Integration is a wand: weaving the self.

letting go(d), ugly truths, and mentorship offerings

the minute i see a leaf fall is the moment I let it all go.

filled with the folly, fruit and fondness of sun on my body, I become Demeter: ready to store food, grease my body, and rest into worlds subterranean.

fall is the season of releasing, processing, integration. we know the medicine of 9, but forget that when it looks back too long it becomes 6 again. becomes sick, again. forgets its own medicine. fall is when it’s easiest to get yourself fucked up.

but fucking up leads to rebirth, if you let it.

for me, the desire to do a million things often sweeps me up in the madness of creativity. my mind is a science lab with projects in tubes, filled at various levels. my creativity fills so many mediums that there is no denying I am a medium for Spirit: I have so much world in me that I make more to be seen, gratefully so.

but when the worlds overwhelm my bones, I have to sit with myself. move myself by the fire, by the water, expel overripe offerings in the dirt. compost. literally and figuratively.

I’ve spent the past three months integrating and taking stock of what works, doesn’t, and delineating the two. took a scolding from my elder and her gitana who said, “how many times do I have to give you the same reading?”

and when i gave fruit to land, it wasn’t enough. when i cried for old medicines, it wasn’t enough. and when i cleaned, it wasn’t enough. and when i asked a million questions about what i should be doing, and with whom, and when, while expecting the answers to have changed because i changed, it wasn’t enough.

but it was quiet enough for me to hear myself.

integration isn’t about enoughness. it is the thread that closes the stitch, not the skin itself.

i had to apologize to myself, my body and my guides for the times the answer was in my face, but so was my phone, and two couldn’t exist at once.

went back to the states. reread readings. compiled them. complied with Great Spirit. Still complying with Great Spirit. still sitting in what it means to finish what I start when capitalism made me feel like I had to start anew everytime something stopped being interesting, everytime things stopped flowing, stopped being immediate.

this year has been about my internal wiring, and relying less on external feedback. Brasil taught, and still teaches me, that Spirit craves the corriente of knowing you’re trying to hear in a world drowning with sound; that the cord of connection and truth will always pull you when you move with focus.

maybe what i had to throw to the wind was the idea that Spirit would ever let me win to other people before i’d win for myself. that i would ever be blessed in ways i could not sustain long term. that if i was going to move into the deeper, grittier work i’ve prayed for, i would have to see the ways i spoiled things in the past, and understand that i have so, so much fruit to harvest now.

sometimes it is hard to look at the ways we have ruined our own lives. it is easier to dig into a book, or a friend’s business, or a cozy doomscroll, or a line of coke.

our shitty patterns feel like boulders, fed moss and sediment every time we refuse to do different. we slip on them when we feel too weak to change, and make do with the rocks in our shoes because removing sneakers to shake them out is too much work. but sometimes rocks are the chalk that help us draw maps back home. perhaps the moss guides us to the true north where we sit fireside, and release the ideas that keep us stuck. this is where we find the friends that help us find gold beneath boulders: the ritual, routine, and wisdom that helps us be accountable to our brilliance.

I’m challenging myself, and you, to make a list of things you consistently fuck up.

I’m challenging you to think, pray, or ask a solution for each issue.

then do those things when you find them.

things as small as the laundry pile. as big as the mother wound.

be consistent in writing the challenges and what changes. how does your body feel? what neurons fire up? what appears, or disappears from that space? who do you feel the inertia to become?

part of my integration has been working on a mentorship program. solo mentorships have begun, and the group version will be held here on substack. this will be a 5 month medicine walk, holding sound journeys, meditations, journal prompts, recipes, rituals, and so much more. most pieces will be self-paced, but we will have gatherings as well. we will be following the teachings of different plant allies, and I will be sharing various medicines from my experiences as an afro-indigenous espiritista. the first month of this portal will focus on integration, and how to hold what you know and what you learn with care. we will move out of the shame and into the medicine.

this process has taken me to so many juicy realms with my guides. i’m excited to share with you. <3

you’ll be able to tune in via my monthly subscription. comment with any questions.

as always, use ur energy wisely.

xo flo