Tag: ourconversations

The Mid-Year Fast: Day 3, Discipline

Been meaning to document this for years, but Q spends time fasting for 3 days at the beginning of July. This year, he and I spent time building on it together and unpacking what it means to reconnect with self and to focus in on particular principles each day. Reconnecting with purpose. While I didn’t fast from food, I found other ways to practice mindfulness and build for me.

The Last Day of Fasting, Discipline – 2022, by Q

The result of dedication to a cause and determination to exact such cause is discipline. Discipline is NOT the natural state of mankind… it is the natural state of divinity. Everything in creation adheres to the natural law and there can be no law without the concept of discipline. When a person seeks to strengthen there discipline, they seek to become closer to their god-like selves… like every atom in existence, we are all, whether knowingly or unknowingly, apart of the structure of the natural ORDER.

Discipline – 2023, by S

Of the 3 Ds, discipline is the hardest of the concepts to grasp. There’s a realization that without a higher power a true belief in the divine, real disciple cannot exist. Meditation and prayer were an easy solution to feeling that closeness with the universe, and connection was made, there in the rain, reminding me what is. The insight – dedication is the why, determination is the goal, and discipline is the process. It’s time is forever and can only be guided by all three D’s existing at once. Finding the fire within myself to meditate while the rain falls — only to retain the deepest connections, and accessing peace when I choose it.

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The Mid-Year Fast: Day 2, Determination

Been meaning to document this for years, but Q spends time fasting for 3 days at the beginning of July. This year, he and I spent time building on it together and unpacking what it means to reconnect with self and to focus in on particular principles each day. Reconnecting with purpose. While I didn’t fast from food, I found other ways to practice mindfulness and build for me.

Determination – 2022, by Q

Determination is what pushes me through to the other side of my goals. To set a course and move out on it, no matter the weather, this is the human capacity of determination. I, for myself, have determined a course to a higher, more whole self. But only once the mind is free, only then, can it follow through on its desires with determination, and makes them manifest.

Determination – 2023, by S

Determination is as grounding as it is fleeing. It is a force that can only stand to push forward.

Do not be afraid of determination because it exists, be aware and recognize that it exists when you create it. Do not be afraid because it cannot be contained in time. It cannot be rushed, it cannot be rewound. It can only be now, in this moment, and the universe will guide you the rest of the way. There are no limits.

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The Mid-Year Fast: Day 1, Dedication

Been meaning to document this for years, but Q spends time fasting for 3 days at the beginning of July. This year, he and I spent time building on it together and unpacking what it means to reconnect with self and to focus in on particular principles each day. Reconnecting with purpose. While I didn’t fast from food, I found other ways to practice mindfulness and build for me. For the next couple days, I’ll post the writing from Q the year prior, and what I wrote this year.

Dedication – 2022, by Q

Dedication is what keeps bringing me back to the starting point to what could led to a grand arrival…

Year after year, I show a desire to want to purge the more base aspects of myself in hopes to obtain a clearer, more whole light on what known as the Self. This desire is summed up into 3 days of fasting. The initial principle to begin this quest is dedication.

Dedication is a fruit of the human soul–activating the most supernormal power available to human beings–the intelligence to see and comprehend, and the will to adiust– to manifest the exact product of a self-determined fate and its potential perfection.

Dedication – 2023, by S

When the word dedication comes to mind, my first thought in and OUT of meditation was other people. Just names, titles, more names. Nothing else. What’s more, I realized that I wasn’t on that list. It’s a wake up call for sure because how can I show up and be dedicated if I’m not taking the time to dedicate myself? I want to spend time working on defining what it means to dedicate me, and prioritize the intentions that will fill me to my best self. Dedication to self: mind, body, and spirit.

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S: Manifesting the Bubble

3 years ago Q and I created what we call the bubble. It’s a spiritual space to which we exist together where it’s just us. We’ve historically referenced it as something that relates to how we start to change as people as it grows.

Well something happened okay visit on Sunday the 15th.

