Heavy is the Head
A meditation on Black Matriarchs and the many Rituals that they carry with them.
- Ancestral homelands of Plains and Archery Georgia - a small town founded and built by Black folks of Sumter County, these two wooden structures, the land, and the love of my ancestors are all that remain.
The women in my family were growers, quilters, kitchen conjurers, nurturers, domestic workers, medicine makers, hoodoos, heirloom preservationist, keepers of the flame, death workers but most importantly, life-givers. These women were also order-keepers of the physical & nonphysical; they believed that cleanliness was next to Godliness. There was not a morning that my momma, her momma, or her mommas, momma, momma was not without broom in hand. A broom in my family was held in high regard. It was the ultimate energy mover - a tool for ritual and ceremony. I recall my grandmother telling me, “Boy listen here, you sweep that house from back to front and don’t you miss an inch or you have to start over.” I even recall her scolding my cousin for sweeping her feet once on accident. She just went silent, spit on the broom, and burned it; by dusk, there was a new broom in the house - nothing said, just a new broom and silence. It was moments like this when I knew just how sacred the broom was to the women in my family.
I’d witness my own Momma in meditation, deep trance if you will; sweeping away each morning to start the day clean. Maybe you’d hear some good ole hymns exiting her mouth by humming only; but not much else was said or heard - just the repetitions of the broom moving back and forth against the floor. Momma would tell me stories of how when she was a little girl, they even swept the yards. “Back then there was no such thing as grass in the yard in Southwest Georgia, so we had to keep the yard manicured and kept at all times. My feet would be dusted red from the clay and dirt - but we ain’t care, I was a country gal - times were easier and walking barefoot was normal.”
My grandma would make her own brooms, using pine needle, sour grass stalk, and sorghum or broomcorn. During the new year, ceremony was had by cleaning the house top to bottom; the walls were beat and cleaned with a brand new broom - and all corners, floors, and ceilings were swept clean of any dirt or spider webs, preparing a place for newness to be received and the old to be gone. Afterwards, a cinnamon broom was placed behind and above the doorway. One for protection, the other for blessings of the Divine type. I recall my Momma telling the story of how she was cleaning and sweeping the house when she went into labor with me; her water had broke and she continued to finish cleaning the house and even showered before allowing our neighbor to take her to the hospital. She would say, “I wasn’t bringing new life into no dirty home. Momma ain’t do it with me, I was not finna start with you.” Deep inside I know that this was an ancestral reflex and the women that came before her had ordained it.
I’ve carried these rhythms of ritual into my daily ceremonies and routine. Greeting the days first beam of sunlight - tea brewing on the stove - and broom to the earth; refreshing the altar that is my home, and letting the many women whose wombs that I passed through, to work through the altar that is my body. Ridding myself of the old, and making the new, real.
