The Fools Journey

My name is Nylah Brooks. I go by she/they. I was born in the states with West African and Native blood. My Sun is ruled by Leo, my Moon is ruled by Virgo and my Ascendant is Capricorn. I am an advocate for the land and community systems that are focused on creating abundance, health, and education to regain connection back to our roots, the land.

I am an Holistic Health Coach formally trained in Culinary Arts and Nutrition at the Culinary Institute of America. I worked eight years as a professional cook in the restaurant industry focusing on, educating local community through intentional meal, supporting local farmers who are stewards of the land and going back to natural preservation techniques. This then introduced me to the world of holistic healing in which I began to focus more on becoming a studying herbalist with mentorship and hands on knowledge.

Currently being of service to local famers and small Portland based business at farmers markets. Just finished editing my first tarot book, The Flower Attunement Tarot by Felicia Howe, focused around healing through flower essences or homeopathy. Finding time to uplift the voices of the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities by providing safe space for ritual and education of plant medicines.

Haha now that I have gotten my "official credentials" out of the way, I would really just like to take a deep dive into how I landed here, the ongoing journey. Wow oh wow has it been a crazy expansive time. I would expect nothing less than.

"The Fools Journey"

Just like every great adventure before the fun comes the reckoning. The unraveling of life as we may see at the time. Everyone has experienced this moment in there lives where they have to fearlessly journey into the unknown holding onto faith and just telling yourself everything will be okay. The fall, the leap, becoming "The Fool" as they would say in Tarot. With a child like innocence. How does it feel to know you are falling? For me it felt as if my gut was yelling at me from the inside but I could hear it coming from anything that would catch my attention. My gut was the center of my knowing and when the time came, my body told me. After my body had become accustomed to this response, me simply saying the feeling would dissipate and then I would try to silence it. Silencing it felt like death to my soul which longed for something more. At this point in my life this is the most alive I had felt from the previous years, I had become so stagnant that everyday became the same, I lost all feeling and went into walking slumber. 

I was living in my trauma, twenty one and still in the mindset of fight or flight. I was dissociating for an extended period of time. My brain could not possibly live in a state of fear and had to protect itself from feeling the immense amount of pain that it just decided to check out. I was frozen in time, living with untreated PTSD and feeling I had no outlet for safety. I became dependent on validation from others and would hardly receive it because I had severe social anxiety. I was separated from myself, my guides and community. I felt life was not worth living and I would do anything to feel again. Quick senses of comfort, self harm, overuse of alcohol and weed without intention. My body was floating around in this universe and my soul made a safe place under the blankets hiding from my shadow.

"The Tower Moment"

I quit my 9-5, I released my long-term relationship, I distanced my self from unhealthy habits, I left anything that did not make my soul radiate with love. I craved that feeling now that I had finally felt it after years of internal silence. I could not go without it even in the uncovering of my past, reliving my trauma through intentional work I felt something there and it was love. A love that saw me through all of the hardships that held me during all of it and I got to give that love. It was all in love nothing was shame nothing was low vibrational or high vibrational. It all existed in the same realm, how much love does it need?

The Awakening began and everything I had known became so unfamiliar to me, I felt so distant from the normal. Normal did not align anymore and when I tried to make it fit, It just wouldn't. So I left it all fall and set forth towards a new beginning. How was it for you, the full on tower moment that is?

The dark night of the soul came and all of my shadow could not be unseen anymore. It needed to be held, heard and loved on. I had a lot of loving to do, I had to uncover who I was. A soul that had been bogged down by the armor created for every experience that shamed me. I took off the armor, I hung it in my closet as if it were my best dress and color coordinated, of course I have a lot of Virgo in my chart. I let myself be seen, I took up space, I forgave myself and I forgave others. I felt free so I kept going, the more weight came off the more I could dance again in this thing we call life. 

This burning of my life, these sacrifices settled to the ground and decomposed making new fertile soil for me to begin growing my garden. So I planted the seeds, the seeds handed to me through the random synchronicities and the opportunities that came that I was definelty not qualified for, if you looked at my resume. But if you looked at me, if you saw me, beyond the mask I wore, I had purpose, I had mission and I hadn't even uncovered yet. Spirit lead me to beautiful souls and plant beings who saw it in me before I even could. I am forever grateful and honored to be met with so much love and acceptance, they saw me, I saw them. Through community I was uplifted and held during my darkest moments.

"The Sun Card"

 Life is an endless rebirth process, beautiful, painful, messy, bloody, a time

to revaluate your ability to make it out of the womb. Pushing and fighting together to shift bones and move forward from the darkness into the light, which is the most fearful part of it all having to face a new existence a new way of being beyond the sheltered time of the silent night being thrusted into the noisy day where cars honk there horns as they pass by and you are faced with a million choices. What kind of person will you be today, what kind of person will you be tomorrow, what choices will you make with every breath, with every breath the sound of a waiting phone line rings waiting for your next movement your next thought your next action. What will it be? Can you imagine going from a silent warm bath with dimmed light and the galaxies holding you in between worlds in between dimensions to then being propelled through blood and shit into a world of distortion where you have to figure out what mission you have to take to make this world of chaos a little bit more aligned. It is more comfy staying in the night but the light calls and with a curious mind you find yourself crawling out of the birth canal hoping for the best sometimes finding the worst and also finding the beautiful smiles of the ones who await for you surrounding your now body. The body being poked and prodded at cut with scissors, washed in a sterile bath w/drying soap, wrapped in a cloth. All you want to do is sleep all you want to do is find your way back into the warming womb of your mother. Her voice whispers softly to you you’re home here we are in this together. She is the only faith you have in this world the only familiar you are made of her and she made you, she felt your soul sign the contract y’all made together. You trust her and you grow. She is the mother, she is Pachamama, she is the Plants, she is the wisdom that came from the mothers that birthed your mother, she is you and you are her. 

The Herbal Alchemist was birthed in the bathtub. A place where my life had felt so dim and unbearable in the past, the bathtub had always been my escape from reality, the silence and stillness I found there. Then I took my power back and instead of it being a place of escape. It became a place for me to harness my power and truly become a sovereign being. I had an meditation and a vision reminding me of the life that I could live, one where I could feel alive. I was not looking for validation or a need for more things. I was looking for a life that I could fully inhale and exhale with stars in my eyes even in the darkest of the nights the stars would be my light. The Herbal Alchemist is my star, it guides me, it helps me express fully. 

 The seed was planted, I was   watering it and it was growing     and it is still growing. But it   feels good to create and give   myself in a   physical manifestation to the     world. My offering to you, spirit, the plants, the guidance. This is tantric art, made with so much love and expansion. Through my ancestors, herbs and the bathtub I found myself and healing work. I feel it is my obligation as I obtain more knowledge to help others do the same and in turn help Pachamama. Ren Fa Di "Join as one''

-Nylah The Herbal Alchemist