Out of curiosity, how many dreadlocks to people have? I've only got 26 at the moment, and I still have some hair left arund my face that hasnt formed yet. I'm guessing I'll have less than 40 when all is said and done. I'm wondering how many people have and how thick/sparse they look.

My hair is going crazy. It is SO absurd in the back. My dad commented on how rediculous it looks today. I simply told him that it was going to get "worse" beforeit gets better. What I didn't tell him was that it already *is* better. The "mess" of my hair is such an enjoyable wonder to me.

I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with the thickness of my hair. I've split a few dreads that I think would be better as two.Since I don't have *super* think hair, I've decided that I'drather have numerous smallerdreads than a limited number of thinker ones. Now I justneed to figure out how thick/thin I want to go. I have another one or 2 that I think I want to split, but I'm not sure h much theyll thicken up or if it would just be fine to leave them as tthey are now?I don't know. It's been about 3 months now though since I've stopped brishing, so theyre really starting to lock up- I have to hurry up and mkake my decisions before they've locked up too much!

If I had to sum up my day with one word it would be- comfort. This is so for many reasons, I'm going to share one of the big ones with you guys (and the one that has anything to do with dreads).

I went to one of my best friend's musicalreformance tonight. Tonight was the last of 3 nights, all of which I attended. I had written this friend a letter, which i frequently do for those I care about, and gave it to her earlier on in the week.

In this letter I expressed to her my following realities...

I've been lost lately; more lost than I have been inyears.Sometimes I feel like not only am I far from home, but I don't even know where home is. Sometimes when I feel this way, I am able to think of her and start to remember how to get home. In a number of ways...she is home for me.

At the end of her preformance tonight, when she out to recieve her congradulations from everyone, she had with her a letter for me. Out of respect for the intimacy of the letter, I will not share the entirety ofits contents with you. But in one parrt of it, she wrote that i was ironic that I felt far from home, because lately she had felt like I was becoming stable, and creating my own home. ThatI was becoming anchored in my decisions and in who I am.

One of the first things this made me think of was my hair. I have been told my multiple people that my hair is too thin, and that I will have "sparse" dreads. A number of people have told me that because of the kind of hair that I have, I will have to dread it myself or have someone else dread it for anything to happen. I dismissed and took to heart none of these comments. And my hair is doing amazing. I have way more hair to dread than I initially thought, and I'm coming up on month three now and my hair has dreaded way more than I expected in that short time.

I feel like my decision to dread and to do it how I wanted has helped me grow. My friend was rigt- I am creating my own home. I've been feeling so inadequate lately, and her letter and my hair have helped show me that I've been feeling that way because I've been feeling guilty about not responding to the standardso others; I've been too focused on everyone and everthing else. I need to come back home, back to myself.

This friend of mine is a beautiful person, I don't know howelse to say it. She never speaks with disrespect, or harmful intent, but she always speaks her truth. She pours all of her self into whatever she is doing; dramatic preformances, math homework, watching a movie even. She is always present and committed to that presence. Her strength and capabilities amaze me. When I don't know how to go about a decision, I ask myself what she would do. To me she represents truth, presence, morality. When I imagine the person I want to be, I imgine her. And although that desire is valid (I do want to be the kind of person whospeaks my truth,is present,moral), her letter tonight made me realize something- there are already so many amazing things about who I am. I've been so busy focusing on what I'm no and wondering how to be those things, that I've been missing all the amazing things I already am!

I feel like her letter and my friendship with her has simply reminded me of something I thought I already knew: I am beautiful in who I am. There is a tibetan mantra that I wear around my neck - "Om Mani Padme Hum"- and one interpretation of it is that you already posess what is necessary to be Buddha.

I already am Buddha. I already am my Self.And I don't thinkI give myself enough credit for how powerful that Self is.

Greetings friends.

I've been moderately worried as of late. I don't have extremely thin hair, although I'm also aware that it's not especially thick. I am having fears of my hair dreading and only having a small number of thin-ish dreads- thus looking like an idiot. I currently have about 13 that are semi-formed in the back. Most of the front hasn't formed yet. I've been told that everything will thicken up over the course of this never ending process, but I'm still afraid that I may end up looking stupid with innumerous stragly dreads.

Has anyone else contemplated this though? I just keep seeing pictures and people with amazingly think and numerous dreads and thinking "I will never have that many dreads/dreads that thick"

Someone make me feel better :/

I had another really stressful day today, which my dreads have-again-helped me through. It seems like there are so many things that I need to work really hard to get right...but my dreads require no work, no stress, no effort- and they're doing exactly the right thing; which is whatever the fuck they want. This amazes me everytime I think about it. We all work so hard and stress out about getting things done by a certain time..or in a certin way...which is the exact oppositethan what I think aboutmy dreads. There is no deadline they must be done by. I don't need to spend X amount of time on them each day. The best result is actuallyachieved by basically completely forgetting about them! I wish the same could be said about my ACT/SAT tests coming up :/

Hey all,

This post is more of a relieved rant than anything else. Today was horrible. I get back a test which I failed and have very little faith in passing when I take it again. I realized that the college of my dreams may flat out be too expensive to be realistic (even though it was practically MADE for me and I am absolutley confident I can get in). I had a counseling session for my non-existant drug/alcohol problems-apparently whether or not it was my fault, when I am in a car accident and have minute amounts of weed and wine in my car I still have over a THOUSAND dollars in fines and fees to pay. (There goes what I did save all summer for college) I got absolutley nothing done academically because I had too much other shit to do. I could continue...but I'll spare you...

