Sacred dance for fun

Enchanted Dream Wear model by Paola Maluje Boroday 
July 13, 2011 
"The Womb teaches substance to the heart."
- Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 
May 13, 2013 

Enchanted Dream Wear

 November 19, 2010

Enchanted Dream Wear model Cassia Gomes by Paola Maluje Boroday
"We wake up to dream..." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories
May 13, 2013 

HANDS

April 25, 2013
from Telma Regina Garcia

" Eu tive muitas coisas que guardei em minhas mãos, e as perdi. Mas tudo o que eu guardei nas mãos de Deus, eu ainda possuo. " - Martin Luther King

HEALTH

Appreciation 4 Thickness

May 13, 2013

sacred body of Ukraine's Anna Black nude

sacred form of a woman's form 

TERROR: white woman in tub of blood. . .

This is terrifying. Imagine stumbling in the bathroom in a house you don't belong and find this woman raising from the tub half full of blood looking at you with a baleful stare. Her eyes have no affirmation or kindness just a direct penetration. You don't know how to tell if she has a soul, will turn into something, knows or cares to know who you are. You have no feel of who she is or what is in her, but you cannot move from where you stand transfixed, terrified, and knowing you'd better get out.

Then a footstep lands heavily on the top stair. There was no preceding sound ascending the stairs just the sound of a heavy boot landing on the old wood at the top of the stair. You'd made the same sound, but after climbing the stairs.

"What the hell is that? What do I do? How in the — ?"

The door opens. There was no other step. How did he get from there to here?

"Shit!"

You can barely hold your mouth close. You can't breath. The stench of iron in the blood, your terror, your vulnerability, and the simple fact you don't belong and shouldn't have stepped into someone else's house hits hard, and home.

The door opens, and the only reprieve is the short length of time it takes from the sound of fingers touching the peeling paint on the bathroom door until the opening door stops hiding the man's frame in the door. - Gregory E. Woods, DawnWolf KeeperofStories

December 23, 2012 

Killers in our midst, our Bodies

Jaclyn Swedberg 3

elegant Black woman in her time period 

"...In killers a point comes when rational thinking, and allegiance to the mores of society aerify. Once those things become vapor hard substances settle into the corners and crevices of the mind, discoloring the emotions, darkening the spirit of a man that was once a child. It should be a reflex to see flashes of killers when they were children. It narrows the need for revenge when they kill one of yours, or their killing adversely effects the common good. The balance of things thrown off by killings meant to be righteous revenge of a wrong the larger population is angered about supports a rickety foundation's notion of a hero. 

We create our killers. It is our natural way. It is a by-product of our system of thought. It is what we reap in our loins and our spirits. It is the American Way: killing the way we do, and when our young receive that vision without filters we get what we get much to our chagrin..." - Gregory E. Woods 12.21.14

Black Jesus in the National Church in Mexico City

Composition of FORM

Appreciation 4 Thickness

The form of the Goddess is held by strength, and tones heard in the temporal landscapes as understanding of the process comes to the life forces within a woman's body. The sound she made in the proverbial 'beginning' supported Life as was known, Life as could be, and Life for the sake of the living. It is an eternal sound broken by the gaps created by eruptions of the necessity for Time, and time management in a body. The form of the Goddess held by strength harmonizes, as the form gathers forces from Nature, and within the temporal landscapes into a vast understanding of the orgasmic process charging into the life forces within a woman's body. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.19.13

May 14, 2013

Christmas at the Woods' house

The temptation, if you are a thinker, or rebellious, is to lash out against religious celebrations this time of year. What I've found at the center of these people (myself included) is a specific anger against something, or someone that contradicted the very tenets of the religion espoused. In very young children it is particularly painful. In adults that hurt can hurtle into space as if it were a comet, or space debris doing a lot of damage to explorers. Without discernment many get hurt from the hurts to our intellect, our spirit, our sense of purpose which may have been damaged in the onslaught that made many of us rebel against the religion of the holidays. However it happened we are responsible for the pieces, picking up the pieces and routing out a journey back to the source of our pain even if the pain came from studying the major questions of one's religion in a library. It is pain. 

