I have to say that my hair looks messier and closer to dreading in the few pictures I put up during that first week than it does now. The good news is that I have stopped thinking about it. I suppose I will take a picture at around a month just to see if there is any more progress, but right now there isn't much forward movement to show. I have kept up with my spiritual treatments a bit, communing with my hair as an intuitive tool... asking it for good dreams... meditating on the sensation of my hair and scalp, and giving it some Reiki love from time to time. I got my wool hat in the mail finally and I suppose it could be helping a bit. It sleeps good, doubling as an eye mask and staying on my head all night. I have a hard time keeping my hands out of my hair, wanting to tuck it behind my ears and trying to tuck it into the tam. I have longer hair for the first time in many years so it can be irritating feeling it tickle and poke at my shoulders. I try to let the jets in my bathtub form some knots, but they seem to fall out the next day. I'm only salt spraying a couple hours before washing, washing every three days. I'm using the Baking Soda wash now with Dr. Bronners as my standard body soap and bath soak. I think the texture of the baking soda might help the locking minimally. I had strung some shell beads through my hair for a few days, but the shells themselves seem to be shaped like tiny combs. First they broke the hair as if I had backcombed, soon they wanted to slide right out, and finally I let them, seeing that the shape of the shells might be preventing matting after all. Any separations in my hair are too thin to hold a 6mm bead. I opted out of wrapping this early. I wanna make sure I'm doing everything I can to promote the matting process, but it's not in my hands, it's just something that has to do itself. Meanwhile, I forget that my hair is a mess when I go out in public... I carry my head a bit higher as well... as if to say, "No.. I don't brush my hair, and, No, I don't think there's anything wrong with it." I can't say that I haven't been thinking about going through a day of twist and rip or back combing... It's tempting when you have been weeks without brushing and see no change. But then I just remember that man made locks don't lock. If I put my healthy hair through hell by literally ripping it up, it's only going to end in half ass "locks" that will fall apart on me in no time. I have spent three years getting my hair past my shoulders and there's no way I'm going to mutilate it for a hairstyle. I learned after coming to this site and contemplating for a bit that this whole thing isn't about a hairstyle after all. It's about something much less shallow. For now, I'm no longer counting. I can't tell you the number of days of my journey. In a moment, I will check my photos and I will find out how long it's been. If it's been a month, I'll take some pictures. Otherwise, I will quickly dismiss the silly numerical quantification of "dreading," and resume the perspective of simply letting go and letting flow. That's not to say I won't be putting in effort. The spiritual stuff, the salt spray, the wool tam, the baking soda, and with luck some helpful beads.. any other tips or tricks are welcomed and will be put to good use. I will keep doing what I can to encourage, but a big part of doing what I can is forgetting. What I can do is forget. What I can do is no longer count.

.....to never wear a hat to cover my natural dreads for the sake of not being looked at funny in public.

It's been five days since I freed my hair. Seeing it's length and assuming it's quality, I quickly decided that my hair was going to be the kind of hair that would fight locking, slip and slide, wake up straight and smooth for six months. I'm relieved to say that I think I was wrong in my assumptions.

I am like an over eager rabbit, which disturbs me slightly. I have thrown myself into reading everything I can on this site and thinking constantly (though very happily) about the "process" of ALLOWING my hair to be natural. This is a contradictory concept. Process...of allowing... something to be natural. It's only a process to the psyche that has to release control... It's only a process of nature, and only a process to ourselves because we have strayed so far from releasing to nature. So I'm not going through a process... the universe is. All I am doing is releasing my egoic sense of being able to control life through the reflection of letting my hair go free. So the fact that I am an overeager rabbit, wanting to know how I can do this faster or that faster... I know it's completely going against the whole point. The point is letting go and letting God... and I just find my mind doesn't want to. Shrug. That will be changing as I walk my path.

One thing that has coincided with this decision is that I'm going back to therapy today for the first time since I moved to a new state. I moved back in November and it is now March. I was in counseling and treatment for a year prior to the move, for bipolar disorder among many other weird little psychological issues and insecurities. The biggest problem I have had in my life has been that I am too hard on myself. When I hear that spoken aloud it doesn't ring right with the ears, as though I'm afraid that statement will be judged by you, the reader, as a cop out for a biggest problem. (erase erase erase that thought real quick.....Om Mani Padme Hum!)

The truth is, I haven't loved myself properly... therefore can't believe that I am loved by others. I have beat my psyche to a bloody pulp for many years, and over the last year after a huge breakdown, I found that I could... that I did have the power to get on the other side of this wall I've been building for so long.

Another issue I have is that I am a powerful empath and very affected by the energies around me. I am an energy worker and have so much information... but I haven't been doing the WORK. The meditation daily, the grounding, shielding, cleaning, strengthening of the chakras, blessing, chanting, praying, writing, being outside... Feeding my self. My self is starving and my mind is a glutton. I'm a sucker for mental stimulation, and obsession fits comfortably in my mind. I really want to find that the choice I have made about hair will actually improve the quality of my life, and improve the strength of my spirit and my energy.

I have read on and on about the natural hair of mystics, warriors, gurus, and psychics, and am hoping for a big "Wow!" experience. Which is, as I stated earlier about the hair "process," completely against the point. I am a Shaman and I do seek the source of the universe through "spiritual ecstasies." I have had spiritual ecstasies and peaks through healing modes, intense meditation, extreme traumas, and drug experiences. I'm seeing that locks are not about a spiritual ecstasy. They are not anything about instant gratification or a rush of magic. They are the magic of the every day, and of allowing life to unwinds timelessly. They are not about WAITING. They are about HAPPENING.

So this is Day 5. My first day back to therapy. My fifth day obsessing mentally on absorbing everything I can about locks. My sixth day of a hypomanic state. An unnumbered day of trying not to go against the grain.

But let's forget time for just a little while. Let's just... let life happen... right now.