You can be Battered and Bruised and still be Beautiful
It’s estimated that approximately 20% of produce gets thrown out for cosmetic reasons. Why?
The nutrients remain intact, the juices run just the same. The feeling of biting into its juicy flesh still invokes the feeling of satiation.
Why?
Because it doesn't ‘look’ right.
You think the emotional scars make you less worthy, less capable, less beautiful.
What if you honored the scars instead?
What if we appreciated the journey of a blemished strawberry?
Doused in poison...
Exposed to the harsh conditions of the sun...
Enduring fluctuating climatic conditions...
Growing in dirt...
The scars on that blemished strawberry only make it more beautiful.
It is a WARRIOR.
Not afraid to show the world the ugliness it endured. Not afraid to show the world that it triumphed anyway...
And that it still made it to your plate.
Battered, bruised, and still beautiful
Dear beautiful, brilliant Black Empath and Earth Intuitive,
You can be battered and bruised and still be beautiful.
You’ve been carrying around this heaviness in your chest that you can’t quite put your finger on. Decades of oozing, tiny little cuts across your heart…
We carry the vibrational echo of words that say, “You’re too sensitive, what’s wrong with you?
We stifle tears beneath ill-constructed armor, wondering constantly if the pressures of life will shatter us entirely. The world screams, “Just take it,” ignore the unhoused people strewn on the street, ignore the words of others that sting like a viper, ignore the violence of our society.
We carry the heaviness of the world, often having trouble sticking to one fight.
But have you ever considered the beauty of being a Black empath? Have you ever considered that the way others perceive your nature is short-sighted?
If deep compassion is a weakness, why is it more difficult to refrain from retaliation when someone does or says something cruel to you?
If being harsh is the way to get ahead, why has your intentional decision to lead with love gotten you further than anyone that you know?
If demeaning others means that you can feel better about yourself, why are you the person that people confide in?
If actively wanting and choosing to create the world that you want to see makes you a softy, why do we see this capitalistic world on fire right now?
They told you that your inherent nature wasn’t valuable. And, you triumphed anyway.
Harriet Tubman went back to save other enslaved individuals, when she could have just saved herself. She faced significant danger and was considered the most wanted women in the South, with a $40,000 bounty on her head. She was advised by some to stay in the North and enjoy her own freedom rather than returning to Maryland, a decision she executed approximately 13 times, to rescue 70 other human beings. After reaching Philadelphia, she stated ‘I was a stranger in a strange land…but I was free, and they should be free.’
Toni Morrison actively chose to write in a literary style that only Black folk could understand, noticing the dearth of tools geared towards Black healing and liberation from the ‘white gaze.’ An interviewer once asked Morrison ‘You don’t think you’d ever change and write books that incorporate white lives?’ In a separate encounter, Toni Morrison stated ‘If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”
Empathy is not a quality to demean, but a characteristic to unapologetically celebrate. Yet, these qualities are often not celebrated in a world built on dominance, hyper-independence, external validation, and violence. This often leads to internalizing a feeling of unworthiness, culminating in a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes every comment, every action against our inherent nature feel like a confirmation. We begin to wonder whether we should be more aggressive, unempathetic, less capitalistic.
But, you cannot be tossed away like a blemished strawberry, Black Empath. Although, your scars make you feel like nothing, they are not meant to make you vanish. Your scars are meant to show you your strength.
It takes strength to walk in the vibration of kindness. It takes strength to help others. It takes strength to challenge societal norms. It takes considerable strength to do all of these things, while others’ reject the essence of who you are.
Do not toss your nature away, embrace your journey. All of it. The empathy, the scars, the blemishes, and the pain.
It is in valuing the journey and seeing the beauty in it that makes you indispensable. It’s choosing to show up anyway at the end of the supply chain, packaged up and ready to eat with the other strawberries that matters. It’s showing others that you recognize your phytonutrients and blemishes, and still decide to love all of you.
Because…You can be battered and bruised and still be beautiful.
The tree that inspired ‘You can be battered and bruised and still be beautiful.’
“You Belong Here” Earthing Ritual (2–3 minutes)
Touch the Earth
Place your bare feet on the ground & rest your hand over your heart.
Whisper: “I can find beauty in the words meant to harm me.”Call Your Breath Back
Inhale slowly for 4, exhale for 6. Do this three times.
Imagine your breath pulling your energy back from everywhere it’s been.Name Your Lineage
Softly say: “I come from strength borne from deep compassion, love, and treasured feelings”Release What Isn’t Yours
Gently shake out your hands or roll your shoulders.
Say: “What is not mine, I release with no guilt.”Root Into Belonging
Visualize roots growing from your feet into the earth.
