close to me.

Photos of my grandmothers and my father’s sister are on my altar. These women appreciated beauty, travel, and lived into their independence as best they could. Married, widowed, ill and taken too soon, they remind me to take life on as the adventure it is. Their spirits remind me to be bolder than I think I can or should be.

A photo of me and my husband on our wedding day is at the center of the altar. We chose each other all those years ago, and each day, must choose again. This picture reminds me of the journey that love is and that it must be acted out through care, devotion, trust, honesty, and support of one another towards our highest potentials.

My daughter’s pre-school painting of the word “love” and bell hooks’ book All About Love: New Visions anchor the altar from either side. Reading bell hooks’ book taught me that love is about energetic action, not just feelings. She transitioned and I lift her up as an Ancestor connected to all those Black women not of my blood lineage who came to this Earth. They loved, struggled, taught, critiqued, and squeezed out joy from the lives they had.

I burn incense as an invitation to the Ancestors and Spirit to interact with me. Dried lavender adds serenity and peacefulness to the alter. A smudge stick of lavender brings positive energy while releasing fear.

Pennies are present on my altar as a conductor to the Ancestors and to remind me of abundance and wealth available to us. Fossilized palm root reminds me that my relationship to depression and anxiety can be helped and that balance can be restored to my emotions.

With a reset altar early in the new year, I come to it humbly and openly as a site that grounds, centers, and provides for me. There, I can reflect on how to practice the pillars of beauty, joy, rest, and ritual at home and in the world.

If you have an altar, what does it mean to you?

In 2016, I made my Facebook profile picture a sign that said “Joy is an act of resistance.” The words rang true and aspirational. I wanted to be a joyful person. I wanted to believe that having joy was possible despite years of living with depression and anxiety, doing extensively extractive emotional labor as part of my paid work (which paid poorly), and coming into a healing journey as my eldest daughter entered her adult years. I only understood joy to be elusive, a floating cloud, out there somewhere I just couldn’t get.

And the results from the Joy Quotient assessment I took in 2021 revealed that I still struggled with joy. The assessment provides scores in three areas — self-awareness, self-efficacy, and self-expression of joy. I got an average score of 4.5 out of 10. Y’all, I actually suck at joy! It’s okay though. I’m working on it.

What is joy anyway? For most of my life I thought it meant the same thing as being happy. I thought of joy as a good feeling, a spark of something that might set off a smile or laugh. I have a memory of knowing joy as a Black church girl. I grew up singing this song,

This joy that I have,
the world didn’t give it to me
Oh, this joy that I have,
the world didn’t give it to me
This joy, that I have,
the world didn’t give it to me
The world didn’t give it,
So the world can’t take it away

Somehow, I believe the world did take away my joy. I lost it somewhere along the way. Yet, I have a deep nostalgia for what I once knew of it. If I close my eyes and meditate on this song, I hear Rev. Youngblood’s New Orleans flavored rich voice singing it into the microphone, with Mr. Wilson jamming on the organ. I feel the vibrations of clapping hands and stomping feet, see way back into choir members’ mouths as they sing and smile. I hear the timber of the cymbal being hit on the drum set. Bodies sway — Black women in Sunday dresses looking beautiful and Black men standing tall and carrying the bass. We joyed in that song!

Joy, as a verb, means “to experience great pleasure or delight,” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. Its noun form means “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” Joy is both an activity and a feeling. Joy is powerful, as it is a source of strength and a force of energy that is hard to diminish.

Dr. Pamela King shared in an interview with Psychology Today, that in her study of joy she noticed

…that joy is more complex than a feeling or an emotion. It is something one can practice, cultivate, or make a habit. Consequently, [she] suggest[s] that joy is most fully understood as a virtue that involves our thoughts, feelings, and actions in response to what matters most in our lives. Thus, joy is an enduring, deep delight in what holds the most significance.

Toi Derricotte’s poem — The Telly Cycle — introduces us to the phrase “joy is an act of resistance” and Black women took hold of that. We understand it at a spirit level. Joy is roots and culture even if we didn’t/don’t know how to be with it. As social movements, including the Movement for Black Lives, have unfolded, we are reminded that joy is not what white supremacy, misogynoir, and other oppressions want us to have. And many of us have it anyway.

Yet, I think we can entirely miss out on joy by pursuing it and grasping for it. I imagine that joy is not an achievement. Rather, it is a discovery, an unfolding, a witnessing. When we grasp for it, we can experience such deep disappointment for having missed the mark. We are capable of stealing joy from ourselves.

