From Stillness to Stardust: Healing Through Beauty and Becoming SXII
Proximity doesn’t guarantee access. That was a hard but sacred lesson in Consensuality I had to embody after leaving Chicago and moving to North Carolina. The culture shock was no small thing. Being a “big fish in a small pond” wasn’t the soft space I imagined I’d be received in—or even needed. But as they say: If God told you it was a training camp, you probably wouldn’t go. And truthfully? I wouldn’t have.
After years of community-based work, I began to confront my blind spots. I encountered the spirit of clout and saw how it shaped our cultural landscape and distorted the foundation of genuine community building. I wrestled with proximity delusion—this idea that being near people meant being truly seen, respected, or known. Even I fell for it, assuming closeness implied care. Chicago, with all its complexity, still offered a culture that kept me safe. But NC? The entitlement frequency was unbearable.
In the midst of this dissonance, beauty became my medicine. I learned that luxury isn’t wealth—it’s the sacred art of returning to yourself. And in that return is true rebirth.
Living in NC, I was unprepared for the kind of external attention I began to receive—and the toll it took. I went from being actively engaged to repulsed by being perceived. I’d already started withdrawing in Chicago, but NC turned that inner alertness into a full reckoning. My mental health spiraled. I turned to martial arts, and later, avoidance. People invaded my space—lingering gazes, close steps, aggressive energy when I didn’t reciprocate interest. It was draining. After meditation, I realized my biggest irritation was this: the process of getting to know me had been replaced with entitlement.
I didn’t want to be known—I wanted to heal.
I needed to grieve community losses. I needed to recover from heartbreak, from familial strife, from the "strong Black woman" narrative. I needed to heal from the ways leadership was projected onto me before I was ready—before I had honorable models to reference. And yes, that also meant transforming my aversion to leadership by defining a new way of leading: rooted in care, accountability, and self-awareness.
The final straw? A talk therapist who placed emotional labor on me during sessions—as if I was responsible for how she showed up. She was more interested in being fast friends. That moment made me say, “Fuck this.” And I turned, fully, to beauty.
Beauty became my refuge. My mirror. A companion to my mantra meditations.
My spirituality was tested again and again. Some called me demonic for the modalities I used to heal. But I didn’t internalize their fear. I deepened my inner resolve. And with that, I reclaimed solitude—not as isolation, but as protection.
I started making my own fragrance. My own body scrub. Practiced mirror work. Took ritual baths. Thanked the water.
I reimagined beauty. I asked: What about Eurocentric beauty standards is blocking my galactic purpose? I remembered my why. I remembered Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Her words in Sister Outsider wrapped around me like an ancestor's hug. Even as I conformed, people could always sense my energetic difference. Returning to eroticism and ritual as a site of power reminded me: I didn’t want to follow norms. I was here to create something new—for myself and for others.
My lineage holds the fountain of youth. Our glow is divine. I see now—it’s affirmation. My innocence and youthfulness are both spiritual and cellular.
Even as a child, I watched my grandmother and her So Love Club sisters build beauty and community with reverence. She never missed a nail appointment. Her hands were sacred. Beauty was always ritual.
And through all this—my revolutions, recursions, moments of rage and release—I began to take SXII seriously. My mother used to greet me, “Hey, sexy!” She never imagined she’d have a daughter like me—sensual, bold, and expressive in ways she never was. We’re kindred in spirit, even if our expressions differ. She’ll tell anyone I’m her weird child—the philosophical one, the challenger. And she’s not wrong.
Now, I’m building what I never had—a space that holds me, too. I center femmes because our conversations have changed my life. I choose femmes because there is a war on our sexual health. I see sovereignty as a cultural and communal practice that deserves sacred attention.
Our galactic fortitude as melanated beings tells me beauty is ritual. The flesh may be fleeting, but the ways we affirm one another’s beauty moves cosmic frequencies toward our collective salvation.
Softness can be resistance. Our communal care disrupts every plot meant to destroy us—because we move with many bodies, one mind. SXII is about discernment. About sultry spirits who care. Because luxury is the art of returning to yourself— And that return becomes our shared liberation.