I can tell you it is of paramount importance to do this healing work, but I cannot tell you how to do it. I can start with intent. That has to change. Something has to prick your spirit, stir your conscience into re-thinking your life. For me it was my children. They were very young. In fact, Janvier, my first born was young enough not to be in school when I began a process to eradicate the evidence of Christmas in my household. Intellectually, it was grueling because I engaged people in my church. I learned Christians are resistant to changing the story with facts, and the thought of reexamining their practices of belief is a slap against God, they feel. My research was thorough. Its intensity led me to a kind of missionary campaign for the minds of my children. 

Over time, I believe Janvier may have been between 4 and 6, understood my lectures.  One fine day after listening to me again explaining why this was that and that was so, and no Christmas tree she looked up at me and said, "That's fine, Daddy. But, I want Christmas, and Santa Claus!" 

I was done.

I called Mommy. Mommy simply said, "Bring 'em over here. Just bring them over here." And that was that. My children, no thanks to me, have many wonderful memories of Christmas at their grandparents' houses. At the time they had two sets of grandparents, and two sets of great-grandparents. All of my money went to keep a roof over our heads and food in our tummies. I was never able to afford gifts. Plus, the season and its obligations never entered my mind until a week or so before Christmas. My family was generous. They made sure the children had gifts every year. Now they are grown and have extended the stories into theirs.  - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12.24.14

the Question is a choice

water dreaming Elizabeth Marxs

"The power of a paradigm shift is the essential power of quantum change whether that shift is an instantaneous one, or a slow and deliberate process. . ." - Stephen R. Covey, author

Surprised on X'mas in black cloth

Cloth in Black model 
December 25, 2013 

"We see the world, not as it is, but as we are, as we are conditioned to see it. When we describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms." - Steven R. Covey, author 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 

Cloth in Black
 https://www.facebook.com/ExceptBeauty

elegant mysterious in black 

SEEING Beauty

Nightcap Clothing

classic African American beauty 

You have to ponder the things of Beauty. The beautiful things are perceptions, and perceptions are dependent upon mirrors. What we see is not what another sees. What we feel is the sense of being in a person. It is magical as all the magical things of life are magical. Being beautiful in a small category is not to be compared to the worlds within yourself that transport you from dream of place to places to dream of what is important and capable of stimulating growth in the common houses of the mundane where beauty struggles with creative beings to stay important as an ingredient to good living. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.8.13

Lexa

August 23, 2012

Pregnant within Solitude

pregnant Kim Kardashian in Greece 

AFRESH, I Love

African American perfection of Essence

Doubt thou the stars are fine;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love. 

William Shakespeare 

Against a White Merry Christmas

The temptation, if you are a thinker, or rebellious, is to lash out against religious celebrations this time of year. What I've found at the center of these people (myself included) is a specific anger against something, or someone that contradicted the very tenets of the religion espoused. In very young children it is particularly painful. In adults that hurt can hurtle into space as if it were a comet, or space debris doing a lot of damage to explorers. Without discernment many get hurt from the hurts to our intellect, our spirit, our sense of purpose which may have been damaged in the onslaught that made many of us rebel against the religion of the holidays. However it happened we are responsible for the pieces, picking up the pieces and routing out a journey back to the source of our pain even if the pain came from studying the major questions of one's religion in a library. It is pain. 

I can tell you it is of paramount importance to do this healing work, but I cannot tell you how to do it. I can start with intent. That has to change. Something has to prick your spirit, stir your conscience into re-thinking your life. For me it was my children. They were very young. In fact, Janvier, my first born was young enough not to be in school when I began a process to eradicate the evidence of Christmas in my household. Intellectually, it was grueling because I engaged people in my church. I learned Christians are resistant to changing the story with facts, and the thought of reexamining their practices of belief is a slap against God, they feel. My research was thorough. Its intensity led me to a kind of missionary campaign for the minds of my children. 

