It warms me to know you’ve brought your great heart to this here place. My name is Stephon and at my core I am a beloved believer bound to the belief we have the power to free ourselves.

In 1987, Toni Morrison published Beloved, her Noble Prize winning novel. Inviting us into the world of Sethe, Denver, Paul D, Baby Suggs, holy, and the ghost of a dead child called Beloved. Inside the twist and caverns of her language, Toni illustrated the power of written word to transform and ignite the soul. As the novel unfolds lays one of the greatest sermons ever written delivered by Baby Suggs, holy, grandmother of Beloved, mother-in-law to Sethe.

As warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every Black man, woman and child who could make it through, took her great hear to the Clearing— a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of the path…

Discovering the pulpit withheld from Nanny in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Baby Suggs, holy, called all those great hearts to love their flesh as no where “out there” truly loved it. She didn’t call these great hearts the meek of the earth or its glory bound pure, in every sense, she created space for them to be and become— to stand in the fullness of whomever we are.

Everyday, I’m endeavoring to expand the Clearing, to create space for all to be and become. Across this platform, you’ll find all the ways i’m imagining and working towards a world not yet. I hope you join me.