Say: “I belong here. Not by permission, but by existence.”
We are called to RESTORE her admirers
She used to receive little trinkets from her admirers. Feel soul-stirring frequencies reverberate through the Black Earth, awakening her divine nature. She listened to their soft pleas in the wind, asking for protection and guidance. They even looked to her for enlightenment, pondering life’s purpose at the base of her trunk. She loved them.
Worst of all, they used to use all of her—bark, acorns, and leaves. In fact, her presence alone was enough to incite deep joy.
Her admirers were Afro-Indigenous stewards: people whose traditions, rituals, and ceremonies honored her in ways that nurtured her life and kept the balance of the land. She thrived in their care, alive with the drumming, the laughter, the joy, the reverence.
Then the slave trade came. It tore them away. It severed the line of connection, scattering their descendants, and with it, her tribe. Now, the frequencies don’t fluctuate, and the drumming has ceased. The air is uncomfortably still…a lower frequency.
She doesn’t have her admirers anymore.
Her admirers kept her alive. Her tribe was her life. She became a part of their traditions, keeping track of the new babies and descendants. She cries silently in the wind now, hoping to see them again.
She wants her admirers back.
She wants the drumming, the ceremonies, the laughter, the joy, the reverence, the pain, the love, and the connection to her tribe.
If we want to restore the balance of the climate, address drought, stave off hunger, re-hydrate the land, create burgeoning biodiversity, and repair our decaying relationship with the Earth, we must honor and support Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous stewards on this planet.
I challenge us to reinstate what has been lost. To reconnect with our tree spirits. To restore her Afro-Indigenous admirers.
The Struggle of Being an Empath in an Unjust World
Dear Beautiful, Brilliant, Black Empath and Highly Sensitive Soul,
“The plants don't turn into poison just because we've mistreated them for centuries. Water does not refuse to flow just because we've contaminated her with microplastics & PFAS. The air does not withhold her breath, even as we fill her expanse with toxic substances.” - Midiri Reciprocity
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You carry the light codes of the universe.
You ooze melodies of the heart.
You burst the confines of oppressive forces and replace them with light-filled collaboration, community, and deep healing joy.
I know they don't carry the pain of your enslaved ancestors. I know they haven't read the history books. I know the things they whisper and the unconscious bias they possess keep your brilliance small and your unique soulful expression limited.
But, your heart must not shatter from the disregard, misconception, & denigration cast on your being.
You are meant to pollinate the Earth with your brilliance, connect with the mycelium network of oppressed souls that howl 'no more', uplift the beauty of your community, and meet the rose buds with the patience of the sun.
Your soul aches because you're living in an evolved reality. You don't feel scarcity, so you ooze love. You revile competition, so you model collaboration. You don't see kindness as a weakness, but a conscious choice to be kind 'in spite of', with a bone-stirring knowing that kindness is often the harder choice, possessing wisdom that others have yet to materialize.
Your soul aches because you don't understand why others don't have this natural understanding, inclination, or proclivity.
And...this tireless internal fight rooted in actively choosing to embody a world riddled with abundance, love, compassion, and soul-led connection vs. the reality of living in a world rotting with avarice, decadence, unfettered capitalism, and incessant 'isms' chips away at your empathic container, allowing for resentment, anger, and impatience to take root.
But honey...
The plants don't turn into poison just because we've mistreated them for centuries. Water does not refuse to flow just because we've contaminated her with microplastics & PFAS. The air does not withhold her breath, even as we fill her expanse with chemicals.
The Earth keeps giving despite harm — and you can too, without breaking. Forgiveness protects your empathic spirit.
You're holding onto pain that is meant for the cosmos, not the confines of your vessel.
You must learn to forgive the world for where it is right now even though you understand how behind it is in the embodiment of love.
Mother Earth holds out hope that we will learn to do better, one generation at a time.
Can you?
CAST the shade of your beautiful brilliance. Be the person the world needs to see as a true leader and model. A model for compassion and patience for others’ journeys while exhibiting earth-shattering empathy. Meet people where they are, and trust Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s quote 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice'
Earth-based Practice for Forgiveness
Wake up at 6 AM
Put on your running shoes
Head to the nearest body of water, preferably a nearby ocean
Turn on a playlist that makes you feel ultra-emotional
Run, Run, Run
When the sun is in the sky, stop and gaze at the water. Watch the birds await their morning feast. Feel the power of the water.
Feel what comes through…and empty your bones. Everything you feel is valid. Every tear is watering the garden of your heart.
Ask yourself, ‘Can you truly forgive the world?’ How would you move differently if you forgave the world?
