Our tales

I just wanted to post something where we could share how we started and why we did exactly, just something to show who we are. I have learned from just the past month that everyone has a story of why they wanted to grow the locks rhat we all so love and see so much beauty from.

Mine begins actually a few years ago, i have always loved my hair and everyone loved it too when it was longer, i made friends with this kinda hippie kinda rasta guy and we use to chill and play hacky sack and do smoke times and such. He did his with wax and at the time i thought nothing of it, i had to leave nad the time i was gone i got into some pretty bad things, they kinda made my life and views to something that was major pop culkture stuff and such and it wasnt untill i saw him with his head shaved that it poped me back into reality, it was honestly nothing in reality but he had to cut his cause the wax messed em up as so many of you know. it hit me as a sign that everything was going down hill. made me thingk about the time when we use to chill and i realized how much i missed that. around the same time i got busted cause my friend had some pot on hi and some pipes. i had had something ate the time but i ate it and he didnt so i got busted. it hit me hard thinking that i could not use it to help with all the stuff that was going on. i used it in the way that the rastafari use it, but at the time i did not know the religion. I moved to branson cause i thought that i would not have to deal with the temtaion and all the other problems that would make me want to smoke. but everywhere has problems, but here i found a cool guy at a head shop that kinda understood me. the reason i went there was to find a tam hat cause i read on this site that it helps with dread and i wanted to start them as just a fashon or rebelion. i started looking into the rastafari reliogion and i had everything that i thought but still had old school jewish/ christian laws and beliefs. after learning all that i could i started my journey. its been a month and i started listening to reggea and im starting to see things in a different way. im not doing it for a fashon and im not doing it to rebel, its just letting go and being at peace, or atleast i see it that way. its something that you have to put love in and it almost like a child, you have to be paitent and have to show love. im still learning and still growing, but im glad that i will have my locks to be there with me, im turning into a rasta man and im actually happy now. its been on of the first times i have been at peace in a long time and its all because im letting go.

updated by @joseph-gaiche: 01/13/15 09:55:00PM

my story is a long story yea ive had dreads 23 years and that may seem like a long story in itself but it actualy goes way way way back

i think to around age 7ish

well to start my parents used to always literaly tackle me, pin me down while saying stop squirming or you'll lose an ear to cut my hair i alwaqys hated cutting it especialy the geeky way they cut it whats worse was wasnt alowed to dress the way i wanted or anything listen to the music i liked nothing even in high school they had me carying a breifcase (and getting bullied daily) i started having to change in the barn b4 school lol

oh wait back to age 7 this was early 70s i 1st saw hippies with my parents who pointed at them and said stay away from people like that they are nothing but dangerouse criminals

a week later i went out for a bike ride a longer 1 then usual got lost ended up at a park id never seen b4 and lo and behold the exact same hippies were there they were very freindly i told em my mom said i was to avoid them cauwse they are bad people they just laughed and alled my parents told em where i was but they also told me how to get home so i just rose home

ok fast forward i left home at 14 so 1st sign of rebelion was with my hair (early 80s punk was in full force then) so bright color mohawks etc and i was squating with a bucjh of idiot punks doing stupid things dumb drugs drinking too much (16-18ish) it wss a mess

but i was still who i am inside even tho acting the angry punk outside

i was helping run soup kistchens and also feeding homeless on the street on my own and mets some cool rastas mikey dread ahmadad appolo etc apolo was the 1st 1 i asked about his dreads "how do you get your hair kike that its cool" he said "just stop combing" so i did

and in no time had dreads

mighty congo .. 2 horns a beavertail neck pillow and a few lil scragglies around the sides

ff a year or 2 my girlfriend at the time (super materialistic freak what was i thinking?) and my parents talked me into cutting my dreads and going back to school for computer programming (mainframes boring business stuff) i wore a hat that whole year not feeling like myself with a 3 peice suite and short hair

luckily at my graduation party broke up with her and also broke my back on the way back from breaking up with her

so 9 months in the hospitol i get out and started flying gliders 2 weeks later with www.freedomswings.org and couple months after that was in vermont for my 3rd rainbow gathering

i traded for a few beads and stuck em in my hair

had a few ppl give me hair wraps also thats kindsa when i call my dreadaniversary

as soon as they started dreading again i knew id let em grow and grow i envissioned them being "trimmed" by wearing off from draging on the ground

funnt part is when a few lost the ends from dragging i would cary them with me in my picket or fanny pack

so my reasons are..i had to dread

there was no other choice i wouldnt feel right without them

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Well, I am older that many many of you on this site, yet only started mine 16 months ago. In all my years, I was known as the hippie when not at work. My appearance was bohemian, my shoes were hippie sandals, which my dogs just recently ate, had those for years too, I think my family fed them to the dogs....Anyways, with family, mortgage payments and bills, I always worked outside the home. Worked in offices and had to dress according to their "style". Was expected to have my hair a "professional way". And that is what I always did.

(the past me)

But when I came home, the make up got washed off, the jeans and t shirts got put on, my sandals went on the feet, unless I went barefoot. I was like Clark Kent, two people in one. I was never true to who I really felt like I was, during the day I was a fake person, one I did not want to be.

