A Look Back

"a rise in the morning with the right woman, a wife, is something beyond the mating call of a gigolo, a player." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

a look back...

My Story

I was 15 years old standing before my father. Daddy held his hands out palms up and said, "On the one hand I can teach you how to be a man." He raised the left hand and said with the same solemnness, "On the other hand I can teach you how to be a Playboy."

More than anything else I wanted to be like Daddy; a man! I touched his right hand. Daddy said, "Good. What I am going to teach you is applicable to both!"

A great deal of choice is based upon what you don't know, but I knew I wanted to be a man. Being a man was all I'd seen growing up. It is important to ground children in the basis of life allowing the elements of Creation to become alive. They are already within us. Let them live to express themselves is the example I gleaned from watching men like my father, and men with women like my mother.  There were probably sissies, and homosexual men prowling about, but the men I grew up with protected us from that element. How it was done came alive within me when I had little children. It had been part of the arsenal invested within my character by Daddy and other examples of wisdom. I learned a craft from men. From the perception of life as sacred the challenge of brokenness within men expressed through aggressive sexual advances against same gender was met with force of spirit, understanding of the elements within the two of us, and just a hint of an ass whippin'! You see, how we love as men is how we war when necessary. Isn't love stronger than death, and doesn't love cover a multitude of sins?

Today, in the aftermath and brutal process of warfare against alpha males in the schools, and social systems the attacks are creating a crippling fear within fathers and men. It is astounding. I can't relate to it, but I see it. I touch it. I converse with it, and decided to help in personal ways through interaction wherever possible. But, that is not enough. I realize fear is a by-product of bullying, and the dominant characteristic of the American way is bullying. With so many feminine men defended by women their sons, who were born to protect their mothers and sisters find themselves in a place without the prerequisite teachers of their masculinity. Without real men to develop a boy into a man monsters come forth, and killers become more dominant in our war-like culture.

A Solution

It is possible that manhood in the U.S. is truly and deeply shaped by the Euro-American, and therefore tainted for other ethnic groups. The folly of trying to be a man in the social context of what is 'American' for other cultural groups is quite possibly soiled because outside of our heritages, the cultures we come from; the truth is we are not white men! We had their spirit forced upon us, so is there wisdom in not finding a way out of that morass?

I think we need to run, and get our souls, and families out of this crippling spirit's grip. We can live here in the United States, but we need to be defined by our ancients. There is no life as a white person with the spirits they brought to these shores for us that would honor our ancestors. We have seen and known this all the years we have been here as slave, visitor, immigrant, or Native person. What we need to do is grow the courage, develop the concepts, and plan the strategies to unlearn ourselves into our authentic selves.

How?

The answer is in the declaration: unlearn and listen to what you've learned by doing. On a parallel course unlearning and discovering one's self is the spiritual work this endeavor requires. It is a question of life or death, not only for us individually, but for our children's children. That vested interest alone steps us outside, just a wee bit, from under the spirit of the whites because their spirit eats their grandchildren to feed their children.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
6.28.16





Elena as Queen typifies the standard of womanhood to be idolized, and protected by men. It is in the movies, written in books, and displayed in plays, and acted out throughout American history as the catalyst for hanging Colored men for looking upon a white woman's 'purity'! - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 6.28.16