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In that moment, in the middle of Harlem, on a porch with a bunch of people I didn’t even know a few weeks earlier, I felt welcomed. Like a neighbor myself.

I’ve managed to find meaning and purpose for my life at a time and place that I never thought possible. But, with the help and guidance from The Art of Soulmaking, the impossible has become my new reality.

Raylene’s community watched out for each other. They made sure that whoever didn’t have money had enough to eat. If someone didn’t have a place to live there was always a couch. If someone’s mom was on drugs, someone else would take in the kids.

There is the ineffableness of an experience with women sharing their power. You have to feel it to know it. But it can move mountains.

Two of our former interns received certificates for their participation in the re-entry program and work commitments prevented several others from receiving their awards.

I am not much of a bumper sticker person, but I do have one on the back of our family Subaru. It reads, “I’d rather be slowly consumed by moss.”

Some may think this is witchcraft or magic, but to me, it is women. Women taking a risk, unveiling the mask, letting go of the protective layers, and taking that one brave step to say yes. Yes to themselves. Yes to their power. Yes to their vulnerabilities. And yes to their voices.

Volunteers and employees are all given responsibility and allowed to shine. Tasks and assignments are based on desire and love, whether one has been doing that task for a decade or a day, and then given the time to titrate to their own personal capacity.

Now, it’s just a matter of giving back. One of the greatest changes in me came from realizing that life itself is not about me at all... it’s about other people and my own interactions with them.

A week later, I was able to see more of the passionate side of Exodus. Where they were more reverent with Chongwol there, this day he was not able to make it. But you could feel his influence on the men in the room from the week prior.

But this day. This moment. Every line and limitation I’d looked for has blended and blurred. Every idea of what is supposed to be has been erased. We are the ocean, as the Tibetan Monk would say. A variety of waves, a part of the same source underneath.

I found every possible way to shame that part of her because I had no access to that part of me. It wasn’t until years later that what I thought was wrong with her was everything I demonized in myself.