Over time, I believe Janvier may have been between 4 and 6, understood my lectures.  One fine day after listening to me again explaining why this was that and that was so, and no Christmas tree she looked up at me and said, "That's fine, Daddy. But, I want Christmas, and Santa Claus!" 

I was done.

I called Mommy. Mommy simply said, "Bring 'em over here. Just bring them over here." And that was that. My children, no thanks to me, have many wonderful memories of Christmas at their grandparents' houses. At the time they had two sets of grandparents, and two sets of great-grandparents. All of my money went to keep a roof over our heads and food in our tummies. I was never able to afford gifts. Plus, the season and its obligations never entered my mind until a week or so before Christmas. My family was generous. They made sure the children had gifts every year. Now they are grown and have extended the stories into theirs. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12.24.14

Merry Christmas with Tory Peil. by Ernie Sapiro Photograhy

Ernie Sapiro Photography

December 17, 2014

 

 

http://www.perryvilla.net/

introspective woman by Ernie Sapiro 

Pondering. . .

Serenity Skye

boxer at EQC Casino by Ernie Sapiro Photography 

Maori man in fighting pose 'Nesian naturalle.'

"What does it mean to those engrossed in the discover of self holidays, and what is authentic within them at Christmas time? What is merry to people of this calibre? These are things adventurers talk about with themselves and others of the same kilt." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 1.18.14

Black artist, Lois Mailou Jones was an artist who painted and influenced others during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond...

Serenity Skye Taken by Ernie Sapiro Photography

 December 25, 2013 

model Serenity Skype on the night she and a girl friend went to the ballet.
December 24, 2013 

A Sun Ceremony for Christmas Day

Misa Campo
April 27, 2013



"A poignant moment shared with friends like this keep life in the space of magical influences. Most people don't have the experience of seeing animals in their natural habitats doing the same thing standing in awe of their surroundings unable to express the unexpressed acknowledgement of being alive and centered in the magic of being an alive creature!" - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 12.3.13

Misa Campo and friends into the sunset!!

the Best Christmas I didn't have!

Marilyn Monroe for X'mas said, "Meilleurs Souhaits de Joyeux Noël et Bonne et Heureuse Année!"

If this is not the best Christmas gift what is?

December 30, 2012 

ACTING it out!

Nicole Kidman's pretty legs spread in The Paperboy!!!!

SACRED WOMAN

Sacred Feminine of an African American

In the beginning was ...

Creek Indian story of beginning:

In the beginning, the Muskogee people were born out of the earth itself. They crawled up out of the ground through a hole like ants. In those days, they lived in a far western land beside tan mountains that reached the sky. They called the mountains the backbone of the earth. Then a thick fog descended upon the earth, sent by the Master of Breath, Esakitaummesee.

The Muscogee people could not see. They wandered around blindly, calling out to one another in fear. They drifted apart and became lost. The whole people were separated into small groups, and these groups stayed close to one another in fear of being entirely alone. Finally, the Master had mercy on them. From the eastern edge of the world, where the sun rises, he began to blow away the fog. He blew and blew until the fog was completely gone.

The people were joyful and sang a hymn of thanksgiving to the Master of Breath. And in each of the groups, the people turned to one another and swore eternal brotherhood. They said that from then on these groups would be like large families. The members of each group would be as close to each other as brother and sister, father and son. The group that was farthest east and first to see the sun, praised the wind that had blown the fog away.

They called themselves the Wind Family, or Wind Clan. As the fog moved away from the other groups, they, too, gave themselves names. Each group chose the name of the first animal it saw. So they became the Bear, Deer, Alligator, Raccoon, and Bird Clans. However, the Wind Clan was always considered the first clan and the aristocracy of all the clans. The Master-of-Breath spoke to them: "You are the beginning of each one of your families and clans. Live up to your name. Never eat of your own clan, for it is your brother."

You must never marry into your own clan. This will destroy your clan if you do. When an Indian brave marries, he must always move with his wife to her clan. There he must live and raise his family. The children will become members of their mother's clan. Follow these ways and the Muskogee will always be a powerful force. When you forget, your clans will die as people." 

