Tag: books

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My Comfort Zone

I got up this morning with the intention of giving my two cents on our topic, Comfort, and I found that two thoughts crossed my mind:

1)Two articles I formatted yesterday for Garden Spices (GS) and

2)My spicy…a garden spices blog.

The two articles in this current issue of GS, Comfort vs. Complacency, by Dr. Robert V. Gerard, and Comfort and the Cost of Staying Still, by Professor RJ Starr, hit me upside my head to the degree where this morning I found myself reading Iyanla Vanzant’s new book, Spiritual Hygiene, in hopes of discovering when and where my newfound level of complacency vs. comfort started. (Was this sentence long enough?) I realize that I bought my own advice – that because of the impact of Project 2025, I needed to settle in and reset, a comfort zone just for me.

Not that the advice was so bad, but it’s my zone that makes me question my intentions. Sitting on my behind browsing Social Media and watching TV are both comfortable activities for me, but if that’s all I do, what does my life look like? Certainly, not my Truth. And I’m telling you I did too much of that in ’25.

I still traveled, started line dancing, attended events, and Garden Spices met all its publishing deadlines, but there was a spiritual void in me that entertainment could not fill. I am a minister, and although my knees and feet act up, I can still show out in doing service, other than posting and writing. Iyanla mentioned in her book a declaration about her “throne.”

Beyond the Christian tradition, I learned of the throne through Huna Hawaiian spirituality. Coming into alignment through the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious mind, the throne represents spiritual awareness. The two articles and Iyanla brought me to a place of mindfulness about my throne. Y’all, that’s where I’m sitting right now with TV off, and spirit-guided hands, I’m in a new zone declaring my spirit needs more to soar.

Spicy…, my blog is a part of my new zone. Rifling through my archives, I realize this complacency of 2025 is not my first rodeo; I rode this horse pretty well in times past. However, there was a time when I wrote at least once a month. Y’all, I’ve been on a wonderful cruise in November, celebrating fabulous 75-year-olds, and haven’t written about it yet. And do you think I made one piece of jewelry for VBGold Creations? What?!

I thank GS and Iyanla for the wakeup call. I’ll meet y’all soon in my next post about the cruise, and I have already set up two service providers and connected with my bead source for jewelry-making. I’m on the throne, open to receiving my guidance.

“It’s all good/love/God” – Victorine

© 2026 Vicki Goldston, All rights reserved.

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 Victorine, Bio

Author of  Be S.A.F.E., StillAware, Faithful, Excellent, now available on Kindle Amazon as an e-book.

“…the book title and its content are intended to be a whisper, reminding us that by connecting with our spiritual self, we can center through anything and that we are forever within the bubble of God’s protection.”

Don’t forget to check out Garden Spices Magazine.

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Everybody has one…

…a memory of Nikki Giovanni. Mine is from 1973 in an Oral Interpretation class at the University of AL. Randy Marsh was my professor, and I was Slick Vick, the Chicago Chick introducing my class to revolutionary poetry. I interpreted several of Giovanni’s poems, but I remember one most: Dreams.

It invoked a dream I once had to be a singer, except Giovanni coveted the Raelets’ “”dr o wn d in my youn tears.” Unlike Langston Hughes’ Dream Deferred, Giovanni’s poem was a call to conjure up the vital badass powerful Black woman, the “baaaaaby nightandday
baaaaaby nightandday.” And so, I did.

That assignment found me belting like the Raeletts. ( I had practiced my intonations with the Black students at UA.) And I ended my performance, as she did, with the understanding that I could be just as powerful as a “sweet inspiration.”

Years later, I would stir up Shoals, AL, with Giovanni’s Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why):

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

And this was only the first verse!

But how many Giovanni verses did my daughter, Camille Bennett, interpret as she won a National Championship in Poetry in Oral Interpretation for the University of Alabama. She became Nikki-Rosa, just as we all became purveyors of Giovanni’s masterful poetry illustrating Black folks – our secrets and power.

Cool, explosive, curious, introspective, whimsical, and profound, Nikki Giovanni interpreted our angst, soul, and splendor through her words. And I am grateful to have finally met her right here in Alabama and to tell her what she meant to the Black community and to me.