Hair Herstory

I'be been natural for several years now. In 2004, I did my first big chop, going from shoulder length to about 1/4 inch. My brother at first refused to cut my hair for me but after I butchered with scissors, he was nice enough to finish it off for me with the clippers.

My hair grew very fast and I loved my natural hair. But after about 2 years, I got lazy and relaxed it. Immediately after I relaxed it, I regretted it. I never relaxed again and ended up doing another big chop about 3 months later.

Now I am shoulder length when stretched. On my birthday of this year, Jan 8th, I cut about three inches from my hair. I hadn't been taking very good care of it. The ends had gotten split and untamed. It has grown back plus maybe a little more length and now I feel it's time to go ahead and start locs.

Why locs?

I have always admired locs. I've seen beautifully groomed locs as well as ratty and untamed locs. Of course I will do my best to keep my locs looking good, neat, and clean. See, it's about more than a particular hair style for me. In fact, all of the transitions I have gone through with my hair these last several years has been about way more than hair. It's about a spiritual journey as well. It's been about having tremendous pride in my african heritage, being disgusted with society(particularly american society) that paints a picture of anything being ethnic to be unattractive. It's about rejecting the notion that we as black women can only be beautiful when we alter our natural appearance with harsh chemicals that makes us closer to the white woman. It's mostly about loving myself and finding beauty in the way the creator designed me.

As I became more conscious and spiritually aware, I became less satisfied with my artificially straight and colored hair. That's not in any way saying that women with relaxers are ignorant to their ancestry or that they can't be spiritually intact. I am telling my story from my own personal point of view.

Which brings me to locs. If I go a day or two without combing through my hair, I notice that sections of my hair naturally wrap around one another and try to form locs. I think there's something significant and cool about how my hair is a spiral. Our galaxy is a spiral. The root to spiral is spir, as in spir-it. In mathematics and physics, the spiral is significant. Even the earth moves around and around creating a spiral affect. The spiral occurs naturally. Look at the weather radar of a hurricane. Look at the movements of the ocean. I know I'm getting a little analytical, but that's how I am. I'm a deep thinker and the most natural and most spiritual thing I can do to my hair is to let it spiral together and loc up, collecting energy like antennas tuning in to the universe.

So there you have it. For the most part, my reason for getting locs.