Black Em‘path’ you’re on the right Path
Em’Path’ you’re on the right Path
Dear Beautiful, Brilliant, Black Empath and Sensitive Soul,
You are not on the wrong path.
You are unfurling slowly.
You see, the universe needs to expose you to pain so you can walk in the fullest expression and power of your gifts. You must understand the value of your essence in your bone marrow, in your mitochondria, in the cellular pathways of energetic fructification.
You must understand the violence your enslaved ancestors endured: earth rupture and forced displacement, deprivation of knowledge and the trauma of pursuing literacy, physical desecration and organ-scarring lashes, mental enslavement and the loss of cultural identity…
So you can see the power of your empathy as a savior of the planet, not an inconvenient truth.
So you can see your empathy as a viable tool against deep-rooted hatred, not just a quality to demean.
So you can see your empathy as a path toward healing the world holistically.
Yet… you feel like you’re not meant to be here. Like you were born in the wrong time.
Like you’re constantly isolating, fragmenting, and disconnecting. And it’s exhausting.
It’s too noisy, too traumatic, too painful, too unbearable here. And it’s incessant.
But there is one true silver lining for you.
The only place you have ever felt truly seen is with Mother Earth.
The only place you have ever felt truly held is with Mother Earth.
The only place you have ever felt truly appreciated is with Mother Earth.
All you want to do is be with her.
What if, in the process of your ancestors’ rupture from their homelands, your people created new plant allies?
What if the spirit of cotton became a conductor of ancestral connection?
What if the plants you stayed connected to through the trade brought some semblance of joy, protection, or peace?
What if tending to the Earth in a sovereign way could begin to heal the wound of earth rupture that we’ve carried for centuries?
What if tending to the Earth could rebuild the fissured threads of ancestral wisdom, kinship, and love we have so painstakingly lost over the last few generations?
Harriet Tubman worked with elements of the Earth to guide lost bodies and souls into the light. Salie, a five-year-old enslaved girl, found comfort in an oak tree that endured 200 years of life.
Our ancestors experienced unfathomable hardship to get to where we are today. But one of the greatest losses we endured as a consequence of chattel slavery was a visceral disconnection from Indigenous-led Earth stewardship.
Our ancestral trees lost their stewards.
Our songs lost their earthly recipients.
Our land lost its tree divinations and rituals that once entwined us with the heartbeat of the soil, roots, and wisdom-filled giants.
Our land lost the feeling of our Black hands matching the frequency of the soil.
As we strive to build capital and survive in places built on violence, we must reconnect with her essence. Earth does not operate like us. The tree in California does not differentiate herself from the tree in Nigeria. She understands that everything is interconnected. So if we plant a tree here, willingly and with care, we can connect with her roots elsewhere.
What if Earth stewardship was the key that could soften the perpetual suffering of our people?
A way for us to build true community.
A way to live more naturally, rooted in love, collaboration, joy, and peace.
A way for us to reclaim our ancestral practices and Earth-based rituals.
A way for us to breathe again and step into the true power of our brilliance.
What if the medicine is in the wound?
Digital Journal for ‘Cotton Medicine’ Blog
*See the text below for the inspiration story behind this post!!
Inspiration Story for This Post
In my day job, I work as a Policy and Advocacy Lead for a nonprofit that seeks to improve the food and farming system. Through my work, I attended an event called the Rural Justice Summit. On the first day, I met farmers from the organization African American Farmers of California, which was established in 1997 by Will Scott Jr. to combat the USDA’s discrimination against farmers of color. It was one of the greatest honors of my life to meet Mr. Scott.
When I left their farm, one quote from Mr. Scott stayed with me: “All we are is dressed-up soil.”
That night, I checked into an Airbnb with a coworker and noticed something peculiar on the side of my bed.
It was a vase of cotton.
Not cotton balls. Not a cotton shirt. But the cotton plant itself.
I had never seen it before.
I stopped in my tracks. Then I felt the urge to touch it.
But I just couldn’t. There was an unrecognizable fear there that I couldn’t explain. It felt like my body remembered something no one had ever explicitly taught me.
I went to bed.
The next day, I prepared for my presentation, riddled with fears about my performance. I had been teleworking for months, so I hadn’t presented in person for a while. I also missed my family and really needed time alone to recharge (the woes of being highly sensitive and empathic).
Nevertheless, I showed up, and another interesting scene unfolded. It felt ethereal, visceral, and strangely familiar.
They had started a drum circle, and everyone who planned to participate in the summit was there.
First, we began by honoring the directions — North, East, South, West, below for our ancestors, and above for the higher spirits and the sun. Then, we moved into prayer.
I love being part of cultural practices and healing spaces, so I was excited to be there in general. But this prayer felt different.