In Sister Outsider… Audre Lorde told us that “once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of.” Joy just is. It is a full cup that exists inside of our souls that can be sipped from as needed, ticklishly by surprise, and calmly when called upon. We don’t have to strive for joy. We need only remember and acknowledge it for it to manifest. Joy is everywhere.

Of course Black women are out here joying ALL over the place. We make monuments and testimonies to joy. While home, before you go to bed or as you sip a morning tea, take in this gift — www.museumofblackjoy.com .

At home, how can we manifest joy? When are we with joy? When I am slow and aware enough, my joy notes include:

1. Standing at/praying at my altar
2. Inviting loved ones over for a meal and using my good plates
3. Random dance parties in the living room with my little girl (especially Girls, We Run the World & Cupid Shuffle)
4. Belting out songs from my Childhood Gospel playlist
5. Planting flowers and food in my container garden
6. Getting to bed by 11pm

What are some of your joy notes?

During the Black Women Women at Home (BW@H) Project we are journeying to make meaning of and life-affirming practices that deepen our connection to home. As we go, beauty, joy, ritual, and rest will be pillars for us to lean on. What do they mean? Why are these pillars?

Over the course of 4 weeks I will share some reflections about each of the pillars.

In America where misogynoir is rampant and the Crown Act is still not federal legislation (while numerous states have passed it), many Black women face an uphill battle in accepting and/or expressing their natural physical beauty. Patricia Hill Collins’ seminal book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, states that “African-American women experience the pain of never being able to live up to prevailing standards of beauty — standards used by White men, White women, Black men, and, most painfully, one another.”

Laws prohibiting us from showing our hair to the hyper-sexualization of our girls’ bodies complicates notions of beauty — internal and external — for too many of us. Disabused of acceptance, our bodies are too often sites of trauma inflicted by others as well as by the anti-Blackness we must fend off that arises from within. And yet, we persist. We persist in claiming and exclaiming our beauty. Expressing it through our myriad hairstyles, fierce make up game, and trendsetting fashions. Black women are standard bearers of beauty that are often copycatted and culturally appropriated.

And, can I say that Black women also know how to decorate the hell out of a room?! I said it, we do. Our creative expression pours out of us onto our bodies and into our homes. We know beauty, we curate beauty, and we are beautiful.

The beauty that Black women engage in at home isn’t only about what is consumed (i.e., shopping trips to Home Goods and Target), but is also about what we design, create, and produce. A 2021 Forbes article highlights the absence of Black women as home design personalities, particularly on major platforms like HGTV. Yet, we know that Black women have been making all kinds of things to beautify their homes and that they are also extraordinarily entrepreneurial about it.

My grandmother passed on to me a white blanket that her Aunt Jane had made for her. It beautifies my guestroom queen-sized bed during those not too cold and not yet warm nights hovering between winter and spring. My mother had a friend who made refrigerator magnets of dressed up Black women out of beans, y’all! And who can forget the knitted or crocheted dolls with long dresses that covered up the toilet paper roll in Granny’s bathroom?

Black women design — whether independently as side hustles from the heart or as professionals. We make candles, furniture, upcycle vintage items, bake celebratory cakes, cooperatively sew quilts, and more. Black women are leaders in industry by creating spaces for us and by us. For example, when designer Malene Barnett didn’t find sufficient support and representation in traditionally mainstream, and white-dominant design spaces, she made one for Black people — the Black Artists & Designers Guild.

So in the face of all this contention about Black women and beauty, why should we lean on it? Why is it important to make meaning of and cultivate beauty as a life-affirming practice at home?

The answer is simple. Beauty benefits us.

Beauty arises from within us these things called aesthetic emotions. Menninghaus, et al. describe aesthetic emotions as ones that give us physiological reactions, including goose bumps, and they make us express ourselves through laughter or words of praise. Aesthetic emotions give us feelings of pleasure but also displeasure while subjectively leaning towards a positivity bias. They motivate us to extend or have repeat exposure to something. Objects in our homes, our bodies, structures in our lived environment that intentionally invoke beauty (i.e. architectural design), walking out the hair salon looking fine, and more connote beauty and give us feel good aesthetic emotions.

As we are repeatedly exposed to things, we develop our own individual aesthetic sensibilities. Humans can find beauty in a diverse array of things! And, we benefit from doing so. According to Psychology Today, exposure to beauty and the aesthetic emotions they solicit can help improve memory, lower stress levels, and increase our social connections.

In her book Feeling at Home: Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live, philosopher of contemporary living and author — Alexandra Stoddard — wrote that “[t]he beauty in our midst sustains us as well as inspires us. If we believe the beauty we feel inside us can be expressed outwardly, we will be free to have our surroundings be an expression of our true selves.”

