Looking Back to Chart the Way Forward
A poem Written on Monday, January 30th, 2024 @ 12:35 p.m.
Earlier this week, I was revisiting old poetry manuscripts and was surprised to stumble across a poem entitled The Clearing written at the end of January 2024. At this time, I did not have a name for the offering I wanted to steward & gift to you all. I simply referred to the gift as my offer or my offering.
I didn’t name my offer The Clearing until it was time to announce it & I realized it couldn’t be named anything else. I revisited Baby Suggs in her clearing within Beloved by Toni Morrison & knew that was the space I had been trying to conjure all along. The Clearing was a space I wanted to steward & invite other unruly folks to join.
When I write poetry, or any reflective piece within my personal practice that keeps me alive,e I tend not to look back on them. I get still, write, & close the page to move on with this thing called life. However, I had an opportunity I wanted to submit some poems. Therefore, I had to look back so that I can move forward. The first piece in the manuscript was a poem entitled The Clearing. Sometimes, the body takes time to remember that which it has always known.
The Clearing, like the theory of Assemblage, is incredibly expansive. Expressing the generous site that is The Clearing at first seemed daunting. Yet, as I moved through writing each piece more clarity came through. Now in this moment of stillness, reflecting on the gathered poems I generated from late 2023 to early 2024, I can track how I have been honoring a life rooted in alignment. Finding this poem was an affirmation that allowed me to exhale a sigh of celebration. I have been charting my own path by honoring the desires that live within the site of memory that is my body. I always had the answers within me. It was within the sites of memory I spent ample time with that I found my reflection proudly nodding in return.
Today, on the last day to enroll in the clearing, I’m honoring my methodology by offering you this audio of me reading the poem that has been unknowingly guiding me all along. Thanks for walking this unruly path with me 💙.
The Clearing
I am grasping that which makes me grounded— enabling me to be free & reach back for leaves of love passed down through me.
I am grasping for breath my kin knew to release fully to accept more. I am grasping back for the wind to fly on, the birched branches to sweep dirt yards welcoming swollen feet. My fingertips felt moss on the north side of trees— guiding me to a place of ease.
I am grasping for language, enveloped in letters of the past, prophesying an embrace defying fugitivity.
I am not grasping for straws but stalks of cane & wayward rice.
I am grasping for a life lived in plain sight.
I made a short film embodying how The Clearing feels & how I want people to feel within it. This short film is also a collection of moments I think about that inspired me to create The Clearing. The accompanying audio in this short is of a 1961 interview between Studs Terkel & James Baldwin. This specific part of James’ interview is something I always come back to as an anchor in my life, this publication, & my research for
. I didn’t come out of nothing & neither did you. Meet you in the clearing?Some of my favorite moments from the film in the order they occur include a video of the African American Garden at IAAM taken by me in the rain, Black Women finding their own Black Eden by splashing their feet in the water at the 1963 March on Washington, hands seen in Corrine Bailey Rae’s Peach Velvet Sky rooted in Harriet Jacobs’ book entitled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Zora Neale Hurston’s Ethnographic Film footage of children dancing in a circle, Mary McLeod Bethune Archival Footage, & The Great Dismal Swamp Maroon Community. If you want a friend to see the film…tell them to subscribe to the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath publication! The only home I want this film to reside in is the one I’m building in this publication so share this post widely & freely.
🌀 Enrollment for The Clearing closes today October 17th, 2024.
Okay, so in all seriousness you don’t have 30 minutes 😂. But you do have until 11:55 p.m. tonight to enroll in The Clearing.
The Assemblage Conservatory Clearing is a 9-week griot in training program where you will go from feeling disconnected to the land you walk on, feeling ungrounded, & difficulties navigating the tides of life to feeling rooted walking with the stories of the land you gather through archival art making through the Assemblage framework.
The Clearing Fall 2024 Cohort will be capped at 10 unruly folks. So be sure to gather the information you need & enroll today to meet us in The Clearing by clicking the button below. Still, have lingering questions? You can still book a discovery call today (October 17th, 2024) by clicking the same button below.
Share the flyer below with someone who has been searching for a Clearing in their life! I hope we will get to practice gathering & honoring together inside The Clearing of our dreams knowing that reality is a dream’s worst nightmare & a dreamer’s worst nightmare is reality ✨.
Please remember if you choose to quote this piece, share this piece, or any piece on this publication to always CITE BLACK WOMEN. Please always include my name (Kay Brown she/her pronouns) and a link to the publication of the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath substack in your sharing practice.
To further support my writing practice, receive additional offerings that connect to my pieces, & be the first to hear about other ways to engage in the theory of Assemblage, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Lastly, remember that referrals are now available! This means you get to speak the name Assemblage: Baby’s Breath out loud to your community while receiving unique grounded gathered gifts from me. Thank you for being here 💙.