ART Criticism

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan's Art Page

 March 30, 2013

Back to that drawing time 

1999

 crayon on paper 24" x 16" / 60 x 42cm

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan's Black Mirror 2013 oil on canvas

" not really unique as everyone who are artists can copy the style if they wished." ~ Ruth Birchamhall



Ruth Birchamhall, I don't understand your comment's intent. There are two parts to the stab at the artist. The first points out that the work is not unique. Unique style, or unique to who? Is it an original idea? If so, I ask how has the artist's personality and perception found its place to make it unique. Whether the style is unique or not the artist has made it his own. On that merit he deserves acknowledgment for the depth of his studies, and the scope and nature of his dreaming. 

Secondly, you simply say, "... everyone who are artists can copy the style if they wished."

Is that a reference to the immediate accessibility this medium (Facebook) affords thousands of people, or the fact that students of art, and professionals can study this artist's work and copy, or learn from him? If so, how does that give the artist insight into how his work affected you? Because your opinion like others opinions matter. What is important to an artist, Ruth, is the clarity of feedback amongst other things. 

You weren't clear, and I was interested in your perspective for some reason I hope you don't call me on. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.10.13

art by Tigran Tsitoghdzyan at Art Miami dec. 7, 2014

A Malecite story: Kluskap & Beaver

Kluskap—name of Medeulin meaning “bewitched” or “in cahoots with the devil.” This is the belief of the St. John River Indians, from St. John, New Brunswick to Edmunston. This man was considered to know more than anyone else and was more or less chief of the tribe. He had one enemy and he was called the “Beaver,” whose name was Gwabid. One day they had a big battle at Grand Falls which is called Gupsquick. The Kluskap was trying to catch the beaver on the riverbank. Since the beaver lived on water he could travel faster than Kluskap. He gave up trying to keep up with him, and went to the riverbank and picked up a large rock and threw it at the beaver, thinking that if he hit him he would kill him on the spot. After he threw it he found out that the beaver was farther away than he had thrown the rock. The rock landed at the mouth of the Tobique River. When Kluskap saw that, he picked up another rock and threw it with more force, only this time the rock was much bigger. The rock is still at the mouth of the river. The Indians still believe that it is the very rock Kluskap had thrown at the Gwabid.

He gave up trying to get the beaver with a rock and decided to call upon the powers that he possessed and try to catch him by jumping along the riverbank. The jump he took was one-half mile long, so it took him fifty-four jumps along the riverbank. Finally he was on the other side of the river and the beaver was in the water. He jumped in the river and went to the bottom. When he got his hand on the beaver he turned himself into another beaver, and they fought like beavers until they got tired. That didn't prove anything, because their strength was evenly matched, so the first beaver decided to turn himself into a snake, thinking he could choke the other beaver. When the other beaver saw he had turned himself into a snake, he also decided to turn himself into a snake. They fought until they were tired. Neither one could overpower the other. When they could not get the best of each other, the first one turned himself into a Budeb, an Indian name for some kind of monster. When the second one saw this he turned himself into a Budeb, and they fought for 4 weeks. The pool of water where they fought is so muddy now and the underneath keeps boiling up. We don't know who won the battle, because people still think that they are still fighting.



[2] Told by Mrs. Black, Loring, ME, Oct., 1962. NAFOH Accession # 179, pg. 89-90. Mrs. Black was told the story by her mother, Mrs. Solomon. See the preceding section for notes on the fight with the beaver. Mrs. Black's text seems to combine this tale with a rather well known tale of an encounter between a medeulin and a water monster, the Wiwiliamecq, a story that is often told to explain the roily waters of a particular lake. For a discussion of this tale (and a bibliography) see Eskstorm II, 39-48, 89-95. See also Speck IV, 282-283; Leland and Prince, 253. There are, by the way, three manuscript boxes bulging with Adney's ingenious and (I believe) mistaken theorizings on the significance of this monster (Adney Mss, Peabody Museum). Mrs. Black's having the combat as still continuing is unique but logical. 

