If you follow this blog closely, you’ll know that I’ve been progressively letting go of my egoic attachment to hair. Earlier this year I did a big chop — with a pair of scissors, that resulted in 2/3 of my hair ending up on my bathroom floor.
Going short felt liberating. But something in me wanted to go all the way. It was not so much a question of if, as when. While visiting Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff Monastery a few months ago, I spent some time with a few Buddhist nuns — women who deeply impressed me, not only with their wisdom and spiritual strength but also with their bald heads.
I’ve loved my shorter hair – so much so that I’ve documented the transformation with an endless stream of selfies that I periodically post on twitter. But all good things must come to an end.
As we’ve moved ever more deeply into the bowels of global warming the hottest summer ever, my fro, even in its diminished form, has just felt like too much to bear. It’s been really fucking hot on the East Coast this week. We’re talking day after day of 95+ with intense humidity. Even with just 1/3 of my hair on my head, my curly fro was a heat magnet. Yes, it was low maintenance — shower ‘n go — but I had to deal with all that heat stuck up in my head . . . and I’d wake up looking like Don King. Not that there’s anything wrong with Don King, but it really just wasn’t the “good morning” I was looking for.
Anywho, last night it occurred to me: If I’m tired of my hair, why am I still wearing it? What is keeping me from the big shave? In a flurry of excitement, I decided that I would go to the barber first thing in the morning. I almost attempted to shave it myself but, with five inches of hair on my head, and no barber skills whatsoever, reason won over enthusiasm.
It didn’t really feel like a decision so much as it felt like a calling. I was simply compelled to do it. If I have to come up with reasons, we could say it was personal, weather related and spiritual. For sure, it is a way of sacrificing a little more vanity (though I still have wellsprings where that came from) and practicing even more non-attachment to my pre-conceived notions of what beauty and femininity are all about. But really, there was no one reason. It just finally felt right.
So, here it is. My new look – and my first time being bald since I was a fetus. I was born with hair so this is literally the only time post-womb that I have moved about on Earth with an unencumbered scalp. It’s like meeting myself for the first time. I love it — and I love me, for having the courage to experience this freedom.
Aware of Awareness 
a beautiful head, full of compassion and kindness. I might try it myself, only need to change the hair trimmer one notch.
Thank you (: Yea, why not? It will grow back..
Like it 🙂 keep following what feels right for you! Just wanted to add something in, I wasn’t going too, but then I got a major impulse too :)!
Hair plays a really vital role in the health of our ‘physical’ body, its not just there by chance, its there for a very specific reason. Our hair actually transmits light energy from the sun to the pineal gland at the centre of the brain (which then the pineal gland transmits that light energy to every cell of the body!). So our hair actually transmits energy and nutrients from the sun to every cell of the body.
Just wanted to add it in, nothing meant by it 🙂 keep following what feels right for you 🙂
Namaste 🙂
Hi James, thanks for your note. Have you ever had a great impulse to research the scientific validity of the claim you’re making? I ask because I’d never heard anything like that about hair before and it struck me as dubious. In the little time I spent trying to substantiate it, all I found were occult websites that repeated, almost word for word, what you wrote, without any evidence. If you have some studies you could link to, by all means, please do so.
As far as I can tell, common sense and a knowledge of how the body works dictate that hair cannot play a “major” role in the absorption of sunlight, given that most sunlight is absorbed through your skin and your eyes. And a quick look at the human species will show you that hair has nothing to do with whether someone is malnutrioned. Have you seen the U.S. population lately?
There’s also the fact that your visible hair is not alive, so it is unclear to me how it can transmit anything. Your skin (scalp) on the other hand is alive and of course if there’s no hair up there, it can do an even better job of absorbing sunlight.
Anyway, I know you probably meant well with your post but it doesn’t make sense to me. It also seems to be part of the mythology that hair confers some kind of physical or mystical superpowers, which I disagree with.
Yeah I have been massively into natural health and nutrition and the way the body works on an energetic level for a long long time. It is certainly not ‘mystical’ and we absolutely have hair for a very important reason, its not just there for no reason, every aspect of our body plays a vital role in the functioning of the whole. We are not a fragmented organism.
I have learnt a lot from Indian and Hindu sages and the spiritual nature of hair. And the word ‘spiritual’ certainly shouldn’t be linked the word ‘mystical’. There is a lot of disinformation on the internet, and what I wrote has certainly not come from any ‘occult’ websites at all.
I never said hair has anything to do with being malnourished, but having no hair means your body needs more nutrition from food in order for hair to grow.(As our hair is always trying to grow to its optimum length in order for our individual genetics).
Like I said there is a lot of disinformation on the internet, and searching via search engines isn’t going to pull up any good information.
Here is a link to an article that I quickly found, see what you think and make of it what you will 🙂
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/03/09/hair-and-spirituality/
Good luck and Namaste 🙂