I was sitting across from him feeling an overall sense of gratitude for his presence. It had been over 3 weeks since I’d last been there, and 3 weeks since I’d gotten to wrap my arms around him and feel the since of safety I’ve only felt from his spirit. I held his hand with both of mine and held it close. I closed my eyes and I instantly filled with emotion through my whole body. Tears started form in my eyes. He held me closer and closed his too. I later learned he was praying. The moment was beautiful. I was relishing in the fact that he was real and he was just pure love in the flesh. It was like I couldn’t turn the tears off. He wiped my eyes as they filled my mask and neither of us had words for what felt like 5 minutes.

We then hear the lady at the desk call his last name. He gets up to go talk to her and I instantly felt alone again. When he came back, he told me they are not allowing us to hold hands. Both of us were crushed, and he had a clear sense of anger. I knew our moment wasn’t over, even if it couldn’t be physical.

I put my hands in front of me and put it on what would have formed a giant sphere. I told him to do the same, and there we were: with our hands on an invisible ball. We both started putting our hands around it. I asked him what it felt like, what it looked like, what it sounded like. We spent time building on it and following each other’s hands and fingers, to the point where I couldn’t tell which one of us was leading the other. We put our hands through it. Like water, he said. We then took our hands out and into our hearts. Like the ball was generating enough energy and positivity to recharge us as individuals.

It was powerful. A huge representation of how they can never take this from us. How our love is a ball of energy that we can create between us regardless of physical space. He called the ball of energy the bubble and it clicked immediately. Manifestation of the bubble.

Q even used it on his own. “I manifested the bubble by myself earlier. Just moved my hands like we did at visit and inhaled it into my heart.” Part of me has been afraid to access it due to the overwhelming emotional potential, but I’m grateful to know I have it.

The bubble is home, the bubble is us. The bubble exists regardless of time and space and physicality. Like God.

-S

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S: Our Spiritual Journey, the Second Year

Every once in a while, Q and I decide to write on an interesting topic for the blog at the same time. As an additional wild card, we don’t share the entries with one another until they’re both finished. No peeking. This month, we thought we’d reflect on how we’ve continued to grow together spiritually after 2+ years. Enjoy.

S:

It’s been a roller coaster of a time for us. Not being in the same room for almost 2 years really has a tendency to rattle beliefs and poke at hope.

That said, Q and I have gone through a rough summer and fall – a rough Mercury retrograde – and now, a lockdown that could last another week or more. It’s been 3 days now since I’ve heard his voice, so finishing this writing felt right because I’m in need of the reflection of our connection.

While the expression isn’t as erratic as it used to be, there’s no loss of passion. We still write to each other letters, write poetry and music and drawing pictures… still planning our future together. However, there’s a bigger baseline of faith between us.

Connecting on a deeper level isn’t always about the tangible things for us. I believe we have been praying similarly and working toward goals together. Meditating nightly and not forcing it if it’s not there. I’ve found in the past year, we spend more time talking about our meditations and dreams – and even HOW we prayed has become a regular point of conversation. It has inherently brought us closer and more grounded in each other.

In my own life, I’ve been struggling with heightened anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic. I can recall a time a couple months ago when Q was able to really help me dig deep into my control issues, and offered many words of encouragement and learnings he got from his own meditations and from studying tai chi. He really knows how to help balance me when I’m at my worst. There was a night when he gave me some advice so good I had to write it down as quotes on post it notes – so I could stick them around my space.

I was never really a meditating girl before him – but having a tool like this in my toolbox is exactly what I needed to be able to maintain stability in a situation like this. Letting go and keeping faith front and center is what it’s all about. Opening ourselves up to feel the flow of nature and allowing the little things to shine through is what we value most. Through a song lyric, seeing a plant grace our picture, smelling a flower, seeing the sun set, or hearing a bird chirp. Those are the kinds of things that make us feel love through spirit and I’m truly grateful.

Here’s to growing into many many more years of that feeling, regardless of where we are in the world. Faith, hope and love are the 3 things that we know will get us through it all.

– S

(To read the Q version, click here.)