There were only two things that got me through the day.

1) Trevor Hall

WATCH THIS^ This is not a question or a request.

2) My dreaddies someone came up to me today and asked if I was dreading my hair..which means my hair is forming enough for people to notice. Which is amazing.

Also, another story I hope you guys can appreciate the way I do....

I have a buddha necklace that is leather and the pendent is probably 2 by 2 inches wide/tall and maybe an inch deep. I've had it for months. Its made from just an old buddha that these two guys found and made into a necklace (it's what they do). And I lost it last weeknd. I took it off to play frisbee with some friends and ended up forgetting it in the grass, going back an hour later to find it already discovered by someone else. I was really upset at first. And then I realized- I didn't love that necklace because I enjoyed posessing it. That necklace was important to me because of what it meant, what it stood for, what it reminded me of. Maybe it had already taught me what I needed to learn from it. Even though I am still sad that I can't proudly wear it around my neck and enjoy the aesthetics of it,I wonder who gets to wear it now with enthusiasm. Maybe my buddha can teach someone else all that he taught me. Maybe more, maybe new lessons. I think it was just time for it to leave me. He was ready to seek out his next student.

Today I decided to go to Mass with my family. Christianity is not my religion, but I decided that I could still go any maybe get something from it, or atleast be part of a religious experience that meant something to someone else; that irrelevent of my personal beliefs, it may be a positive contribution to my life to respectfully experience a celebration of a reigion other than my own.

Well, the sermon that the priest gave made me very doubtful of the above passage. He discussed how last Sunday he and another member of the clergy, dressed in their robes and such, went downtown. While in a store, he told us, the people seemed down and sad. Not very "joyous". And that this, confirmed by some of the looks given to him and his friend also dressed in their robes, could only be attributed to the fact that these people were not religious, or that they did not have a personal relationship with the Lord. Who the fuck is this man to assume that A- those folks were not religious simply because they were not in high spirits at that moment or that B- the only thing that evokes sadness is lack of a Christian faith? or that the lack of a Christian faith unavoidably causes dissatisfaction with life?

I don't care what people believe, who they love, what god they pray to, or what color their skin is- as long as a certain level of respect (for the self, for others, and for the beliefs of others) is upheld. I don't follow a Christian faith solely because I don't agree with what it entails, I also don't follow it because somehow it's acceptable to preach that all other ways of life are somehow less full or acceptablethan one of their own religion. Fuck that. No religion can be right if it preaches disrespect for other ways of life or unacceptance. His sermon, which he wouldnot have given if he had not wanted it to represent himself and his religion, displayed ignorance and disrespect.

I was extremely disappointed and frustrated with the situation.

I had a realization today. Just a few minutes ago actually. I back combed 3 dreads myself a few weeks before letting the rest go naturally. Since then I have done no backcombing at all (besidesa little tightening of already existing knots at the roots of 2 spots in my hair I wanted to wrap). Today a friend and I did a few more wrappings in our hair. I realized (after noticing how much faster hers was dreading than mine) that my hair, for whatever reasons, may take longer to officially dread than I initially expected. Today a friend of mine also re-iterated his opinion that since my hair is the hair that it is, i really should give my dreads a head start by back combing or twist/ripping or whatever- that by itself my hair will not dread easily or quickly. So, after a day of dread-frustration, I unwrapped one of the barely dreaded segments of hair I wrapped earlier, and backcombed it into a dread and wrapped it back up. But, while semi-furiously (I'm also a little angry right now for other reasons) ripping a fine toothed comb in an unnatural direction through my beautiful hair andbeing able to literally hear my hair suffering- I realized something I thought I already knew. Dreading your hair is not about having dreads. It's not about the result, its the process. The experience. The journey. Any method other than 100% natural dreading doesn't justtake away a few miles ofyour path- it completley eliminates it. Sometimes I'm proud of the dreads that I have from previously backcombing...but now I've realized- I would be completley happy never having visible dreads, if that's all my hair is capable of.I know it's not, as many of the baby dreads I wrapped and put pics up of a few days ago were completley natural, but if it were- i would be ok with that. I am not doing this to have dreaded hair (irrelevent of my initial intentions), I am doing this to let my hairdecide what it wants to do, i am doing this to let my hair teach me things that my mind cannot, I am doing this to set myself free. And myjourney will give this to me, not my dreads.