another NEVA: a manhood teaching

Mamamusica Real's (Michelle) mother in the 1990's

"Initially, the color blue wrapped and dancing around the dancer took my moment's breath from me, and told me a story. The whole of the magic, the play, and the beauty of the dancer danced around my senses into a study of an ancient gift. You see a man can see a woman and not know she is there. A man can speak the words he thinks will attract her to him, and find nothing hooked to the line cast. A man’s perceptions of beauty are the values placed, and living within him. They speak a story, a truth that immaturity misreads, and a mature woman recognizes as something she needs, or doesn't, or as an asset to her worth, or as lust, or she recognizes the ridiculous notion of ownership bulging from our desire to hold her.

Growing up I remember men in various parts of the world struck by my mother’s compelling beauty. All I have just written flooded their eyes, and their expressions were telling the story I just told. They always glanced at my father, and seeing a man next to Mommy winced. My father was a man’s man. The calm of his presence was poised to be deadly or kind. It was the approach of the men held spellbound by Mommy’s beauty that determined the outcome of every encounter.


Some men found their legs, and timidly, but respectfully approached Daddy. Their eyes focused on my Father would ask permission to speak and compliment Mommy. Daddy weighed every request, and measured every man. I don’t know what he was thinking. Every man given permission spoke the same compliments to both Mommy and Daddy about Mommy’s hard to describe beauty. It was a beautiful thing for a little boy to watch, and grasp.


Beauty is a deep thing on the other side of the mysterious powers of the mirrors between a man and a woman he desires to know, have, embrace, understand, or love. What is love but the beauty of dance?"


- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Sacred Medicine Wheel teachings