The year 2009 was big for me. I moved away from home, went natural, and advocated for it by producing a documentary after watching Chri Rock’s Good Hair. I set out to do my own research and interview my own people to find out the root cause of all this hair talk. After all, if I was to maintain my natural hair, I had better know why.
Since the release of “I am NOT My Hair: Perms, Weaves, and Hot Combs,” I’ve done more and more research, and I have been able to speak with sisters from all over the U.S. about their hair journey and to offer the DVD as an opportunity to cause a change in their hair health.
Today’s article offers a few tips to help better understand this stuff on top of our heads called hair. As is my custom, I’ll split it into three separate posts.
– Hair and the Nervous System – 9/11/14
– Why Perms are Afraid of Water – 9/12/14
– Why Natural Hair is Dehydrated – 9/13/14
Hair and the Nervous System
I live in the country, and there are a lot of bugs around our home. Sometimes I can pick up their sounds before they get too close because it almost sounds like there are wasps in my hair! I have been natural for five years now, and on the left side of my head, the hair on that side can pick up the sounds of those tiny irritating bugs.
That’s because hair is a hereditary extension of yourself, is connected to your nervous system, and acts as antennae.
“Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly-evolved ‘feelers’ or ‘antennae’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brainstem, the limbic system, and the neocortex. When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in ‘numbing-out’.”
While it’s fun to play around with our hair and to try different styles, hair is not some miscellaneous body part of ours, which makes us think deeply about the role of the hairdresser.
Hair and hair health is just as important as other bodily functions like skin and nails. It’s not about the style of the hair making one more or less righteous (this is not a natural vs relaxed debate), but this is more so about hair health. How to treat our hair, and what combination of hair products is more or less beneficial.
Have you ever sat down to ponder why a piece of hair can identify who you are? Why do witches use strips of hair to perform witchcraft? Or why the biblical Samson lost all of his power by letting Delilah cut off all his hair? That’s because your hair is part of you and always has been.
The ancient and native peoples knew about this link between long hair, health, and spirituality. They never cut their hair voluntarily. Short hair was a universal sign of slavery, shame, defeat, and a loss of power and identity. You are not a bad person for cutting your hair or wearing a short style. This is only to demonstrate how seriously people have always looked at hair. Many would only cut their hair in the event of captivity, for mourning purposes, or hygiene. It was seen as a way of blocking out the energies of the world.
The PBS Blog 