The Clearing Ceremony Sunday, June 1st, 2025
In this Clearing Ceremony Kay Brown, steward of Assemblage Conservatory, will be facilitating a close looking conversation of the "Assemblage Definition" & the "Black Women x Rest" Quilted Syllabi. This is also the space for unruly folks enrolled in The Clearing to bring their reflection, questions, or observations from the guided prompts in The Clearing Library to discuss them with others. We will challenge definitive theory & of course open up conversation about how to metabolize it. Enroll in The Clearing by the date above to receive your private invitation link to The Clearing Ceremony.
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The Assemblage Framework
The Assemblage Framework, informed by musical notation, is designed to balance intimate periods of reflection within The Clearing Library with live community Clearing Ceremonies to assist in the process of challenging definitive theory & metabolizing it in our lives.Â
Gather Patchwork Meditations
Learn more about the theory of Assemblage by subscribing to the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath Newsletter Publication. When you subscribe, you will receive pieces of writings meditating on “how to breathe again in order to gather beauty to stitch an Assemblage that is life” straight to  your inbox. In Assemblage: Baby’s Breath, you will gather poetry, essays, letters, mini syllabi, & more. Subscribe now to receive a free Black Feminist Mediation!Â
Mission
To empower unruly folk to stop their worlds to breathe & gather abundant materials, within & around us, to stitch an aligned/bountiful/beautiful life we call Assemblage.
Vision
To activate charged clearings for folks to gather, honor & embody the vernacular rituals that sustain the physical & spiritual well-being of individuals, communities, & the planet.
"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.”
- Kay Brown, Creator of the film (to the right) & the poem excerpt above sourced from Looking Back To Chart The Way Forward
ValuesÂ
Circular Time
We are here, there is infinite time, & there is always more.
Reverence for the Vernacular
We embody a Southern pace of time—lingering in the grooves for however long our soul desires. We are not rushed into false urgency.
Intuitive Capacity
We honor the wisdom & needs of our bodies over the sense of urgency capitalism fosters.
Black Feminist Ecologies
We honor moss as a compass, breath as our root system, & our body as technologies of wisdom.
Citation as Ancestral ReverenceÂ
As we gather we cite.
There is ancient knowledge of others under the sun & the tongue of the rivers mouths. We cite the rivers, flora, fauna, folk, & other living beings (acknowledging that people are a part of nature) by saying their names. Our citational practice is a way of acknowledging the ancestors before us, the ancestors we are becoming, & the ancestors we have yet to meet.
Nightfall as Cover
We honor individual's desire, capacity, & right to opacity (after Édouard Glissant’s For Opacity) by asking consent to share words, work, etc. on socials in our own practice.
We respect that darkness blankets us as a protective refuge to dream maps of freedom that may be light sensitive during the daytime. We know there is nothing to fear from the rich darkness in which we were birthed & one day will return.
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