Where I grew up in Brooklyn, NY during the 1980s and 1990s, beauty wasn’t assumed or expected in my neighborhood. Those colored dots of green, red, and blue weren’t glass in the soil next to the trees planted on the sidewalk in front of my building. Those were the plastic tops of crack vials, often surrounded by shards of broken glass and dog poop.

I understood beauty to be divvied up privately in the home. The commonness of gray concrete sidewalks, brown high rise buildings, and overly lit hallways, was interrupted behind the door of an apartment. There, you could meet a world of beauty that was hard earned, curated, and well-maintained, often by a Black woman.

So, there was no jumping on furniture or throwing the decorative pillows to have a pillow fight. You respected the valuables of others because they were more often than not hard-earned no matter where they were purchased. Most Black women I grew up around kept the living room neat and clean because it was meant to display something about your socio-economic striving and what you were able to achieve. Plastic on couches was meant to preserve furniture pieces that were significant investments. Children were not trusted to treat these spaces well, so we weren’t allowed in them.

My Uncle Ted and Aunt Estelle had mint green carpet in their living room. In the walkway that led to the staircase going upstairs, a plastic runner covered the carpet. If you turned left, you headed up the stairs. If you turned right — and if you were one of the four cousins running through the house during the holidays you’d better not dare unless grown ups were in there congregating during a party or something — you would step on the mint green carpet. Evidence of that regretful step existed in the blemished disruption of a footprint you left. You see, Uncle Ted meticulously vacuumed the carpet so that it had designs in it. He made a mosaic of connecting triangles in that carpet and it was beautiful to behold.

While I really understood beauty to be an internal private condition that some Black people could have, I understood its relevance and importance. A clean, orderly home whether decorated with pretty things or not was an expression of pride. If it had pretty things to look at, somebody there appreciated beauty and wanted it for themselves, despite what systems of oppression deemed appropriate for us. For marginalized and gender oppressed bodies, curating and practicing beauty at home is an act of resistance that blesses, calms, and empowers us, if we want it to.

Beauty can include creativity expressed in vignettes of objects on bookshelves or the display of framed photos of beloved family members atop a piano. Experiences of beauty might be connected to meals and playlists, as well as ways that we encourage wellness through caring for our bodies. At home, we can experience beauty through all of our senses by what we curate and practice. Through a window, gaze at the bend and silhouette of a winter’s tree disrobed from its spring and summer dressing of leaves. What do we do at home to uplift the aesthetic emotions that make us laugh, stare longer at ourselves in the mirror with delight, cry from the pulls of emotion that we encounter in our relationships? All of this is available to us through the pillar of Beauty.

*****Heads up! This article includes exploring being depressed. If you or someone you love is in need of help with mental and emotional health issues, please reach out to a medical professional. Sending love your way.*****

For months I had been readying myself to share my heart’s passion project. I would launch it on February 1st because the Black Women at Home (BW@H) project is historic. I did it! I launched a community for Black women to start exploring home together.

It is common for me that a big moment that feels so good often triggers my depression. When I want to be vibrant, soaking in sunshine, and celebrating, bam! I often start to spiral under the heavy blanket of depression. It is so familiar and achingly cozy.

Where do Black women share stories of journeys at home cultivating themselves with beauty, joy, ritual, and rest? When I searched for books, films, and websites I found this place nowhere. So I created a place for Black women to explore, grow, and share together how to thrive at home.

So much of what I found on the internet about Black women when it comes to “home” was related to home ownership discrimination, health issues, and poverty. These systemic conditions that Black women fight are real. They are struggles among others that are confronted on most days of too many of our lives. Those struggles are also fought, for many of us, alongside efforts to seek refuge at home. We need it to protect ourselves from the harsh conditions of living within a society that created racialized capitalism through efforts to keep Black women working, broken and breeding.

Through BW@H, I want Black women to access, practice, and create tools for their well-being at home. And for real though, it can be really difficult to do. Thirty minutes ago before I sat down to write, I was weeping on the floor in my shower. Waking up each day hollow, empty, unable to take in the radiance of life and love is exhausting, terrifying, and frustrating. This is how my depression shows up. Every morning is a struggle. Slowly, I convinced myself to stand up, keep washing my body, and just breathe.

While I want to allow beauty, joy, ritual and rest to be centered in the BW@H experience, I know that they don’t exist in a vacuum outside of conditions where people are hurting. Too much of what we are shown in society about living at home is camera ready, centers the gaze of white womanhood, and hides the mess that pours out in daily life.

Well, at this very moment, while I am home trying to move through the treacherous depths of numbness, alienation, physical pain, and sadness I am experiencing, I am clinging to what the Divine and my Ancestors continue to show me is possible. Even if I can’t see it, surround myself with beauty. That means listening to piano music and the sounds of water from a fountain soothing me as I type.

