The Labyrinth Women
A Reflection on Gathering the Rituals that Ground Me: Running
When I was a little girl, on car rides to my Grandma’s house, I used to see them running through the woods. As I race through those same woods now I’m not sure if I was imagining them running by or if I saw them just as they saw me. Although to be fair, the woods aren’t the same ones I saw on the car rides through back roads to the country when I was younger. Nature never stays exactly the same and it rarely replicates itself.
But I saw them, young women and girls with mahogany skin striding through slick pine needles. They only looked back to make sure everyone was still near to them. They ran using the full breadth of their arms. One does not care to hold the hem of your dress when dreams of freedom are hinging on your legs not giving out. I saw them as my family’s car passed a bridge straddling a river. I saw them wade in for a short respite before crossing the blue vein to arrive at its bank.
Their Labyrinth cornrows were weaved with water and algae, but the destination was still clear. They tucked the algae into their braids, adorning themselves with relics of restful play before resuming their journey. Running again, they wound around wind-blown pines. Their whimsical movement entranced me throughout the journey. When we arrived, the air was still as Grandma handed me an oil-stained paper bowl of fatback. Suddenly, the bristling of movement stampeded into silence. I like to think that the Labyrinth women were now getting a longer restful respite. They finally had the space, in a circle clearing by Grandma’s berry bushes, to welcome the solace of the dark night. Closed eyelids resting against the beating sun.
I held on to them, the sound of their battlefield-filled labored breath as I now searched for my own solace. Somewhere far from the man with no roots and the creator. The sun would be whipping the moon’s spine to break the day any moment now—a true mourning— and I wanted to keep mine intact. The Labyrinth women always ran in the mournings. Even though the blanketed night would’ve safely held them from soaring saucer eyes.
Their soft sickle-shaped smiles over their shoulder to one another and the careless draping of dress hems causing them to tumble towards the sinking ground gave them away. Their actions were not fueled by fear but rather by a pre-self-determined liberation. Emancipation: to hold of your own (soul) contract. The Labyrinth women weren’t running from anyone or anything. They simply enjoyed knowing that they knew the way out and chose to feel the expansiveness of their own breath.
I crafted this piece on April 6th, 2022 by remembering the site of memory which is my grandmother’s house & the winding road to it. This Southern upbringing deeply tied to land has informed the way I move with the stories the land swells with. Growing up I always used to imagine people labeled enslaved running through the remains of woods: in between highways, behind bridges, & in the borderless space of my grandmother’s backyard. I wasn’t able to put it into language until 2022 & it’s still a vision that I hold close to my heart (now shared with you). It is in this upbringing, long before I knew what critical fabulation was (Venus in Two Acts by Saidiya Hartman), that I learned how to honor the stories embedded in sites of memory against monumental history that actively denies it. In my writing practice, I’m after the stories embedded in sites of memories that may be gently whispering to us in our day-to-day moments. For me, Alice Walker was one of the first people to affirm this sense of embodiment & make it a point of pride for me.
“No one could wish for a more advantageous heritage the the Black writer in the South: a compassion for the earth, a trust in humanity beyond our knowledge of evil, and an abiding love and justice. We inherit a great responsibility as well, for we must give voice to centuries not only of silent bitterness and hate but also of neighborly kindness and sustaining love.” — Alice Walker, “The Black Writer and The Southern Experience”, In Search of Our Mother’ Garden: Womanist Prose
We all have stories within us that can be conjured by rooting in a site of memory. Mine stem from being a Southern Black Woman writer & from rooting where I was that I conjured the Labyrinth Women. Amongst the clay soil bloodied red & trees that bear strange fruit, somewhere there are women with mahogany skin tucking algae in their braids to adorn themselves. Both stories are important & the latter has never been trivial. As Toni Morrison said in the video within last week’s piece, it is the “discredited way of knowing that discredited people always have” that can provide the escape map helping us return to a free & aligned life. What sites of memory will you gather, honor, & share the stories of?
We can begin to find out together by booking a discovery call to join me in The Clearing presented by Assemblage Conservatory. In the discovery call, I will…
give an in-depth walkthrough of the Assemblage Framework
answer any questions you may have
& walk you through an archival art exercise so you can get a sense of my facilitation style as well as walk away with a piece honoring a site of memory in your life 💙.
While I’ve been thinking about this Clearing since 2021, & had it re-affirmed after reading Beloved by Toni, it was my graduation that served as my catalyst for change & dreaming. Upon my graduation in 2023, I found devotion in the Black Feminist theory of Assemblage I unknowingly wrote as an escape map to myself in my senior thesis. Whatever semblance of joy I felt was overshadowed by experiencing extreme burnout, mental health struggles, & being absent in moments of my life after powering through systems I felt I had no choice but to go along with.
However, it soon became all too clear that I needed a more nourishing & aligned life than the one I had been charting. The spaces, people, & future plans I originally believed I could fit stopped supporting me. Or more so, I realized they never supported me at all. Instead, I gathered the abundantly nourishing gifts around me to honor who I was, who I am, & what I needed in the future to craft an assemblage that is a present-aligned life.
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 & the Assemblage framework. Book a discovery call to root where you are knowing it may very well be the key to returning to an aligned life.
The Clearing Fall 2024 cohort will be capped at 10 unruly folks who will be receiving a 52% introductory enrollment discount! So I invite you to gather more information about The Clearing & book a discovery call by clicking the linked website button below. Enrollment will open in mid-October but I hope to see you in a mini-Clearing session that is the discovery call before then.
If you feel moved, share the flyer below with someone think 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 ✨. Meet you in the clearing?
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 💙.