At some point the journal makes a demand of us and that is that we change. If we are keeping the books we are meant to keep, then all of these entries we’re recording are initiation. What else is all of this writing for? WHAT ELSE ARE YOU DOING HERE? What are we REALLY doing as we keep our journals? Is it for aesthetics? Is it for clout in a society we are realizing is increasingly and proudly evil, perverted, genocidal and pledged to violence? If so many herbalists then how come there’s no mass healing? If so many spiritualists how come so little deliverance? If so many diarists, then how come so few have revelation and walk in discretion as if wisdom herself is their mother? How come so few witnesses? The motive of all that we do manifests in how we are able or unable to show up when the times call for it.
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If we have allowed capitalism to insert itself as the replacement for our mandate and the dreams it birthed in us to carry out, then we have sold our birthrights in exchange for the lie of success in this system. The god you really serve manifests in the words you are able to share, the books you are able to write, the enemies, you fearlessly confront by name and the indictment you are capable of holding in all its sharpness. Your ultimate goal in keeping your books should be the ability to walk as a sword, dismantling lies, systems, and strongholds and chokeholds with your life and with your voice. We’re not writing as reluctant recluses, who decided to shun the responsibility of ancestry in exchange for being untimely and hidden. What we are given in our books is what we are given to carry out and if that means some of us are assassins, then we cannot fear this either.
Feels great to be back.
Almost done.
The VGB zine has been re-released!
Towards Historicizing: a manifesto for Black women to keep our histories through the intentional, ancestral habit the west calls “journaling”. I’m so grateful!
Each zine comes with (3) stickers, (2) postcards, and tea blended by Musa Moon Apothecary!
Purchase your copy here: journeysoulfully.co
VAGABROAD JOURNALS TURNS 10
6/2013-6/2023
Absolutely grateful for a DECADE doing this Divinely mandated work. The glory IS the story. Have it written. Humbled that my role in history is to make books for teastained women abundant with narrative.
Journeysoulfully.co
Yes yes— A penpal society for BLACK FOLKS to write matters amongst ourselves. The envelope is the ally and stationery is the vehicle for the messages our people can’t share online or in “spaces”. This is the assertion of our privacy, the exercise of our agency in the presence of those who will only mishandle ideas of our glory.
The Black Letter-Writers’ Society is a safe penpalling space for our people to share messages with missive. At the same time it offers the space to return to quaintness and quietude wrongly associated with whiteness. It offers us a deprogramming exercise and exchange. Connections are being made. Kinships reformed. Joy engaged. Truth being shared.
Black people unite—let’s write letters.
Join us! @blackletterwriterssociety on IG.
Along the journey, I consider you, fellow sojourners. I love you. Feel every shift. Keep going.
vagabroadjournals reblogged
September 23,2016–The world is loud. Take time to be quiet. The world can hate. Take time to love yourself. The world can wound. Take time to heal.
vagabroadjournals reblogged
2/9/2017–
Journey Soulfully.
You will find your language, your message, your timing. It will be original, unprecedented, & refreshing. I promise.
Purpose does not owe you softness.
At times the truth will sit heavy on your soul like a baby sits on its mother's bladder when in-utero. Obey the urge to let the [full] story flow.
There are too many things I cannot risk leaving undocumented, undefined and undescribed. Too many corporeal parts of my narrative that cannot be neglected in exchange for being ubiquitously known. No one will ever be as dedicated to telling my story as I. As narrator I value my awareness, obey my discernment, guard my thoughts and imagination; and give the invisible a written language with the sound of my voice. I can't afford to trade the meaning I unearth from life details for cheap, momentary diversions. I won't barter away my soul's gold to be enter-tain[t]ed. I will not participate in lifestyles that risk the integrity of my story.
There are certain times when you should check in and see what your handwriting is saying about you. Regard your slant, inspect your spacing, reflect on your pace and pressure. Your writing style at any given moment is telling you something about what's going on within. Not required, but it's interesting to eavesdrop on that conversation every once in awhile.
Had a conversation tonight with a young lady in her senior year of college. I said something about staying available to conversations metamorphosis wants to have wih her along the journey and how the average societal diversion is meant to interrupt or mute us to this dialogue altogether. And yet tuning into this dialogue also makes us atypical, isolating us from the indulgently revelling throng and availing us to the whispers to the stuff of generational longevity.
Needless to say, several journal titles will be coming from this conversation.
Let your children have the privilege of reading the part of the story where you overcame.