Whole, Broken, Beautiful, Chaos
Long story, quick read. Happy Lunar Eclipse in Virgo.
I am at a critical juncture. Well, junctures, actually…
Do I fall back into the comfort of being “not enough” or do I reach?
Which path will I take now?
Standing at a fork in the road, I am reminded of a poem I memorized for a class in 6th grade.
The poem was self-selected, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken:
I don’t remember how I selected that particular poem, but the irony is not lost on me today.
In 6th grade, I attended a brand new middle school (we were literally the first class)... Rockford Environmental Science Academy in Rockford, IL - we called it RESA.
The year I entered 6th grade, my school district began a process called “Controlled Choice” due to a segregation lawsuit that our school board faced in the late 1980s.
A very long story short: unless you lived within a small radius to a school, you would be randomly selected to apply to your “choice school” and depending on factors unknown to me right now, some people (me) were not given a choice - the district needed to meet specific quotas.
I went to a very white elementary school. On my first day at RESA, I had several classes where there were only a handful of white students. Two roads diverged back then, and I took the one less traveled by and it did make all of the difference.
The trajectory of my entire life changed that year.
A veil was removed. I observed systemic inequality - I felt it in my body. And the following year, when I transferred to an almost all-white private school on the other side of town, I never forgot the resonance of performative justice.
As a youthful person, I did not have much choice around my middle school trajectory. Over the course of those few years, I had several critical junctures - forks in the road - and I felt as if I was forced down each path.
And, it’s important to note when I say critical junctures, I mean: inscripted moments where life can never be the same again because a new truth is revealed and it’s impossible to return to ignorance.
At the age of 11, my little World started to collide with humanity:
I attended a racially and economically diverse school - where I witnessed realities new to me. Then, I transferred to an affluent, mostly white school and I discovered my love of drugs and alcohol. My most beloved Grandma died. My mom married a person-of-color, a Muslim man months before 9/11.
Those years marked my first awakening.
I feel a lot like that middle schooler right now. I am exploding with potential. I have more knowledge than knowing. Daily, I choose protection over expansion.
Once again, I can feel that gritty, unbridled energy that I channeled as a preteen, subtly percolating in my cells.
The energy wants me to take up space. It wants me to reach beyond what I currently feel is possible.
Honestly, I loathe it.
And after some reflection, I understand why it’s here, now.
For months, I have danced around and fuddled with ideas that spark a deep passion in my heart and Soul. Ideas that grow Deeper Than Shallow far beyond this platform.
I have a vision. And I am terrified of it.
And part of the fear, unsurprisingly, ties back to an experience I had at RESA.
I’ll explain:
Back in 6th grade, my gym teacher noticed that I was quick and he told me that if I ran on the track team, I would miss school to attend meets.
A short time later, I found myself on a bus headed to one of our city’s high schools for a track meet. For whatever reason, I had yet to attend a practice nor had I ever stood on an actual track.
That day, I got 1st place in the 200M - in an 8th grade heat. Since the school was brand new, the 7th and 8th grade classes were under-capacity. My coach put me in the 8th grade heat so we could potentially win more points.
One of my more positive forks in the road: overnight, I became a track star.
My track stardom continued until I was 16 years old. It ended my sophomore year… my 2nd season running Varsity track. We went to an indoor meet and I tore something in my leg. By that point in time, I was already heavily using drugs and alcohol…and because of my injury, I received my very own prescription for pain pills and muscle relaxers.
Another fork…
Those pain pills led me to a path that included a very long, dark hole with a large, hard rock at the bottom.
When I encountered the rock, I stayed and continued to bang my head on it for a while. Truthfully, years.
And then, one day, a divine portal opened - it was the afternoon of February 17, 2007. The portal led to a road less traveled:
On that road, I stopped drinking and abusing hard/prescription drugs. On that road, I met the God of my understanding.
And all of that leads me to today… why I am here (literally here, on Substack, writing to you)... and, the critical junctures that I currently face.
It’s hard to fully articulate the amorphous paths I stand before - yet, here are a couple of questions that offer the paths some form:
Can I choose the path of “continuing to move forward as I do my actual best” versus the dead end of “constantly striving for perfection before I take the next step”?
Will I finally let myself be “too much”?
