This is an old essay that I wrote just before I cut my dreadlocks.  I think I have finally let go, but I thought I would share these thoughts, as it’s almost exactly a year since I cut them off….

I am Canadian.  My Dad is from Ontario, and way back on his side of the family there is German and before that Russian.  My mum is Scottish and emigrated when she was in her twenties.  I don’t feel that I have an “ethnicity”, and therefore, my dreadlocks are not connected to anything of that sort.  I have wanted to dread my hair since I was young, probably before I was in grade 8 (thirteen, fourteen probably) but it is really expensive to get it done in a salon here.  I didn’t trust my friends enough to do them for me, so I ended up waiting until I was in Thailand to have them done.  I also have really, really straight, fine hair (but lots of it) so I figured it wouldn’t be easy to make it stay and wanted to get them done properly.

I really like a lot of the beliefs behind dreadlocks, and have definitely done some reading into it because I have them.  However, I disagree with extremes of any sort, and don’t like a lot of the narrow biblical extremes that become involved in the on the radical side of the faith.  Also, on a sidenote: the term “Rastafarian or “Rastafarianism” is not technically correct as the entire faith/belief system is built in opposition to the western system. Attaching “ianism” to the end links it with western society. As Professor Nettleford put it in his ceremonial address on behalf of University of West Indies to “Marley’s Music: Reggae, Rastafari, and Jamaican Culture” conference,

Rastafari say that they reject -isms. They see a wide range of -isms and schisms in modern society, for example communism and capitalism, and want no part in them. For example, Haile Selassie himself was an anti-communist during the cold war, and was deposed by a Marxist coup. Rastafarians would reject Marxism as part of the Babylonian system or, at the very least, just another version of western Humanism. They especially reject the word “Rastafarianism”, because they see themselves as “having transcended -isms and schisms”. This has created conflict between some Rastas and some members of the academic community studying Rastafari, who insist on calling this faith “Rastafarianism” in spite of the disapproval this generates within the Rastafari movement. Nevertheless, the practice continues among scholars, though there are also instances of the study of Rastafari using its own terms. [Professor Rex Nettleford, Ceremonial Address on Behalf of University of West Indies to “Marley’s Music: Reggae, Rastafari, and Jamaican Culture” conference, in Bob Marley: The Man and His Music (2003)]

The central belief of love really reverberates strongly with me, and a lot of that part of it I really agree with.  I love reggae music, and I also like a lot of the ideals behind the lifestyle commonly associated with it. That said, I don’t smoke pot. I never have, and at this point it’s partially due to a refusal to become an addition to, or reinforcement of that stereotype. Interestingly, I stumbled upon an article about Zahra Redwood, who is, “ the first Miss Jamaica to be crowned from the country’s minority Rastafarian faith” who also stated, “Not all Rastafarians smoke. People criticise what they don’t know or understand and develop preconceptions, and so given that, I have gone against what they’ve developed as a stereotype,” She also commented that, “Rastafarians – who worship the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as a God they call “Jah” – stress peace, love, spiritual goals and natural living.” [theage.com.au/articles]

Since I got my dreadlocks, they have become more and more a part of who I am. They definitely affect the way people see me and judge me, I noticed that the day I got them. But personally I feel that it is for the better.

I get asked if I wash them a lot. But I’m pretty used to answering that one at this point. I wash them with Dr. Bronner’s peppermint shampoo and don’t use any conditioner. However, when people are really ignorant I occasionally like to suggest the use of peanut butter…

I also get asked if I am a vegetarian significantly more often than I used to. I firefight in the summertime, and this summer was deployed to the Yukon. When we go on deployments, our meals are prepared for us, and they usually go around and make sure there are no dietary restrictions at every new location. I got asked every time if I was a vegetarian. Once, when I replied no, was met the the response, “Really? Are you sure?”

I also get searched for drugs every time I go through airport security. Not long ago my friend sent me a link entitled, “Woman Busted Smuggling $150,000 Worth Of Coke In Dreadlocks” with the caption below the picture of the South African woman reading, “Authorities at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok removed 3.3 pounds of cocaine from 23-year-old Nolubabalo “Babsi” Nobanda’s fake dreadlocks.”[http://www.buzzfeed.com/abrams/woman-busted-smuggling-150000-worth-of-coke-in-h ]

Wearing them has definitely influenced me in a lot of ways. I believe that the people I meet are different because of them, and I have done more research than I probably would have otherwise into the Rasta movement and faith. As with any learning, this has led me to see things, and a lot of aspects of life, differently.