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Q: Second Year of a Relationship and It’s Spiritual Growth

Every once in a while, Q and I decide to write on an interesting topic for the blog at the same time. As an additional wild card, we don’t share the entries with one another until they’re both finished. No peeking. This month, we thought we’d reflect on how we’ve continued to grow together spiritually after 2+ years. Enjoy.

Q:

It has been over two years since S and I re-engaged our love story. One of the most interesting things about that is that no matter how far apart we were, for however long, we’ve managed to still be alike in so many ways. We still both love to dance, sing, laugh, and love. It seemed as if time could not fade it, it has only made it stronger. But above all that, there was something that we didn’t share enough of as kids… our spirituality. As adults, S and I both embraced a diligent search for our more spiritual selves and we have bonded over that search and it has become one of the greatest pillars in maintaining our very fruitful and loving long distance relationship.

My entire incarceration has been an opportunity to build a spiritual discipline. Since being locked up, I’ve read an array of books and practiced meditation for the last 13 years; and most recently taken up Tai Chi. There came a point were I felt like I mastered meditation. I was unbound and completely detached from the hostile and mind numbing, monotonous world of imprisonment. I didn’t realize at the time that I was nowhere near mastery. Soon, the universe would send me a reminder.

August 14th, 2019, S and I decided that we would be together even though we were miles apart. From that point on, the world began a light speed crash course for my emotions and mind. I was plunging back into an emotional life of caring, concern, and attachment. I stressed and felt unbelievable pressure as I was jolting back into a world beyond my aloof present. Regrets of the past, fears of the future, feeling of helplessness over control of my world… all things I thought were no more, had resurfaced from their mere suppression and assaulting my inner spaces. It was like a struggle I never experienced before. That was the first year.

Being in a long distance relationship can pose a lot of problems for any couple. Being in a relationship where one of you are in prison, can be one thousand times more stressful. S and I have extremely limited physical contact and phone calls aren’t always ideal. But we have a spiritual connection and a desire to strengthen it. We focus on what we call, our “spiritual love.” We try to reach one another in a way that is beyond physical. It’s presence we miss, so its presence we try to project. We try to synchronize our prayer and meditation times in an attempt to channel one another.

I’ve realized that the type of discipline I engaged before being in this relationship was only foundational at best. What I understand now is that spirituality is not only for yourself, it is to be emitted to those in your life. Spirituality is about connecting and bridging the gap between what seems to be separate. S being at the center of my journey with me has allowed me to better express my love to my family, friends, and even random people I encounter in my daily happenings. I feel more sensitive to life and more alive because it.

S’s presence pushes me to reach out, not withdraw in, learning to bring a lot of my internal growth out into the atmosphere. It hasn’t been easy. In fact, this has been the greatest challenge I ever had to endure. but I know, just the bit of growth I have achieved in the last few years is a million times greater than the 10 years I’ve walked this journey alone. And to be honest, I welcome the lifetime of new levels I can see over the horizon, as S and I set out on our forever journey of love, life, and continuous spiritual growth.

-Q

(To read the S version, click here.)

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Q+S: The Second Year

August 14th marked our second trip around the sun together, and we wanted to take some time and think about all we’ve been through, and how the love still grows. We each took a step back separately and reflected on it. Pictured, is the beautiful drawing in the card that Q made for S.

Q:

It has been 730 days since S and I decided that we would act on our feelings and move out on the rest of our lives together. Ever since then we have experienced joys as well as sorrows, laughter as well as tears, but overall, we’ve experienced the depth of our love and its inability to fade.

We were only 7 months into our newly re-established relationship before the pandemic hit. Before then, she came to visit me 2-3 times a month before they stopped visitations well over a year ago. So, a majority of our time as a couple has been under the strain of no contact… And what a strain it has been. But it is evident that it cannot defeat us.

It is becoming more clear that there is no force in this world that can defeat us. Over 10 years, and the great love we possessed as teenagers has only become stronger through its perseverance. Time has not been able to stifle us and every once in a while our love seems to rebirth itself. We re-live feelings of the first day we locked eyes in the middle of a busy sidewalk, and our lives were recreated.