Let me explain a little more:
My experience running track created a belief system for me - both consciously and unconsciously - I only want to do things when I am immediately good and ultra-successful at them. More or less, I want to immediately experience greatness without the beginning stages of learning and growth - how shallow.
And I am sharing all of this because I have reached a critical juncture with Deeper Than Shallow:
If you’ve known me for a while, you’ve known many versions of me. I am always cooking up something new. Ideas - I have a lot of great ideas.
However, when my great ideas are not met with instantaneous success, I give up.
Even though my love for Deeper Than Shallow runs to my core, I have let this space flounder because I was not met with immediate sensationalism. Truly, cry me a river.
And, I have stunted the growth of the new branches of Deeper Than Shallow - the teas, the meditations, the digital rest classes - because I haven’t been “immediately good” at everything it takes to bring them to life.
Truthfully, I feel a little crazy right now: I feel a divine pull to expand Deeper Than Shallow and today, I know that it’s my own stories and traumas that are preventing me from meeting what the moment is asking of me.
That is my current juncture: if I don’t take the path of full expansion, I know that it’s me selecting the path of self-abandonment…Why is this even a choice - let alone a hard one?
A couple of days ago, @CapriceAlfaro, one of my favorite IG accounts, shared the following slides:
The caption of the post read, “...what if off the tracks is on track?”
The caption immediately caught my eye - it felt like the Universe was directly speaking to me. As I have been contemplating my own experience running track and sifting through my perception of its “negative” impacts on my life - I realized that falling off track led me to the right one.
I practice contemplative writing, drinking tea, meditation, and rest because of the years I spent in that dark hole with the rock at the bottom. Those years created a lot of energetic turmoil within me and I lean on these practices to find peace.
And, pain pills inevitably introduced me to God.
Similar to my essay from last week: everything is a part of the process.
Yet today, I have entered a new timeline. I get to decide if I want my past to predict my future. I get to decide if I’ll walk through the portal that opens to the place where I show up as my best and do my best work without feeling less than if it’s not perfect.
The portal that will take me to the path of - in @CapriceAlfaro’s words - the wild unknown. Again, in her words - the path where a new and formerly less expressed version of [me will] take the wheel.
This new and formerly less expressed version of me is a woman who does what she can with what she has and continues to reach for what she sees, whether or not I am met with immediate external validation.
This version of me is a woman who doesn’t need to be understood by everyone. This version of me trusts that my offerings will be received exactly when they’re meant to be received, by the exact right receivers. This version of me trusts the timeline.
This new and formerly less expressed version of me is not afraid to be a beginner. This version of me is not afraid to not be the best.
This version of me is not afraid to say:
Deeper Than Shallow is a container for contemplative essays, herbal tea blends infused with spiritual intentions, guided meditations, and digital rest classes.
Deeper Than Shallow is your doorway for spiritual exploration and devotion.
I am Julia Sparkman and I am a Mother, a Writer, a Spiritual Herbalist, and a Metaphysical Teacher.
I use metaphysical as referenced by Aristotle: ‘the science of things transcending what is physical or natural’.
I work with the practices of tea, prayer, meditation, pleasure, physical rest, and journaling to help other practitioners both embody and transcend the physical as a path to connecting with higher planes of consciousness.
In short, I help people make space to connect with the God or Spirits of their understanding.
And right now, that almost feels like too much to hold.
Yet, I’m at this critical juncture. And I know if I shrink back to “stay at home mom + yoga teacher” - which there is nothing wrong with if it's authentic - but it’s not anymore. So, I know if I shrink back into that space - it’s going to feel painful. There is no turning back.
So as I press publish on this essay - on March 13, 2025 - the day that marks a Lunar Eclipse in Virgo (the sign that my Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars call home). I am going to surrender the woman who has always felt like I am too much and yet never good enough to the darkness. And, within that darkness, I am going to let the woman that I Am - whole, broken, beautiful, chaos, one with God - shine.
And, as I show up for myself, I am going to ask you to show up for me:
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Sending you divine love and wishes for your unraveling and expansion,
Julia
Oh now I am so curious what success is to you?! Always love ❤️
Oh Julia!!! This is so beautiful!!! I see you and am with you 🙏🏻 i shared to my FB not sure how to share to IG! I’ll keep trying 💕