My husband and I were at a point in our lives where I could afford to make a life change for myself and quit office work, a weekly paycheck, it was not easy at first, but we learned to adjust (and for that I thank him)....So I got a business loan and started my own business from home, now recycle wine barrels and make home decor from them, something I wish I started years ago. I walk into my wood shop wearing ripped jeans, t shirt and coffee in hand. Blast the music and get creating.

(The present me...I know, I look like a bistro table)

Instead of using my fingers and hands to continually use a computer, schedule appointments and answer phones, I use those same hands and fingers to work with wood and create the table above, among many other things.

I threw out all my suits and blouses and stupid shoes and makeup.....and I found myself again. I always had an attachment to people with dreadlocks, I find them extremely sexy, the dreads and the peoples souls....so I started to grow my own...they complete me for who I am...I am now relaxed always (well, almost always, I am a mom).....I am happy that the next 1/2 of my life will be lived for me and how I always felt....At my age I still learned about patience during my journey....still have the same inner soul I had before, the same outlook... I was always a dreadie without the dreads.

So why did I start??? Because I became a true me.....peace

Thanks. i love hearing people tales! They show who they are! My family give me crap for trying to grow em. honestly im tired of being someone im not. i would be a hippie but im not! Haha! Im a rasta man! Thats who i have always been! Might not believe all of it. but i feel happy being a rasta man!

Be true to yourself now, be who you are, not who others want you to be, and for that you will lead a happy happy life. Try to never have regrets

Joseph Gaiche said:

Thanks. i love hearing people tales! They show who they are! My family give me crap for trying to grow em. honestly im tired of being someone im not. i would be a hippie but im not! Haha! Im a rasta man! Thats who i have always been! Might not believe all of it. but i feel happy being a rasta man!

I'd never really been a fan of reggae music before, but decided to give it a shot, get relaxed and just truly listen to the music without distractions, and realised that I loved it. So the more I got into it, the more I realised I loved the look of dreadlocks. Because in all honesty, at first it was purely a visual thing. I like the look of it so I wanted dreadlocks. Started them off the wrong way because of the bad information everywhere. Found this site like 12 hours after starting my dreads and decided I wasn't going to do anything to them from that point on except wash them and separate them. As I spent more time on this site, and also listening to reggae, watching interviews with these musicians and etc., it just had a hugely positive effect on me through time, making me see how they do help you grow as a person, teach you things, even get in touch with your spirituality. I'm an Atheist, and although I don't believe in any higher being, I still feel like I'm a spiritual person but with no direct path. Having dreadlocks and the exposure that dreading has given me has helped me connect more with that aspect of myself. My clothing sense, music sense, beliefs, etc. have changed (or rather, I've realised them as a part of me when I hadn't noticed it before). It truly has been a journey.

I'd also like to say, I was in a bad place when I decided to dread (bad physically and also emotionally), and I'd never changed my hair style at all throughout my life, and I felt like it was time for a change, and figured it could make me feel better, more in control of my life. If I had no control over my life, at least I had control over the decision to have dreadlocks. It was a small comfort, but still a comfort.

Awesome! reggae is the.sound of peace. also rastafari isnt a religion... and by calling it a religion defeats the whole idea of rastafari. watch the marley movie. its great.

Rastafari is a life style and a religion. they go one in the same. it mixes christian religion with oldschool jewish laws. it is both. its also a movement. its everything. and the idea its a religion doesnt defeat it. go watch something more than a movie. go learn about it and understand it.

Just read this entire thread. It's just really neat to read about how dreading has changed the lives of so many different people, in one way or another -- highly doubt any other hairstyle has done this, heh. Although, I'm at the point where I'm almost hesitant to refer to dreads as a "hairstyle," because they are so much more than that to me.

Sooo...I have this knack for making life-changing decisions in record-breaking time. Which is a fancy way of saying that I make a lot of spur-of-the-moment decisions. XD But oddly enough, I have never regretted any of them! Must be doing something right. :D

My decision to dread happened within about 48 hours. For eight years, I had been religiously straightening (both chemically and via flatiron) my hair and dyeing it varying shades of red. I don't regret that, either. It was pretty "scene," but I was happy rocking it. However, it was such an uphill battle. I have course, wavy brown hair, and...I just decided I was tired of making it be something it's not, haha. I'd never force a loved one into being something they're not, and I love my hair...so why was I dyeing and frying the living hell out of it? So my brush went into storage, and the dreads were born. That was eleven months ago. ^_^ No regrets man.

Yeah, I've gotten a lot of hate as well. In fact, not one single soul in my life has given me/my hair positive attention over the last eleven months. Most people, if they say anything at all, will ask either a) when I'm going to take them out, or b) if I wash them. -.-

Had someone offer to burn them for me the other day as well. Lovely. x.X Oh and some lady shopping at the drugstore I work at referred to me as a "homeless girl" a few months back; gonna assume it was the hair.

But I knew that humanity sucked before embarking on this journey, so...tuh. It's really okay. It's not like I'd have anything nice to say about them, either. >.>