Archives for June 2019

The Raw & Real Series:
The Crushing

Well, I did it … I cut my hair! 

And #realtalk: I have not felt this much joy in months!

Finally … finally … 

I have arrived! 

Allow me to reintroduce myself …

I am Venus Opal. Your artist. Your CEO. Your CCO (Chief Creative Officer). 

Your bad ass. 

This transformation of my hair is transforming ME, y’all! I feel like a new person. My confidence is up. I feel ALIVE. I feel happy. And Black as f#ck!

I am the hottest thing up in these streets I walk with Happy! #aintafraidtosayit

My hair is curly. Curly! And I LOVE the cut—it’s mohawky. LOVE how it makes my cheekbones pop. 

But the thing I love the MOST is the color.

It’s so wild! It looks like a flame. And it wasn’t even intentional.

Let me explain—because there’s a lesson in this story, too. 

When I went to get it colored, I didn’t know that I needed to tell the stylist that I had some black color in it. #hidethegreys 

(If you’ve bleached your hair before, then you probably know where this is going …)

When she put on the color, the toner (which is used to calm “the brassiness”) somehow turned my sh^t pink! LOL.

I was not prepared for that. But this stylist was just so good. She didn’t trip. She just said, “No, I’m going to fix it.” And she did. 

And then it got reddish. 

And I f@cking LOVE it.

THIS is who I am—a flaming dragon.

It FITS me now. It came from a “mistake” (that wasn’t a mistake, I know now), but it is actually perfect for ME, in all my imperfection. A perfect match. 

It reminds me every single day that I AM an artist.

And I’m back to the gym. I’ve got a power-fit body and dragon energy!

It’s hard to put this feeling into words, but I feel FREE. Self-expressed. Bold. Daring. Sexy. I feel like a f%cking rockstar!

Maybe I’ll do poetry readings. Maybe I’ll keep writing and writing and writing. Maybe I’ll take on screenplays. Playwriting.

What I know for sure is that I am surrendering to my destiny—embracing and manifesting my purpose. 

I am ready to pour into my artistic self the way I’ve poured into my business self all these years.

I am taking on my dreams!

The sun has finally come out, everyone. 

I’m not crying all day anymore. I’m not mad at anyone.

I’m starting to dream again, believe again, hope again.

I am present with the fact that God is good. God is faithful. God is brilliant. God is just so f!cking cool.

I’m reading a book right now by TD Jakes. It’s called Crush. Hear me when I say “divine timing.” 

Check this out: 

Referring to his new book, Jakes says, “Life has a lot of ways to crush us. And the reason I wrote the book is that in the process of the crushing, there’s always the gift of wine that flows out of it, that you come out of it stronger and in another form.”

A.F*cking.Men!

I finally understand. I finally get it. 

This whole idea of pruning and pressing and crushing as necessary preparation. That it’s required to reach your next level. 

I’m over here like, “Okay God. I get it now.” And it’s so consistent with everything in the Bible. And everything in all the holy books. There’s always some kind of break, some tearing up before you reach your next level.

Change is coming. I can FEEL it. I can hear the whispers again. I can see it. I can tell that God is up to something. 

I don’t know why it took so long, but I get it now.

And out of this realization—this knowing—I wrote something that I want to share with you now. 

VenusOpal is born …
No, she is not a beautiful butterfly.
No, she is not a phoenix rising from the ashes of life.
She’s a f*ckin’ dragon from the streets.
She’s got a serious edge on her.
She’s Black As F*ck.
She wields truth like a weapon.
She’s in love with the most gangsta nigga that ever was and ever could be—God.
She loves her puppy like you love your child.
She’s known for manifesting millions.
She’s switching lanes.
She now manifests miracles.
If you f*ck with her, for real for real, she will teach you how to do both.
She is the way, the truth, and the light to surrendering to your purpose, embracing your destiny, so YOU can live your authentic and abundant life NOW.
Simply put, she’s her father’s daughter.
In street parlance: she’s a bad b&tch.
She has NO RESPECT for respectability. She is spiritually subversive and biblically based.
She is a hot mess on a good day.
She knows she is a street urchin who God anointed and appointed for those of us who have been hurt, crushed, annihilated by life. We wounded ones don’t fit into the boxes we are supposed to. And we need a new way in, a new way to win, to get real with God by being real with ourselves.
VenusOpal—from the streets to Stanford Ph.D to self-made multi-millionaire—had to lose it all to find herself.
Oh yeah, you should know she’s an artist and into cute, kink, and queer.
She’s a CEO…

… and she BREATHES fire.

It’s nice to meet you (again). 

Venus Opal


The Raw & Real Series:
I’m Thinking of Shaving…

I’m thinking about straight shaving my head.

Just … skew it. Cut it off.

I am. I am. I am. I am.

Why not?

What would it be like to be totally bald? To just get rid of it? What might it be like to do something as drastic to my hair as the doctors did to my body?

Think about it: as women, we wrap a lot of our identity into our hair. Right? I mean, I LOVE my hair.

But changing it now feels like a natural extension of all of the other transformation that is happening in me.

I’ve done it ALL, y’all. I’ve shaved it before—twice, I think. Maybe three times. Not totally bald, but very close.

I’ve done the perm. Had it straight. I’ve had the blow out. The braids.

I do what Black Women do—whatever the hell we want with our hair!

So this is not about style.

This is not about right or wrong.

I just don’t know who I am anymore, so of course I don’t know how I want to look. I don’t know how I see myself anymore.

When I was about ten (maybe 12), my Momma cut my hair off. I’m not even sure why. But when she did it, amid all of the hate that came out of her mouth, I knew I wasn’t pretty anymore. Without my hair, I was ugly.

That was my truth.

Our hair carries stories. And right now, I don’t know my story.

Here’s what I DO know:

I’m moody as hell. Not regular moody. EXTREME moody.

Sad a lot. Tired a LOT.

And I’m angrier even more. I’m talkin’ rage angry. Zero to 150 in about 10 seconds. Spoiling for a brawl.

I’m lonely.

My hormones are on parade, and I’m all over the place. (You cannot understand the gravity of those words. #realtalk: The doggy daycare that had Happy wasn’t calling me back and I convinced myself—I’m talking for real, for real—that they were taking my puppy. That they had turned him into a drug mule. Or a sex trafficking puppy. Or they were pimping him out for somebody who was dying, and they didn’t want to tell me. Now, you may be laughing, but I am dead serious when I say I got all kinds of twisted about it.)

I find it very difficult to make a decision. I’m indecisive.

I have no direction.

I’m not attached to anything. I surrender.

I just can’t figure out what I want.

I know how to survive. That’s the street in me.

But I don’t even know how to consider what I actually want. I have no practice in that. I can tell you what I DON’T want much quicker.

But my hair … what am I supposed to do with my HAIR?

What if I just let it go?

Sitting in the unknown. That’s where you’ll find me.

Telling my truths.

Venus Opal