NORTHEAST FOLKLORE  Volume VI: 1964 
MALECITE AND PASSAMAQUODDY TALES 
Permission given to use given by Maine Folklife Center, University of Maine.
This does not convey the right to republish them in any other form or for profit.

Darling Darla

Darling Darla

http://www.darlingdarla.com
http://www.twitter.com/darlingdarla
http://www.facebook.com/ilovedarlingdarla
http://www.youtube.com/officialdarlingdarla

Darling Darla is a model, a dancer and an entertainer. She has a birth name Darla Itoshii. I don't know much about her, but her name comes up frequently and enough to make me remember and make prayers for her success in life as she knows it to be. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
December 20, 2012

Darla itoshii

4 novembre 2012
Look at the light about her. Will she ascend to that level one day in her life?

intense LOVERS

Sacred form amongst Stone People by Denis shot at the Dynamic Nude Photo Workshop, Lake Powell UT

film commentary

Our parents have past lives, and those events they lived shadow or dominate their children's lives like phantoms we glimpse from time to time, but cannot fathom, or know because we were young and vulnerable. I thought about this in my 20's as my childhood became a center stage work in production. It had to become in my mind open theater. As I get into the roles that played a role in my thinking I saw the shadows of my parent's childhoods in my childhood, and through face to face discussions with Mommy and Daddy I learned. More was learned as a father because my father came out of me in shocking ways. I was unprepared for this, but I had no opportunity to whine about it. I had to develop a course of action.

My first action was to talk with my wife, Renee, about it. We came up with an idea. Looking back it was probably Renee's idea. Anytime I was scolding the children she would monitor me, and when I crossed a line and acted like my father she would in a small voice say, "Herb." until I caught it, and stopped.

Herb is my father's name. The other side of his brilliant child rearing techniques were the mistakes he made with his first born: me. Daddy admitted his mistakes to me when I was 12 years old, but resolving the contradictions was reserved for my young adult years. With my brothers, sister, wife, and my parents learned to unravel and unlearn all that stuff. But it started with Reflection that led to Introspection. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (1.25.13 )

Sacred Geometry design drawn by Sasha Grey

JENNIFER LOPEZ

Jennifer Lopez

photo gallery

I Remember I AM

Dec. 19, 2012 was a couple weeks from the start of my mother's physical demise. On the first of December she complained of intense head pain, and from that day forward couldn't drive, and began not remembering things. Later in the month she asked why I'd called. I told her an unction deep within my spirit.

"What did you see?" she asked.

I told her there was a figure of some sort, a form like a being, a man above her head pressing down into her head. I didn't understand what it was, but I described it and how it felt. Mommy said she saw the same thing and didn't know what it was either. But, it was happening to her. Later in the months my brothers not trusting the analysis of my sister and not liking the contradictory reports on her health, or why she wasn't seeing a doctor my youngest two brothers went to our parent's home and took over. Mommy's doctor's appointment was set, and I decided to accompany my sister, father and mother to all the appointments. 

None of us knew how our lives would change, or that cancer was discovered eating away in Mommy's brain, and the lymph nodes in her left arm were in the fourth and final stages. 

"How could that go undetected with all the visits to the doctors over the years? How the fuck does that happen?" I raged hearing this news. I could not say those words out loud. We weren't raised that way. No matter how we felt we had an example to follow and Mommy and Daddy's was the way, the truth and the light.

What Mommy's sickness meant took the life of our lives and changed everything we knew into action to care for Mommy in the beginning until we were assisting in her transition to the other world. In the end Mommy died in Michael's house (her youngest) with her first born (me) present. How I miss my mother. Mommy and I knew it would be a loss to live with as the loss of her mother was a loss she told me how she lived with.

I can't write anymore. I am crying like a motherless child. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories  11.22.13

SIMPLE LIVING SIMPLE LIFE

My Life's The Beach

Book of John 14 verse 12


For me these words were the greatest dare of my young life. Because I tried words and teachings on the way others tried on clothes I had to find out how, and if words were true to their word and projections. At the time I did not know the words came from Knowing. I did not know a thing about that perception of Life, or of how it would one day penetrate my center of Being. I understood and embraced Belief, and feeling that way I recall placing the body of the words, "... he who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these shall he do..." into my own body, and succeeded in changing the world!

