Hi Reader,

Here’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

Right now, every day looks pretty much the same for me. I wake up, I tend my shrines, I say my prayers, I go to the gym, I come home, read something super Black, read something super woo woo, and I get in the bathtub. I take a nap. I wake up, and I prep content for the YouTube series I’m currently working on. I check on my herbs. I check on my blackberry plant to make sure the squirrels haven't stolen all my bounty before it's harvest time. I check in with my coaching clients. I check in with my coach. I handle whatever the house needs as I get it ready for the next chapter. I do whatever schoolwork is in front of me. And then I go to sleep and do it again.

For a while, I kept catching myself thinking: I’m doing this until the thing happens. Like these days were a kind of placeholder. A waiting room. The real life was somewhere ahead of me — the move, the opportunity, the reconciliation, the new client, the new speaking engagement. And all of this? Just busy work in the meantime.

But recently something shifted for me, and I want to offer it to you.

This is my work. Not a rehearsal for my work. Not a runway to my work. This, right now, is it.

The content I’m building — even the pieces that don’t generate income right now — is scholarship. It is an archive of a living theology, and archives matter. The rituals are not a warm-up. They are the thing itself. The bathtub is not killing time. It is the practice of returning to myself. The blackberry plant is not a distraction. It is me learning to tend something and be a good steward of my land.

I’m on Day 31 of my 100-Day YouTube Challenge today (May 1). Thirty-one days of showing up, of building something in public, of trusting that the consistency is the testimony. If you haven’t been watching, come find me on YouTube and catch up. It’s all there. I know I'm growing something that matters. Even in the slow build.

Here’s what I have learned from this season: we do all this work building up to a moment — and then the moment comes, and it passes, and it is never as large as we imagined it would be. Not because it wasn’t real. But because the living was never really about the moment. It wasn't just about the forest. The living was the whole buildup. The living was the trees.

And that’s where I want to leave you with a question this month.

Are you someone who tends to see the forest and miss the trees? When you’re the kind of person who lives only in the big picture — the destination, the vision, the outcome — you can move through entire seasons of your life and miss every individual thing that was actually happening. The conversations. The small shifts. The beauty that was right in front of you.

Or are you someone who sees only the trees and loses the forest? When you can only see what’s immediately in front of you — the task, the problem, the daily grind — it’s hard to remember that all of it is adding up to something. That you are building something. That there is a larger architecture to your life.

The work is to hold both. To make the coffee and know it is your living. To tend the shrines and know it is your living. To walk and rest and create and clean and tend and pray — and to also know that all of it together is constructing something magnificent. A fuller life. A more enfleshed you.

So tell me: which side do you tend to lean toward? Do you see the forest and miss the trees, or do you see the trees and miss the forest? And is this something you want support with?

Reply to this email and let me know where you are. I’m asking genuinely, because I am actively in conversation with Black women who are becoming — who want to go deeper in the areas of their lives where more intentional focus would open something up. That’s the heart of my twelve-month container, A Return to God: The Priestess Portal. If this letter landed somewhere real in you, I’d love to know. Hit reply. Tell me where you are.

With love,

EbonyJanice

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EbonyJanice Peace - YouTube (Currently on Day 31 of a 100 Day Youtube Challenge) Be Sure to subscribe!

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In Deep Ease,

EbonyJanice

Bringing back this chat with Kelli and Kendra from "This Womanist Work" Podcast because it's by far in the Top 3 of my favorite podcast conversations of all time. Check "The Earth Is In Pain Waiting For You To Be Revealed" HERE.

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EbonyJanice Moore is a Hip Hop Womanist, scholar-priestess, sovereignty mentor, and revolutionary dreamer. With a mind shaped by Cultural Anthropology and Political Science, and a heart anchored in spirit, love, and liberation, she writes, teaches, and dreams Black women free. Founder of Emma’s Legacy and author of All The Black Girls Are Activists, Sacred Text For Black Folks Soul, and her forthcoming book Real Soft Girl Shit, she blends ancestral wisdom, womanist theology, and cultural commentary with the audacity of a spoiled little bitty baby who knows she’s worthy. Her work lives at the altar of justice, joy, softness, and fantastic Black futures.

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