Wooden Dragon
on choosing happiness
Dear readers, we did it! We made it through and out of the vortex that was 2023. When you add the numbers 2024 together you receive 8. The year of the 8. In traditional numerology, this number signifies abundance, a time to put your money where your mouth is. An '8 Year' is about putting goals into action and holding emotional space for the life you're leaving behind. It's an empowering and liberating energy where the hard work you've put in starts paying off. In the Chinese Zodiac calendar 2024 is the year of the dragon, specifically a wooden dragon. The Dragon year, combined with the nourishing Wood element, brings evolution, improvement, and abundance, making it the perfect time for rejuvenated beginnings and setting the foundation for long-term success. I’ll take it!
On the first day of the year, Umazi sends me a video on TikTok of a Black person praying in front of their altar with crystals, candles, tarot cards and all the spiritual works, with the caption “me the night of December 31st because I can’t afford another 2023”. I cackle the minute I open this and think, where did Umazi find this video of me? I spend the last day of the year communing with my heavenly family, the ancestral army, the orishas, the ascended masters, the angels who have held me through many a dark night.
I pour my heart out, encircled in a cloud of bakhoor with my favorite candles burning. I thank my light beings for their constant companionship, their patience and benevolence, their levity and their grace. I feed them sweet dates and pour rich coffee to share my gratitude. I get on my knees and I recite my favorite verses, I pray and pull cards and I am affirmed in a warm light that infuses my aura. There is a peace, even Brooklyn quiets in the face of this moment of godliness. My spirits tell me you’ve done the work, now watch it change your life. I am given a message that by my birthday this year I will begin working on an endeavor that will take 20 years to complete.
I still have Me & U by Tems on repeat as I give the apartment a deep clean and water the plants. I stumble upon an interview where Tems talks about how she wrote this song two years ago, right after the release of Essence (the track to ignite her induction into popular culture). She shares that the song is in fact a letter to God, a conversation with her spirits. In the music video she is adorned in white and silver, serenading the moon and the water as the lyrics repeat, “Make me your matter/ Show me your substance/ Make me your person.” I think of the ways Tems demonstrates the power of honoring spirit, using art to channel the most high, to ask for help, to show gratitude, to surrender.
Lenny leaves me a voice note saying he’s feeling optimistic about the year ahead. He makes a point to say he doesn’t use that word often nor lightly and I couldn't agree more. I refer to myself as a cautious optimist because the world is scary and doubt is a frequent visitor. But, ultimately, my belief that I create my own reality wins out. If I move through the world like it is out to get me, it will. If I cradle doubt it will grow. If I believe in the worst case scenario, I unwittingly create the conditions for my own suffering. In the year of the 8, I call on my abundant ancestors to walk with me into my highest good. I trace the patterns of Jupiter as she zips through Taurus bringing her expansion and wisdom to this prickly bull.
Mikelina jokes that people have taken the anti-resolution thing a little too seriously. I snicker in agreement as we walk hand in hand to our favorite wine store. “You know, you’re right! I am focusing on just one resolution this year, to ease my relationship to attachment to outcome.” They quip back,”A big one!” A lofty resolution indeed, and one I will be working through for many years to come. 2023 was marked by moments of deep disappointment. Those times when I held onto desire with a firm grip, moving toward a specific vision I had of how things will turn out. And when it did not come to fruition exactly as I envisioned, I sunk into deep resentment. Often questioning my own value in the face of failure. I am reminded of one of my most profound lessons, that the dream of the universe will always be bigger than the dream of ego. Today, I loosen my grip, let my fingers stretch and allow my palm to open.
Saidiya Hartman tells us that essentially, “artistic practice is the exercise of imagining beauty and what it might make possible in the world.” In a world that induces conformity and projects constant expectation, I steep myself deeper in the world of beauty, pleasure and the sensual as a remedy for attachment and control. Beauty does not inherently have an outcome. This year I commit to creating beautiful things in my life, nurturing them to their highest potential, and freeing them from the enormous weight of expectation.
In the final hours of the year I find myself giggling in Alsarah’s kitchen making hot toddies and dancing to the new Rema EP. “How are you feeling today babe?” Alsarah asks while opening another bottle of Bulleit. “Today, I am choosing to be happy,” I answer with a smirk. “It always is. Happiness is a choice”. I hold this close to my heart as I twirl into a new year of happy possibility.