Description

Hadia — “Guide” Signed Poster by Woodrow Nash 1 of 100.She is the one who has already been where you are about to go. Hadia does not turn around to make sure you are following. She trusts that you will. She has done her part  she has walked first, into the dark, with only the soft gold of her own knowing to light the path. Your job is to keep up.

Her face is painted in the warm yellows of torchlight and the deep brown of soil turned over before planting. The mask reaches from her brow down across her cheeks and ends just above her mouth, leaving her lips bare and painted the color of clay. She does not smile. She is concentrating.

Her hair rises in twisted braids the color of bark, gathered at the crown into a small mountain of violet rope, the same regal cord that runs through Asha’s hair, they are kin, these women, in ways the eye is meant to catch. Her ears are weighted with flat copper discs, the same metal that catches the firelight in the sculptor’s studio when the work goes late. At her throat, layers of pale grey beads rest in heavy rings, anchoring her voice in the patient weight of those who came before.

Her bodice is wrapped in a band of golden ochre, painted across with teal chevrons and ladder marks, the symbols of every road she has memorized, every river crossing she remembers in her feet. Her eyes are downcast. She is reading the ground. She is looking for the next safe place to set the next foot. She is doing the work of the guide, which is mostly the work of paying attention.

The deepest roots drink from the darkest soil. What breaks open the seed is the same hand that lifts the tree.

Hadia belongs in the home of a teacher, a mother, a mentor, a midwife, anyone who has accepted the lonely honor of going first. She belongs in the room where the next generation is being shaped.