From this…{taken two days ago}


To this…{taken a few minutes ago}


Yesterday, I had my hair chopped.

A few nights ago, I flipped through a Free People magazine with my friend and pointed at a few long hair styles I was thinking of. This would be the first time I am getting my hair cut since combing out my dreadlocks. I wasn’t quite sure what I needed or wanted and was torn between long and layered and short and light. She helped me figure out a few things…that I wanted to be able to wear braids and ponies and messy buns. So I had the picture ready and what I wanted to say to this new stylist all down.

And then I sat in her chair and found myself sharing with her my dread journey.

And after a long pause of staring at my hair in the mirror and taking a deep breath and listening to what my soul needed, I heard the words come out…“just chop it.”

The whisper that came to me was that I needed to release some energy left over from my dreads. Not a bad energy. Just energy that needs to take flight, as I spread my own wings and allow this transformation to softness, lightness and ease into my world.

It just seems the journey of my hair most always parallels what I am moving through in my life. Just as getting dreadlocks AND combing my dreadlocks out was a practice in letting go of attachments, so is cutting it short.

Lately I felt myself more annoyed with my hair than it being an expression of who I am. My scalp is still sensitive from the pulling of a few years of heavy dreads. So the many times my long hair got caught under my pillow or arm while I was sleeping or my son or husband’s body and pulled, oh my, my once tough scalp was hurting badly at the tug. I am paying attention to those tugs. Not only physically, but emotionally and what feels peaceful in my life and what just plain doesn’t.

And that is what I felt in my gut when I sat down in the stylist’s chair. I need peace in my locks. Lightness and peace.

A friend of mine asked if there was lots of swishing of my hair yesterday and yah, you could say I swished my hair around quite a lot and this morning I woke up like an annoyingly happy mama baking bread and singing while doing so. I would have never thought that would be me. : ) Baking? Singing? In the morning? I suppose that means I made the right choice.