The Clearing: A Year Reflection, Testimonial, Diary Excerpt and Love Note to the Collective

Soooo 👩🏾‍💻….

Last Monday marks one year since Dr. Melva Sampson hosted a virtual day-long retreat called "The Clearing: What will it take?" 

Named for the scene from Toni Morrison's Beloved where Baby Suggs gathered the town folk in The Clearing, Dr. Melva invited us to a virtual safe space where God met us, and there are no words, but I’m going to try and capture how The Clearing literally shifted my life.

To give a little context of how I entered the Clearing, I was in Spring semester of my 2L year - rounding out year 2 of virtual law school. I knew I was interested in intellectual property. It just made sense to expand my existing web design business to include trademark and business formation services upon passing the bar. And that’s still the plan! But I’d also been feeling this pull in another direction. I love creating content and writing (when I feel like it), I’ve always loved education and community relations. Plus I’m a digital genius. AND I can sing. AND I’m funny as hell. And I knew that I feel my best, most authentic self when I’m connecting with people, and being my FULL self (read: no code switching or censoring, tf?!). But professionally, I felt like I was just waiting for the dots to connect. And, having been recently diagnosed with ADHD and what feels like a million hobbies/interests/passion projects, I was trying to avoid what I called the Denise Huxtable or Lynn from Girlfriends spirit, and just focus on doing ONE thing well.

In hindsight, of course I can see how limiting this is, but Dr. Melva and her bomb ass glasses came in with the ANSWERS, okay?!

I can’t even begin to get into ALLLL the downloads and activations that I received, but I have to share that I got to share digital space with The Honorable Rev. Dr. Penny Brown-Reynolds (who I used to watch every day after school; she had a show called “Family Court with Judge Penny”) and TELL her of her impact on my life, AS A LAW STUDENT. What a full circle moment. 🥺✨

And Judge Penny shared a word, which has since become a way of life for me:

"You are allowed to renegotiate the parameters of God's promises to you. [He/She/Spirit] is not surprised or offended when you ask for MORE." 

Whew! Because let’s talk about when the ceiling becomes the floor! When you get the thing, and the thing is a blessing (or lesson, hell) and now you’re hungry for more. (Come on, bars! 🔥)

In the spirit of “He’s done enough“ and “my righteousness is as filthy rags“ and a general lack mindset, I used to struggle with receiving blessings with no guilt. I used to think, “I don’t even be in my Word like I should. And I definitely be half-assing and not giving [the thing] my all, so I really don’t even deserve [the thing].“ And then, doubt or self-sabotage or a nice razzle-dazzle combo of both would swoop in, and keep me in this mental jungle gym. The psych folks call it imposter syndrome. I really think Fleetwood Coup deVille from The Wiz captures this phenomenon best. I can definitely say I was in my “Am I/Is this even real???“ bag from 2020-2022. 🙃

*Shirley Caesar voice* BUT! ⚡️🥿 When Judge Penny told me at The Clearing that I can do, have and be ANYTHING I want, that I don’t have to choose, and that God is not offended when I change my mind or ask for more… I was set free.

And that’s what I love about the Word of God. It is ALIVE and ACTIVE. And while Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever more, He is omni-everything, so as humans, we will always be discovering and learning Him. We will ALWAYS be having “Ah-ha!” moments, moments where old scripture suddenly has new meaning. Judge Penny’s session was 100% giving Romans 12:2 tease. Her declaration renewed my mind, and transformed me. And tbh, I been eating hoes up ever since! 🤸🏾‍♀️✨

But let’s get into the ways Dr. Melva literally embodied the text! In 2022, she boldly recreated what Toni Morrison describes:

"Finally she called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes the women let loose."

My Lordt. Imagine carrying on like this via Zoom. Because it was LIKE that. And it wasn’t like Dr. Melva hit a timer and hollered, “Okay, y’all, go!“ The intention, and the ANOINTING on and in this digital convening made it so that, across time zones and state lines, this gathering of women (and men!) were connected, united, and in tune as if we were holding hands in a prayer circle together.

Tap three people and tell ‘em, the Holy Spirit only needs a signal! ☝🏾😩⚡️

I think Baby Suggs’ charge to the town folk, really captures what Dr. Melva intended for The Clearing co-hort:

“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in the grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth.You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it, and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.” Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.

Whew. Reading that will always make me tear up. What a beautiful metaphorical charge to reclaim our Black bodies from a world that only sees us as labor. What a brilliant edict that everything we need is IN THE HOUSE. And Dr. Melva turned this sacred text into a masterclass and decree that WE GON’ MAKE THEM SEE US, HEAR US, RESPECT US AND PAY US, OR CHOKE. I believe it was Big Joseph that said, “YESTERDAY’S PRICE IS NOT TODAY’S PRICE!“ Father Jimmy Brown said, “I paid the cost to be the BOSS!“ And that’s on boundaries and knowing my worth. Period.

My last favorite quote from The Clearing scene in Beloved is this one that really tugs on Christianity's wig:

"She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them that they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure.

She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they could not have it."

HOHHHH MYMYMY! That's it! Baby Suggs/Dr. Melva's mission wasn't to admonish us and tell us all the things we're doing wrong. Rather, both mighty women of God challenged and charged us to imagine what our ideas, our businesses, our lives could look like if we believed that we're worthy, entitled even, to abundant, magical lives. 

And because we live in a capitalist, racist, misogynistic, queerphobic world, it's imperative that WE extend ourselves the grace we could imagine. It's giving very much, "what if you fly, beloved?" Very much celebrating, re-parenting and affirming mySELF.

What happens when that ceiling becomes the floor of the new dimension, all because you dared to make room for expansion?

THAT's the Clearing! A space to release what isn't ours, reject the curses spoken over us, and rise above these (white) man-made limits and imagine a new heaven, a new earth, an abundant life. 

The Clearing was absolutely world-shifting. I was watered, fed, affirmed, loved on, gathered and ACTIVATED. And roughly one year later (during Holy Week/a Full Moon, might I add!), I am reflecting on all the ways I've seen the grace I imagined. And I am blown away. I am truly not the same. (Word to Janelle Monáe!) That revolutionary, digital gathering, was a launching pad.

The point of this reflection is not to run my receipts, though I COULD, if I was PROVOKED! (Real ones will catch that. 🤣🥿) Because the truth is, The Clearing empowered me to bet on myself and believe that I'm worthy of every good, magical thing. It affirmed and confirmed that EYE CAN HAVE/BE/DO IT ALL. And that’s how I move now. Very much, “Why NOT me??“

So again, you can check my LinkedIn for all the ways I ATE since March 2022 (and really since I was furloughed divinely released from my job in March of 2020), but this reflection is simply a love note of deep gratitude.

To Dr. Melva Sampson, Attorney Natasha Robinson, Mama Dr. Itihari Toure, Dr. Iya Funlayo Wood-Menzies, Dr. Kendal Brown, Kyndra Frazier, Shayla Herndon-Edmunds and The Honorable Rev. Dr. Penny Brown-Reynolds.

To sisterhood, which continually saves me, sustains me, and elevates me. 

To Toni Morrison.

To my earthly mama, and all my other mothers (and fathers) who carry me. 

To myself, for dreaming of a new life, and believing that I am my best thing. 💜✨