Nala Simone

Seven days later and I’m still floating.

Atlanta gave me more than a graduation. It gave me language for the kind of leadership, faith, community, and becoming I’ve been wrestling with over the past two years.

La Mesa stretched me deeply through intimate conversations, theological reflection, community accountability, and transformative relationships. Over these two years, I found myself engaging the work and theological frameworks of authors and scholars such as James Cone, Delores Williams, Emilie Townes, Marcella Althaus-Reid, Renita J. Weems, and Marlon M. Bailey — wrestling with liberation, embodiment, kinship, ritual, survival, and sacred community.

This Mother’s Day weekend, those lessons felt embodied.

I was surrounded by a matriarchal circle of care — aunties, sistahs, spiritual mothers, organizers, and loved ones across generations, traditions, and practices. Caribbean memory sat beside African-centered ritual, Indigenous-centered practice, and Christian prayer without demanding sameness from one another.

During this same journey, I also underwent initiation within my matriarchal circle and received an additional sacred name rooted in stewardship, dignity, lineage, communal care, and spiritual responsibility.

And honestly?

I’m still becoming. ✨

I graduate today 🙏🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

https://candler.emory.edu/about-candler/events/commencement/ #:~:text=Commencement%202026&text=The%20Candler%20School%20of%20Theology,United%20Methodist%20Church%2C%201660%20N.

Commencement Candler 2024 Commencement information

March into April was about learning how to be held by people and many truths.

Learning to name what I need…
and sitting with the harder question:
what did I not receive that I’m still learning to give myself? What will please me? ( still ethical is process)

Deepening my practice.
Sitting with Afa.
Walking with Eshu / Papa Legba at the crossroads.
Honoring Oshun in her sweetness and her standards.
Tending to Egungun… listening to what the ancestors are actually asking of me.

And in the midst of all that
still showing up for the work.
Supporting cultural organizers.
Strengthening what’s possible for all of us.

But also…
choosing myself in softer ways:

art.
dance.
water.
being witnessed by the elements + people.

Learning from Togbe Daxpoata
and letting the teachings move through my body and my Ori.

This season wasn’t about having it all figured out
it was about creating space for pleasure
while I’m still becoming.

Less performance.
More presence.

i was still tender…
but i wasn’t hiding.

my body was feeling everything.
and i still showed up.

to serve.
to study.
to stay in my practice.

some days i was grounded.
some days i was just getting through.
both were real.

i’ve been walking my spiritual work a little slower, a little more honest.
letting what i’m learning actually touch how i live.

the care around me shifted too.
quieter. more consistent.
no guessing.

i’m still in it.
just not where i was before.

part two of photodump Feb - March

Photo 🌈 dump Jan- Feb i didn’t disappear… i was being rearranged.

writing a capstone
while life was writing me back in real time.

my body sat me down…
hospital. pause. no negotiation.

and in the middle of all that?
i saw clearly.

what care actually feels like…
and what just wears the costume.

some things i’m still holding close…
but intimacy will teach you what your mouth hasn’t caught up to yet.

still…
there were people who loved me properly.
soft. consistent. no confusion.

i’m grateful for that kind.

this not a dump.
this evidence.

part one.

There’s something about learning how to laugh in the middle of it all…
not because life has been gentle,
but because I’ve become fluent in holding both.

Sweetness didn’t come to me as softness alone…
it came as survival, as choice, as practice.
A kind of care that says: I will not abandon myself, even here.

I’ve learned from the waters that carry love,
and from the forest that carries memory.
From the quiet intelligence of things that grow anyway.
From the unseen that still finds a way to speak.

And somewhere along the way,
I remembered to celebrate myself
not for perfection,
but for making it here with my spirit intact.

Guided by reflection, by word, by witness. I’m still becoming something that chose to live.

And that… is worth honoring.

📸