When Jesus ended that phrase with "... because I go to my Father..." it put me into the mindset I had when my parents left us alone in the house for hours, or all day with instructions, tasks and admonishments. The time spent wherever they went was time to do what was told, and more because freedom and trust were stimuli for me, and the way I thought about things.

Ingesting those words required a simple technique of breath, and form to absorb the words from formlessness into the formlessness within my physical body, and the mystery of my mind and its labyrinths. It began, as all things begin, with an altar. The altar was the space around and within me. I could see the space. It was sacred. It was safe, and accessible. Into that space, wherever I was, the words were spoken or read into the inner space of Being over an extended period of days that could easily become years in such a way they became part of me, and became actions, or a state of mind. These words of Jesus made timid many a person, but it pulled me into a vortex I've yet to exit from.

The depth of initiations lay heavily upon the words of a man's mouth. It was the same with Jesus. Spoken plainly the words, the sacred words, will attract youth to dare themselves away from mere existence into the challenging light of becoming more than one's teachers. Entering into the spheres of Creation to co-create is the fearful thing many shied away from when they read Jesus' words, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father." - Gregory E. Woods

TRUTH OF THE MATTER

"Color does matter. It mattered enough to alter his ethnicity for 20 centuries! Reverting to the truth of the matter seems to be honest." 

Black Jesus in National Church in Mexico City 

Jesus

Tami, expressed incomprehension at the breathe and depth of racism with some naivete. But she also asked for solutions to a complex problem that is constantly expressing itself, and unraveling in our lives on a daily basis. Denial and assertions of mixed race relationships in white families is a mixed bag of contradictions when used as a defense against being called a racist. Marrying a white woman or man in a Black family is not felt the same way in Black families, and if one pays attention to details each claim of a white person not being a racist is matched by pained reactions from Blacks. Why? Because every action of white Europeans for centuries has produced dark ominous realities for people of color around the globe. This is too much for whites living today to bear. It is unbearable the historical weight of what they have done, and who they have become as a result. My heart has learned to go out to them. The pain is in their actions, their heart songs, and their words. The spiritual work required to heal these deep wounds is feared because it is so intense, so terrifying because it will rend asunder the fabric of individual's lives.

The healing modalities available are being used by healers in sacred circles and lodges around the globe, but sadly Christians are not great participants in these circles. Immersed in a pitiful state of denial, and a bizarre commitment to mediocrity millions of Christians envelope themselves in asinine dialogues that dismisses facts, and asserts destructive images in to replace fact and knowledge. It's weird, but a subject of great interest in the atheist and agnostic communities, and in indigenous circles the world over. 

Claiming Jesus was not an African, not a married Rabbi, that the 12 tribes of Israel were of all four races is a profoundly soul damaging assertion into the face of fact, and the face of the man, Jesus,to whom so much accord is given as being the Son of God. In his day on Earth there were only two people of the white race in African affairs: the Greeks and the Romans. The racial conflicts we have now are traceable. There is a need to mention how the Church validated conquest, and murderous missionary work. The end result is in the racial claims Christians are fond of making that continue to degrade people of African descent, and the Africans living in the Mother Land suffering deeply from the colonist's legacy and the missionary's bloodied handiwork. What continues to be done to the tribes within the United States by the churches is a sin before God and Man, but it is condoned and sanctioned by the Father's and the lay people of those churches who believe, who need to believe in a white Jesus!

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are African religions. The Eastern thought that authored their revered sacred books is disrespected by inserting previously non-existent theology, and socially restraining dogma, and teaching conquered people to assume that the Bible is a book of Western orientation of thought and spirituality, and that Jesus was a white man! 

These are my words from my life. - Gregory E. Woods, DawnWolf KeeperofStories (7.5.12)

[So what image, or dream replaces the truth with reverence?] 

Playboy Playmate October 2014 Roxanna June