Well… what this blog seems to want to be is a reflection on a sabbatical, after the fact.
I did not process and document my journey along the way in this space as I had thought I might. Instead, I stayed in the moments, processed what I needed to process in my sabbatical journal and savored every now. My Wiser Self knew the sabbatical time would not be enough and that it would fly by so, instead of fast forwarding many tomorrows ahead to report out on what I was doing and experiencing, I just stayed in the doing and experiencing, trusting that anything worth documenting and sharing would make itself known when the time was right.
That Wiser Self was a true and faithful companion along this journey. I grew to trust her and believe more fully than ever that I am she/she is Me. This relational evolution began before the sabbatical started, in the preparation months when my Spirit Squad (h/t to my sabbatical coach, Dawn, for the name) urged me to build a separate altar in my home for myself. I was quite reluctant about this at first but caught myself daydreaming and sleep dreaming about the space many times. It was being born in my imagination and I could feel its spirit moving near my sacral chakra, in my wombspace.
I knew going in that sabbatical time would include some heavy lifting like clearing out my mom’s house, dealing with a lifetime of belongings and preparing the house for sale. I was excited to daydream about the items I wanted to claim for myself and bring into my home to connect me to my people through sight, touch, and smell in particular. I brought the dark-stained bookshelves that had held my World Book and Child Craft encyclopedias from childhood into my office. They smell like home–the place where my parents, my brother and I were a family. That smell comforts me tremendously and helps me feel close to Rick and Dad. Between them, I placed a smaller similarly colored wood shelf that I had been using as a tv stand to use as my Alexis Altar.
I’ve been a little surprised by my emotional response to creating the Alexis Altar and listening for the items that wanted to be a part of it. A photo of my dad holding me as a baby, a photo of me the day before my 35th birthday – the last day I had relaxed hair, a photo of baby me on my dad’s shoulders with toddler Rick in his lap. And the one that took me the most by surprise–a photo of me at my 6th grade graduation with mom, Granny, my godmother Madelle, my brother’s godmother Gloria, my mom’s friend Dee. This was my mom’s village–the village Mamas that made up my childhood. These women poured into my becoming directly and by way of supporting my mother in her mothering of me and Rick. There is a lot more to explore with respect to that photo–why it asked to be there. Everyone in it, besides mom and me, are ancestors now.
Creating this altar felt like leaning into a goal I had in this year of completing my 50th orbit around the Sun ☀️ –to tend to my Healer Self, my Priestess Self, to honor all my Selves and to commit to Little Lexi to become who I really am for the sake of all of us. I hope this becomes a place to work with my magic, medicine and Future Ancestor Self to manifest my dreams and my transformation and my liberation.
May it be a place to remind me that I, too, am part of the collective and I deserve my own tending.
Lex Resting 