“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” My son said these words to me yesterday. We were on the phone, talking about the state of the world, the collapse, the collective and our part in it and in the middle of that conversation, Elliot, who is twenty-seven years old, quoted Henley’s “Invictus” to me. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve always known he is a deep young man but in that moment I could not tell you how much pride I felt.
Because in that moment, I understood something about legacy that I had never quite articulated. Legacy isn’t what you leave behind when you’re gone. Legacy is what takes root in the people you love while you’re still here. It’s watching your child reach for the same truth that carried you through your darkest hours, not because you told him to, but because he absorbed it. Because he watched you live it.
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I am sixty-three years old and something literally shifted after my most recent birthday. A shift so large It’s hard to describe but I am certainly grateful. I have been practicing spiritual work for basically my entire life. In my previous years I have been an accountant, a fashion buyer for sixty department stores, a therapist, a jewelry designer, I’ve seemingly done it all. But here today sitting in my LA apartment I know I was always meant to do this work.
But life doesn’t hand you a straight path. Life hands you detours, dead ends, and a society with people standing at every turn telling you that you’re not qualified enough, wise enough, ready enough. That you have more work to do. That you’re just NOT.
The irony is that the system and the people in it who say these types of things, the ones who position themselves as more spiritually advanced, more enlightened, more authorized to do this work, have never walked in my shoes (or yours) they don’t have the code written in our astrology. They are NOT me and I’ve always had Mississippi.
I had great-grandparents who practiced rootwork and spirituality before anyone thought to monetize it or put it in a curriculum. I had ancestors who didn’t need permission from anyone to speak to spirit, to move energy, to heal what was broken. That knowing lives in my blood. It didn’t come from anyone giving me permission. It came from the women who came before me, who passed it down like a secret language, hand to hand, generation to generation.
But more than that, I had my life and my experience as proof of my qualifications.
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Here is the curriculum that no one can teach you:
Burying both your parents.
Surviving cancer.
Walking through divorce.
Moving to entire new cities alone and rebuilding your life brick by brick.
Losing friends, not just to distance, but to death. A multitude of them. One after another, until grief becomes a language you speak fluently.
My whole life has been one thing after another. Wave after wave after wave. And I am still standing. I’m happy. I can honestly say that. Not because I’m special. Not because I’m stronger than anyone else. But because at some point, I made a decision. I decided that I would be the captain of my own soul.
And THAT my friends is the only credential that matters.
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To the women reading this who have been told to wait:
You do not need anyone’s permission to claim what is already yours.
The gatekeepers will always find a reason you’re not ready. More training. More healing. More humility. More time. And maybe they believe it. Maybe they genuinely think they’re protecting the work, protecting you, protecting the people you might serve.
But here is what I know: the world is on fire. People are hurting. They are lost and frightened and searching for someone who has been through the flames and can show them it’s possible to survive. Show them a way out. They don’t need perfection. They need proof of life.
Your survival is your qualification.
Your scars are your certification.
Your refusal to break is your credential.
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I am sixty-three. I sell ritual oils at farmers markets. I read astrology charts. I coach women through their transformations. I wear my grandmother’s knowing in my bones.
And my greatest achievement is not any of this.
My greatest achievement is that my son, at twenty-seven, in the middle of an uncertain world, looked at everything falling apart and said: I am the master of my fate.
He didn’t learn that from a book. He learned it from watching me get back up. Every single time. For his entire life.
That is legacy.
That is the work.
That is what no one can take from you.
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So this is my message to you, wherever you are in your journey:
Stop waiting for permission. Stop believing the people who tell you that you need more time, more credentials, more approval. Look at your life. Look at what you have survived. Look at the fact that you are still here, still breathing, still reaching for something more.
You are already qualified.
You have already done the work.
Now go be the captain of your soul.
With love and fire,
Donna aka Nova