Nala Simone

Yesterday’s Live opened a conversation I know many of us are already having quietly: What happens when the God we were taught no longer feels big enough to hold what we have lived, witnessed, survived, or come to understand?

We talked about rage, grief, church, ancestors, liberation, the Divine, and the possibility that questioning does not always mean we are losing faith. Sometimes it means we are finally becoming honest about what we are seeking.

I carried that conversation into a new Substack piece: “Seeking Can Also Be Sacred.”

Inside, I go deeper into the questions we held together:

What does my rage protect?
What here feels holy?
What am I seeking?

I also included a simple ritual for those navigating a season of spiritual questioning, deconstruction, or return.

And if sitting down to read is not your thing, there is a voice note attached so you can listen and receive it that way instead.

Yesterday was the conversation. This is the reflection that came after.

Come sit with me a little longer. Link in bio.

I wrote this in the middle of the night, with tea beside me, caramel porridge still warm, and the house finally quiet enough for me to hear what had been trying to surface.

This piece is about love, community, Black womanhood, body politics, transness, repair, and the cost of staying available to people and places that ask us to disappear.

It is also about learning that forgiveness does not always require return.

If you have ever had to ask yourself whether belonging was costing you too much of yourself, this one may meet you somewhere familiar.

Read “We Keep Calling It Community When What We Mean Is Compliance” now on my Substack.

Link in bio.

Can art create belonging?

Yes, especially when we experience it together.

Earlier this year, Carmen Neely and Harlem Pride invited ROAD and fellow cultural organizers to experience Cats: The Jellicle Ball. I was grateful to return through a personal invitation from Black Trans Femmes in the Arts.

Two invitations. One powerful reminder: Black trans people deserve to see our brilliance reflected onstage and to feel welcomed, respected, and protected in the audience.

Celebrating Qween Jean, Kya, Chasity, the cast, creative team, and everyone whose artistry expands what is possible for our communities.

At ROAD, we understand cultural access as part of community care. Joy, beauty, imagination, and gathering are not extras. They are part of how we remain connected to ourselves and one another.

I hope more of our community experiences the production before August 8. Reach out to your girls. Bring someone you love. Support the artists and share the night together.

Belonging is not only seeing ourselves reflected onstage. It is knowing our presence is welcomed in the room, our joy is protected, and our humanity is honored before, during, and after the performance.

And because Black artistry extends beyond the stage, I carried it into the room.

The look: Andrea Iyamah by Dumebi Andrea Iyamah
Bag: Andrea Iyamah
Earrings: Aishatu Earrings by Omolola Jewellery
Eyewear: Vintage Wood Collection Eyewear

Fashion was one of my first languages.

Long before I became a founder, minister, or cultural strategist, I was studying silhouettes, textiles, adornment, and the stories clothing carries.

After BEAM’s Heart Space at Plant and People, we gathered at Honeysuckle in Philadelphia, a Black-owned space where food, culture, and community meet.

Wearing Moshood x Custom Collab, I was reminded that fashion is more than what we wear.

It is memory.
It is identity.
It is archive.

As I continue leaning into anthropology, I’m paying attention not only to what we wear, but where we gather, whose stories we preserve, and how beauty carries history.

I’m also intentionally naming the Black designers and creatives who helped shape this visual story. Credit is part of cultural care.

I’m no longer interested in fragmenting myself.

Fashion. Faith. Food. Culture. Community.

They’re all speaking the same language.

Location: Honeysuckle, Philadelphia
Look: Moshood x Custom Collab
Eyewear: Vintage Wood Collection Eyewear

There is a particular kind of medicine in being held by people who understand what it means to hold others.

BEAM curated Heart Space at Plant and People in West Philadelphia for therapists, artists, organizers, nurses, doctors, healers, and community leaders whose work often asks them to carry so much.

We gathered to learn, reflect, laugh, deepen relationships, and practice receiving care alongside offering it.

I attended as part of my continued development as a leader, healer, artist, spiritual practitioner, and cultural strategist. I am still reflecting on how these care-centered practices can strengthen the leadership development, facilitation, and healing work we continue building through ROAD.

Plant and People was a meaningful home for this gathering. As a mother-and-daughter-owned plant shop and café rooted in greenery, culture, nourishment, and connection, the space reminded me that care is not simply an idea. It must be cultivated, resourced, practiced, and shared.

I left grateful for the tenderness, wisdom, beauty, and togetherness in the room.

Leadership does not remove our need to be held.
Community reminds us that we were never meant to carry alone.

what helps you feel genuinely held when you are usually the one caring for everyone else?

Training: BEAM Heart Space
Location: Plant and People, West Philadelphia

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. ✨