There has been 80 miles in between us every night for the past 2 years. But without a doubt, our prayers reach one another and fill our spirits and souls with presence. It makes the space in between us irrelevant at times.

The physical distance has actually prompted us to get creative and more in depth with our communication. Sure, trying to translate much of how we feel through word alone can be choppy at times. We even experienced our first impromptu ‘hang up’ during an argument on the day of our second anniversary. But I cannot deny that we are getting better and stronger with each obstacle we overcome. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard. Really hard.

For the weekend of our anniversary, S traveled to attend my mother’s wedding. I could not foresee just how much it would affect me. Maybe because I was too worried about how much it would effect her, but the pain of knowing she was there without me, oddly enough drove me to anger. An anger that became irritation, that become stress and resulted in an argument that ended up with her hanging up on me.

Regardless of every difficulty we’ve faced, the truth is undeniable. S and I share a love that is unlike anything I’ve encountered before. After 2 years of fighting for our love everyday, I only look forward to living loving and growing throughout this life with her by my side. For better or worse, our love thrives. Here’s to two years and the rest of forever.

– Q

S:

While I couldn’t imagine myself here in April 2018, here we are. I’ve discovered the greatest love I’ve ever known in a man, and I can’t touch him, smell him, see him or talk to him without being monitored.

It hasn’t been easy at all. Through the pandemic and its daily struggles, my anxiety has gotten the best of me this summer. I’ve been trying to take it easy and take care of myself. More meditation and more management of work / life balance. Thinking positively.

I’ve found myself taking the daily churn out on him. When I work too hard or over do it in my personal chores/errands or stressing myself out trying to make sure I’m being a good mother, daughter, and friend. He’s on the recieving end of my stress. And it reminds us that he’s not here, which causes more confusion and frustration.

What’s amazing is that Q is always there for me, helping me and showing me alternatives. Coaching me and sharing his own experiences and understanding. And though he isn’t here physically, our spiritual relationship is the perfect solution. Just the other day he shared some wisdom on patience, one being: “Hone in on the desire of stillness – it’s already there inside of you.”

Focusing in on things like that and being open to universal love, reminds me that I’m okay. When anxiety strikes sometimes I think: “I am away from the man I love every day and I handle it with grace.” While it seems uncanny, I truly believe that Q and I have it all. We spend a lot of time building things together, sharing ideas and writing eachother poetry and haikus. Listening to music together, writing stories and singing and dancing together. And my favorite – talking about how we will change the world when it comes to criminal and social justice reform. Presently, we’re working on Brilliance and working with SIP to end mass incarceration in Virginia through awareness and law changes. In the future, we plan to continue that work and do even more on the ground together, as he wants to be a lawyer.

We are not perfect and we will never be perfect, but the way we work together each day, and the way we work to understand eachother: offering support and encouragement, is how I know we have forever locked down. He’s my soulmate.

– S

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S: “Keep Being Amazing.”

I started this entry with this same headline almost a year ago, with a statement that says: “This is what he says to me, almost every morning before we get off the phone.” It’s something that’s been constant throughout our relationship.

‘Keep being amazing’ has been somewhat of a mantra of ours that means so much. It basically says – I’m proud of you, and what you do and what you give to the world is important. Go out there and be you with no apologies and no fear. Go out there and be your whole self and know that it’s enough.

The first time he said it to me was before we were what we are and when we just reconnected. He would see me go off to work knowing how bogged down I was. Managing my household and mothering my son and doing hula hoop shows. Making other people happy. He recognized how important it was for me to feel like I ‘HAD IT.’ That someone appreciated everything I was doing and all that I am. Those 3 simple words have always meant everything to me. Especially in the morning before having to start my day. It’s like he’s wrapped me in love and I can better give to others. Wrapped me in confidence and fearlessness, really just allowing myself to believe in MYSELF sooner and easier. It means the world to me to have that mindful energy toward making my day better. And hearing his voice perk up before the end of a phone call, saying ‘I love you, keep being amazing,’ is everything.