This summer I am hoping to transfer to a different location for work. The work I am hoping to do will involve rappelling, and therefore I will not be able to keep my dreadlocks. I have often talked about cutting them off, as they do not suit a large part of my lifestyle (I work out five or six days a week and firefight – not ideal conditions for dreads) but I love them anyways. Being faced with this ultimatum has made me realise just how much they really mean to me, and how much I am going to miss them when I do cut them off. It has, of course, challenged my idea of whether or not I really want to do it. Of that I am not certain. But I do know that what I have learned in the time that I have had them will always stay with me. And who knows, I may have them again in the future.

                A topic that came up with my roommate as I chatted with her after class was the fact that there is such a grey area in the middle of the wealth spectrum.  We briefly touched on in this idea during the discussion led by Mercedes and Dr. Dharmas, but it is a difficult topic to navigate.

It is easy to say that the consumerism of the financially rich is superfluous and wasteful, but where does one draw the line?  This is something that I feel is difficult to define clearly, both within society and within my own life.   On one extreme end of the spectrum, it is easy to say that someone purchasing a Bugatti Veyron is inordinately wasteful and that such a car is not at all necessary, and on the other extreme that someone barely able to afford rice is completely justified in buying meat every now and then, but what about the middle ground?  What about the quotidian purchases of every day, middle class people?  How are those divided into wants and needs?

I find that it can be hard to delineate between wants and needs.  More often than not, especially in our society, the “wants” override what is really necessary.   For instance, SUV’s and trucks seem excessively large and wasteful for city driving, but some people may consider such vehicles to be “needs” as opposed to “wants” in life.

Interestingly, when I came home from class, I was looking a word up on Dictionary.com, and there was an icon advertising “Word of the Day!”  It is not something that I have ever bothered clicking on before, despite the fact that I use the site frequently.  For whatever reason, I decided, out of curiosity in that moment, to see what it was.  The word was “Desiderata”, meaning “things wanted or needed”.

Desiderata

 Desiderata is a plural noun, with the singular form desideratum, meaning “things wanted or needed”: “Happily-ever-after” and “eternal love” appear to be the desiderata of the current generation to whom “fat chance” say those of us who are older, wiser and more curmudgeonly.

For many, the word desiderata most often evokes the famous poem by Max Ehrmann, written in 1927 and often referred to simply as Desiderata, without attribution or quotation marks. The poem begins with oft-quoted the lines, “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, / and remember what peace there may be in silence.”

Though the poem has achieved a mythic quality and a near-spiritual significance for some, it was not well known until the 1970s when it was made into hugely popular posters and sound recordings.  – dictionary.com

                I found Wednesday’s GRS class, led by Mercedes and Dr. Shafik Dharams, both interesting and thought provoking, as I’m sure we all did.  The most shocking revelation to me was when Dr. Dharams asked the class who considered themselves rich, there were only two people in the class who put up their hands to say that they felt “rich”.   Those two people were me and one other girl.

                It was difficult to form a lucid explanation on the spot, but I felt I managed to touch on a couple of components which are fundamental to my understanding of wealth: a happy, healthy family, and always having food and shelter.  By Google’s simple definition, rich is “Having a great deal of money or assets, wealthy.”  This may be what comes to mind for most people.  To me, the definition is something closer to one of those supplied by the Mirriam-Webster: “2. a : having high value or quality,   b : well supplied or endowed”.

It is always dangerous to assume, but I would have assumed that most of our GRS class is, by my definition, “rich”;  perhaps not in all aspects of life, but in at least a few of the fundamental areas.  Then again, maybe the majority was thinking more in terms of monetary wealth, but even still, to be living in Vancouver and managing to somehow afford a degree at UBC (a very expensive degree, as Dr. Dharams pointed out near the end of the lecture), those students are either well off financially, and / or rich in opportunity.

I have always considered myself fortunate.  Perhaps that is why I was compelled to raise my hand.  Despite the fact that my family has always been happy and healthy, and that there are rarely anger or negative emotions in the house, there have definitely been times when we were not rich in assets or finances.  When I was quite young, there were large bags of rolled oats in the pantry that were breakfast for a long of time.  That kind of stuck with us – I was never allowed a full bowl of sugary cereal – half of it always had to be plain rolled oats, and my Mum got to decide what half was, since my brother, sister and I had a much chintzier estimation of “half”!  Yet I don’t have any memories of ever being unhappy with what I had in life, or of wanting more.

Rich is not the word I would generally use to describe myself, and it may have been in light of the video that we had just been shown that I felt compelled to raise my hand.  Although the concept of being “rich” comes into my life and mind often, in that I feel very blessed with what I have – perhaps its meaning is too readily misunderstood as having expensive material assets rather than the less tangible concept of wealth.