What's in a Name?: The Black Mystic Journal

Thoughts on changing my Substack name

The Black Mystic, Key Ocho. 2021.

My skin is brown

I wear my hair in locs as an ode to my ancestors

A reminder that I will not conform to the standards of European beauty

Nor will I conform to the thoughts and beliefs that were forced onto my ancestors that they agreed to for survival

They were magic and are magic

I still feel them when I meditate and pray

I still see them when I look in the mirror and in my dreams

My lineage consists of powerful men and women

Black mystics

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I’ve been writing since I could form full sentences. When people ask me who I am and what I do, I explain that I’m a writer first. As an introvert, writing is my preferred method of art expression, and it’s how I deal with most challenges I face.

Writing has gotten me through some uncomfortable and liminal spaces. When my mouth didn’t have the words, miraculously, my hand and brain conspired to express what I couldn’t verbally.

If you ask me, I call it magic.

I went on my first writing retreat in New Mexico in October 2023 with other talented writers and amazing writing guides, such as Alex Elle, Julia Cameron, and Anne Lamott. Encouraged and inspired by the experience, I started this Substack, originally named Inner Garden Alchemy.

I doubted myself as I got ready to begin yet another blog due to many failed blogs surrounding music and current events over the years (I was a hip-hop journalist in another life. That’s another story for another day!). I was trying to use my journalism degree (along with other freelance jobs), and these days, the idea behind a journalism degree seems to be dead. But a faint spark of hope continues to burn inside of me.

Into the Light, Key Ocho. 2021.

Inner Garden Alchemy was initially born from years of notebooks, sticky notes, dreams, and life reflections. Inner Garden Alchemy was about sharing what I’ve done to help myself alchemize certain situations I’ve dealt with to inspire and encourage others. While I still plan to share that and more, what I want to share and how I want to evolve this platform felt bigger than Inner Garden Alchemy and to be quite transparent I got so tired of hearing the phrase “inner garden”, it began to feel like a trendy and cheesy analogy.

I shared this with my husband, and we bounced new substack names off of each other. The one name that kept coming up was Black Mystic Journal. From 2022-2023, I had a podcast called The Black Mystic podcast (orignally named Sunday Medicine). The podcast created space for guests and myself to explore what it meant to be a mystic in the BIPOC community. It was short-lived because, honestly, it was hard for me to handle everything from audio and video editing to booking guests, marketing, etc.

While in meditation, it dawned on me as to why Inner Garden Alchemy (and Sunday Medicine) no longer resonated with me:

• It felt too safe and wasn’t a full expression of me.

• I’m still working through feeling safe to be seen as I am.

• Inner Garden Alchemy no longer feels clear or aligned.

• I am a Black Mystic and have been since I took my first breath of air outside my mother’s womb.

The never-ending journey to myself has been like peeling the layers of an onion. Sometimes, each layer is familiar, and sometimes, it’s a surprise. This layer was no surprise.

Black Mystic Journal is a personal journey of self-discovery where I delve into the crossroads of spirituality, culture, consciousness, and my own reflections and experiences. From ancestral wisdom to contemporary mysticism, my aim is for us to explore life’s mysteries together—after all, who really has life figured out anyway?

Cheers to stepping more fully into alignment. I bring to you the rebirth of my Substack on my mother’s birthday. Because without her, I couldn’t share my gifts with you. Happy birthday, mama; thank you for always creating space for me to step into my gifts.