Since Q started doing print-based college courses, I’ve found myself saying it to him more often. His main focus has always been education. Throughout his time in prison, he has read textbooks freely, taking notes and learning science and psychology; learning tai chi and meditation and really immersing himself in all things books. Now he has the chance to prove it to the world and that’s all he wants to do. By getting a degree. I’m so so proud of him. I always have been. From writing all of these thought pieces about race and politics on his site BrillianceBehindBars.com, to always dedicating himself to tai chi and his mental and physical health, I’m just so proud. I love this man and everything he is.

– S

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Q: Our Force

A lot has changed within the year of S and I’s recoupling. Not with us and our interaction – more the world around us, what resides outside the bubble. A pandemic, protests, and all the chaotic conditions that accompany great change…

Yet amongst the all the volatility, S and I have found great solace in our being together, even when miles apart…

With a limited physical aspect in our relationship, S and I focus more on building on the spiritual body of us. Meditation and prayer are a major underpin we share to help strengthen us internally to be able to withstand the great need for touch…

This year has been very trying. S has undergone a lot of added pressures with the changes of her routine and having to working from home. Plus, the halting of visitation had put heavy strain on our relationship… we’ve bickered more than ever, HA! At a time earlier in our relationship, I was actually worried that we wouldn’t bicker and probably wouldn’t know how to handle it when the time came… boy was I wrong! We are both pretty opinionated, but rarely share it with people. But as with most difficulties in communication, our wanting to understand each other is very powerful – we find ourselves overcoming and becoming stronger for it.

June the 14th, was our ten month anniversary and marks a very important day, I believe. It started off with a newly found tradition of anniversary video visits, which was amazing because we haven’t seen each other in quite a while and I think that has taken its toll on us in very specific ways. But I digress. We followed that up with an hour long wholesome conversation…

But the highlight of the day was actually late at night. S and I had spoken to each other about meditations, trying to set our intentions. I meditated on the destiny of our love and all the coincidences that lead up to us sharing this time onto forever we share.

I visualize The Force that moved everything into place for us… I, myself am a believer in God, as the dispenser of cause, destiny, and justice, related that same source that has placed us together is the same source that placed the stars in the sky and throughout existence… I shared that with S and was so happy when she told me she gathered a lot out of that idea… Once again, being the big romantics we are, we found a path to some greater truth and built spiritual strength from examining the happenstance of our love…

Hopefully… knowingly, there is a lot more to come from our great respect and love for each other. We grow higher and closer everyday… I know what they mean when they say God is Love… I’m still praying and living to experience a deeper, fuller, more divine love, and with S by my side, I know its all possible…

-Q, 6/16/20

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Q+S: March 9 Contemplation of the Week

Q and I started a new thing for 2020, Contemplation of the Week. It’s a quote or thought we find during the week, that we can document, write down, think about, and implement into our lives.

“Do not fear. Be responsible with your power of creation.”

– Q

S:

“In the midst of the hysteria going on today with people watching their germs and trying not to get this global sickness, I’ve found myself full of anxiety on a daily basis. Worry in the back of my mind causing a rift in focus…

But I control my reaction to my thoughts. In fact, I create these thoughts. Being aware and understanding of my own creations… is imperative. Staying mindful of how to prevent, and not reactive, will protect my inner peace. Which is also my creation. Deep breathing and positive energy will alleviate my fear and bring love into the dark places in my mind. But only if I allow it.”

Q:

“The mind is the maker… when we set it upon a serious thought, maybe a dream we hope to attain, we began to shift the tides of the universe towards our desire. We can gather strength and energy to accomplish this desired reality. whether conscious or otherwise, we are constantly provoking a pattern that plays out in existence and alter realities… as so for positive aspirations, so too for negativity and its respects…

Fear, negativity, and worry these are not different from the thought that comprise our dreams. they manifest with the same swiftness. So it is wise for the creators, possessors of mind, to guard against negative thoughts and fears, because given the proper amount of attention they will come to fruition… be responsible with your power of creation…”

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