Hello everyone. I hope all is well with you all.
Well, a short story of me and how I got to be where I am today. In 2009, my husband took me with him to the Winter Gathering, in Ocala, FL. My first time experience with Rainbows or Rainbow Gatherings. I loved it from the first second we got there. I unfortunetly couldn't stay over night due to work, but came out the next day, with our daughter. Needless to say, I couldn't wait until the next year.
In 2010, the winter gathering came around again, this time, at Lake Mary. By far one of my favorite places on Earth. That year, I was lucky enough to get to stay a couple of nights. I had a blast. Met some very awesome people and had some pretty amazing times. I was very sad to have to leave.
And then came this year. I had anticipated this time since the year before when we left. It was every bit as amazing as I thought it was going to be. I was almost in tears, from joy of course, to be back. We stayed fairly close to front gate, as we took our daughter and son, which was his first gathering and either of their first times camping. They did amazing and both seemed to love it!
This was the year that I realized that I found my place in life. Ealier last year, I began studying Paganism, which only reaffirmed my choice to be one with The Earth and everyone here. I
I had thought long and hard about starting my dreadlocks, but something was always stopping me. Here, jobs do not take kindly to any sort of individuality(tattoos, piercings, hair styles or hair colors etc.). My sister got married last month, which I was in the wedding. After that, I decided I had nothing stopping me now. I had done lots of research into different products and methods. I decided that I was going to backcomb and use nothing but beeswax. It took me 3 days total to get all of my hair backcombed. It was a long, but very rewarding few days. I finally got up the courage to wash them. I basically rinsed with cool water, no shampoo. I dried them and to my surprise, all of my backcombing had come unknotted. I cried... I was so disspapointed. So I backcombed them all again. I litterally had raw spots on my fingers from the comb...
I had bought a few products from a beauty supply store in town, including some anti-residue shampoo. I have backcombed my dreads several different times over this last month, because they apeared to be coming unknotted. I do believe for me, the backcombing only slowed the process down the first couple of weeks.
I luckily came accross Soaring Eagle's page on Facebook, which lead me to this site... After further reading
I realized what I should have done to begin with. I stopped putting any products in my hair and stopped backcombing them. Alot of people keep telling me, "they need to be backcombed more" or "they aren't locking up fast enough". I just brush them off. While they aren't too pretty looking right now, I know they will do what they want to do, in their own time. I realized that, worrying with products and backcombing only makes me stress over them... I was always worried about how good they looked, so I was willing to do anything and put anything in them to "fix" them.
After a week of natural dreading, I am very happy with how they are coming along. I will admit, I do worry about how they look, but I am working on that. I get odd looks, quite often since starting them, which bothered me at first. It still somewhat does, but thats another thing I am working on, not caring what others think and doing what I want in life. It is teaching my patience and self love... Which are my weak points.. 
So thank you to SE and all the wonderful, amazing people here....
Namaste.
-Star
updated by @star-mercer: 01/13/15 09:03:59PM