Earlier this morning I had to work really hard to be present with my nine year old daughter. I just wanted to be left alone and she just wanted my company and attention. Eventually I was able to have her sit on my lap and read to her. A few minutes of joy in her delight and pleasure.

Monday is a day that I hold close. I protect this time and don’t give it out to others. Monday is my writing day. The day I focus on BW@H and how to nurture it. This repetitive space where I can just be with myself and what my heart longs for is a sacred ritual for me. I am hopeful that this writing is keeping me from a spiral.

By the grace of God and decades of having life disrupted by depression, I have learned to move really slowly. There is not much that I hurry to do and I never aim to be busy. Gratefully, I’ve designed a lifestyle that allows me to work flexibly with little external pressures on the use of my time. I have the spaciousness to be mindful, to do simple things to help ground me — like folding laundry — and rest into the healing I need.

The pillars of beauty, joy, ritual, and rest are holding me up right now. I don’t always remember they are there for me. Yesterday I prayed for my Ancestors to wrap their arms around me and hold me. Today, I am receiving it through this remembering and reflection on the pillars.

Honestly, it is difficult to not give in to wanting to whitewash BW@H too. I easily want to slip into thinking about home decor, scented baths, and loving family dinners as the cure to thriving at home. Yet, I am being guided to recognize that this is not the way. Rather, sometimes like today for me, it is the difficult practice of being with oneself honestly, carefully, and kindly that is the way to thriving at home.

Every morning after dropping my daughter off to school, I return home and go to my office. Not to start the work day, but to start my day . I am able to work from home and am fortunate to have a very flexible schedule. As such, I claimed the 9am hour for myself.

During this time I light incense and a beeswax tealight candle that’s on my altar. I turn on a meditative playlist that usually includes soft piano and water flowing in a creek kinds of sounds. I pull my lap desk off the shelf and put it on the couch. On the lap desk are a Christian daily devotional, Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening , my journal, and a purple ink pen. Then, I open the Insight Timer app on my phone to find a five to ten minute guided meditation to practice.

My morning ritual to start the day is to meditate, read something inspiring and affirming, journal, and pray. This is one of the rituals that I have cultivated over the years to get myself ready to face the world. This ritual is sacred and necessary. At times, especially when my depression flares up, this ritual saves my life.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a ritual is defined as “an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner.” Rituals are often associated with religious, spiritual, and cultural practices. Yet they can also be secular and public in nature. They can be performed with other people or alone. Ritual is a little bit of a fuzzy concept.

They are different from habits or just having a way of doing something. Rituals can elevate what you are returning to do because it has purpose, meaning. Performing a ritual is an elevated way of being present. Or, a ritual is just a thing we do like sing happy birthday and then add the Stevie Wonder version at the end because Black people are cool like that!

For many of us, rituals begin early in life. Reciting the “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” prayer before going to bed with a parent or other caregiver on bended knee next to you. Saying grace before a meal. Singing your favorite sports team’s song (Fly, Eagles, Fly) after they score a touchdown is a ritual.

In the context of the Black Women at Home Project , however, rituals are relevant because of how they can benefit us. In this space, the focus on ritual as a pillar for how Black women can be well at home, serves a higher purpose.

According to Pew Research Center , Black folk are among the most religious people in the United States. The connection between enslavement, Christianity as well as the Civil Right Movement and religion (Christian or the Nation of Islam, for example) root the notion of ritual in religious tradition or spiritual practice for many contemporary Black women. Even a cursory google search about Black women and rituals will reveal a plethora of scholarly articles about Black women’s religious experiences sprinkled in with our haircare regimens.

And, ever since landing on these shores, Black women have held onto the practices of their indigenous culture. Weaving orishas with saints, many of us have never let go of the old ways. In fact, many embrace rituals as old as time. In the 21st century, some Black women have left the Church in search of connecting to traditional religious and spiritual practices of West Africa. We’re re-finding the Diasporic advent of those African practices in expressions such as Santeria, Voodoo, Candemble, and more. Others of us have finally learned that it’s okay to give thanks to Ancestors, maybe even call on their energy to help us, while staying on a Christian path. All to say that for many Black women, ritual is deeply connected to the spiritual aspects of our lives.

We can participate in rituals with community as well as by ourselves. While at home, we can engage in all kinds of rituals to lift us up, help us heal, renew our focus, and express our gratitude. We can make up rituals, share them with others, keep them to ourselves, and practice them together. It’s really a choose your own adventure way of life.

Originally published at https://www.blackwomenathome.com on February 18, 2023.