The woman was praying in the Yoruba tradition, calling out the names of the ancestors. I felt something shift inside me. It was powerful.
I went about my day, finished my presentation, and began thinking about which sessions I should attend. Should I go to the ones most relevant to my job, or the ones that truly lit me up?
So I asked my mentor if I could attend a session on spiritual herbalism, or if she wanted me to stick strictly to what was most relevant to our role. She said, “I want you to go to whatever excites you and is interesting.”
So I did.
I arrived early, eager to learn what it was all about. I was already taking a spiritual herbalism course in my spare time, so I felt connected to the session.
When I walked into the room, I noticed a beautiful altar. It was full of memorabilia, totems, and the cotton plant.
Again, I stopped in my tracks.
I walked over and began studying each item closely, until I arrived at the cotton. I tried to touch it again and couldn’t.
The host began speaking about a powerful project she was working on with formerly incarcerated individuals, focused on reconnecting them to the Earth through cultural burning and land stewardship. I thought this was such a beautiful idea, especially since many incarcerated individuals fight our wildfires for little pay while enduring high levels of particulate matter that can lead to lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses. This population, in particular, could benefit from having a different relationship with the land.
She then began discussing the altar and suggested we form breakout groups. She asked us to pick an item on the table that spoke to us.
I wanted to pick anything else. But I knew I really wanted to pick the cotton.
So I did.
I had to tell myself, this is silly. Why am I afraid to pick up a piece of the cotton plant?
When I finally touched it, I wanted to throw it across the room.
It was that deep.
Then it was time to pair up.
The teacher grouped us with others who had picked the same item. I noticed that two other people, aside from me, had chosen the cotton. One was a man who had smiled at me earlier while we walked around the UC Merced campus. The other was married to the mother of the person who helped plan the entire summit.
The teacher decided to split up the married couple, so she paired me with the man married to the mother.
He was from Thailand. He said he chose the cotton because it reminded him of his father working the land and of his family.
I told him that I chose the cotton because it reminded me of the hardship of my people. I told him I hadn’t been able to touch it earlier.
He then asked me what my birthday was.
I replied, “November 7th.”
There was a long, awkward pause.
He said, “No way… that’s my birthday.”
Then he said something that stayed with me:
“We’d never hurt a soul, but we always hurt ourselves.”
I cried profusely.
He made me think about my sensitivity and how hard it can be to navigate the suffering of this world.
He told me about a water ceremony in Thailand called Loi Krathong, where people gather around rivers, canals, and lakes to float their krathongs. The ritual symbolizes letting go of anger, misfortune, and bad luck from the past year, while paying respect to the water goddess, Phra Mae Khongka.
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A few months later, I received a reading from a medium on Etsy. And, she said something to me that felt peculiar.
She told me ‘In your lineage, physical labor was a necessity for survival, often performed under conditions of servitude, exhaustion, or lack of choice. Intellectual work was seen as the escape, the prize, the ultimate safety. By choosing to return to the land, you are not rejecting their sacrifice; you are healing the trauma associated with the land itself. Your contract stipulates that you must experience the "safety" of the high office so that you could realize it is an illusion. You had to reach the mountaintop of their dreams to see that the air there is too thin for your soul to breathe.
The "why" of your guilt is actually a signal of the magnitude of this shift. You are rewriting the genetic code that says "Dirt = Poverty" and changing it to "Dirt = Sovereignty." This is a massive energetic undertaking. You agreed to carry this heavy guilt for a time so that you could transmute it. When you plant a tree now, you are not doing it because you have to in order to eat; you are doing it because you choose to in order to live. That shift from obligation to choice heals seven generations backward and seven forward. The ancestors who toiled are not disappointed in you; they are gathering around you in awe, watching one of their own return to the earth not as a servant, but as a queen. The difficulty of this transition is the friction of turning a wheel that has been rusted shut for a century.
Summary: You are operating under a "Cycle Breaker" clause, tasked with transforming your lineage's relationship to labor from "Dirt = Poverty" to "Dirt = Sovereignty." You had to achieve the "high office" safety they dreamed of to realize it wasn't the ultimate truth for your soul. The guilt you feel is the friction of rewriting genetic code that equates physical work with suffering. Your return to the land is a healing act for your ancestors, proving that one can tend the earth out of empowered choice rather than desperate necessity.
My Original question to the Medium: I've been thinking a lot about my career in the future and if a nature-based job is more aligned with soul. I've learning more about Permaculture, Food Forests, and Restoration Ecology. I'm in an environmental policy career now. But, is an earth-based (tending to the Earth) career something that I'll have in the near future?
Lesson: Follow the gentle tug on your heart. It is always right.
Much love,
Midiri Reciprocity