UNRULY: 99 cents for juneteenth
(on books as offerings)
Recently, I read a Substack post by author
that touched my heart and showed what's possible when being in relationship with one's book. Every year Alda does a work tour around Iceland and visits places where her books reside to check in on them and the retailers selling the books. As I read her words I imagined someone tending to a garden, or lovingly tending to a child who is no longer a child. Her books, now independently in the world on their own journeys, were poised to receive Alda's attention with a tenderness that has nothing to do with possession. I imagine the books are equally as proud to have come from her, as she is proud to have birthed them. I admired the relationship she had with her books.Then I turned my attention to my relationship with UNRULY and found it wanting. I am proud of what I have accomplished; however, I have not found many examples of right relationship with anything in the US, so it makes sense that I had not considered what kind of relationship I would want to have with UNRULY. (Side note: I now see that my ancestor altars are an attempt to create right relationship with those who came before me because this poltergeist Hollywoodification or religious demonization of honoring anyone born before me has been traumatizing. My ancestor altars are working on me, not the ancestors. My altars are repairing how I have been taught to hold my past relations with fear and shame, rather than with curiosity and agape love.)
I have a book and yet I shyly speak of her because who wants to always be selling something? The structures already in place around promotion and currency are so often marred by a trauma field that can often distort our relationships. However, when I come back to my breath and I remember the words that moved through me were an offering, and that they chose me so that I could hold them in tenderness, then I relax into that.
I immediately stood up and placed UNRULY on my altar and something shifted. The invitation then became several inquiries:
If you treated sharing UNRULY as sacred offering rather than selling, how would that change your relationship to talking about her?
Do you daily acknowledge yourself for what you have done and are doing? The ways dismantling the taboo is a physical, emotional, and spiritual investment into our liberated futures?
Do you honor that deep work requires deep intentionality that moves at the speed of safety? That when corporations try to force the bud open that the natural order is not honored? Are you honoring or disturbing the seed?
What does UNRULY need from you now that she's in the world? How does UNRULY even need you to hold yourself? Where is tenderness missing today?
How does UNRULY want to be honored and cared for? How does UNRULY want you to be honored and cared for?
How would you introduce UNRULY to someone if she were your beloved daughter rather than your "product"?
So, excuse me as I re-introduce my work while the spirit of Juneteenth is in the air:
UNRULY is my first poetry collection—a gathering of voices that refuse silence and bodies that insist on healing. She traces the path from trauma to testimony, carrying the stories of Black women who came before me and those who will come after because the violences need an end. Born from my own journey through chronic illness, UNRULY is not a product, but a beloved. The Black woman is a beloved. This collection does the sacred work of tending to our collective sacral chakra—making visible reproductive trauma, reclaiming creative power, and restoring the flow of life force blocked for centuries. During Juneteenth, UNRULY wants to be accessible to anyone who is called to the medicine of poetic alchemy and is available as an ebook for 99 cents. This is my offering.
Available here until June 20th.
Thank you for your witness. Thank you for your sharing.
Support my debut book UNRULY, Legacy Book Press, LLC 2025