a Model of Excellence: Mrs. Obama

Michelle Obama in China doing Ta Chi !!!!

Michelle Obama

Diplomacy, at the highest level.

[First Lady] Michelle Obama with former President George W. Bush. It is a skill to build respect for people diametrically opposed to your value system, and even deeper a skill level to develop working relationships with these people in one's life and work. It is a skill not in the Trump White House. Crudeness, like cowardice, has no grace, no value to the evolution of spirit because it serves only self... - Gregory E. Woods, "Dawn Wolf", Keeper of Stories 5/16/18 

President Barack Obama walks with Nancy Reagan in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in 2009.

Diplomacy, in a best example...

Michelle Obama made an appearance at the ESPY Awards

in this black Cushnie et Ochs dress and Giovanni Rossi shoes!

Michelle Obama is the pride of her people, and the example of the feminine essence... 

their High Standards.

President Barack Obama kissed the First Lady before leaving office at end of his presidency Jan. 20, 2017. Mrs. Obama wore a burgundy silhouette dress by Jason Wu. This was the last time genuine love was expressed in the White House at this level. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

Facing a New Year!

1st Lady Michelle Obama. 

There are choices to be made in the 18th year of this century. Among them is one of style, not in the frivolous sense of dress, but of survival in a tumultuous time period when the ingredients of what makes the U.S. a terror are raging, tugging at the seams of pretense. Do Black women have choices to be made? 

Sure do. 

The wrong one is to die. One is a choice between what Michelle Obama embodies, and life in the streets dictate. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [December 29, 2017]

Gun pose.

Roxsi Iris by Roland Dawson shot at Keith Snead's studio in Newport News, Virginia.

Body paint by Hand Paintedd Bud. (2017)

Excellence in High Places!

Michelle Obama at Princeton University.

Michelle Obama on tour of South Africa

and Botswana. 2011.

Michelle Obama receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Jackson State University, in Jackson, Mississippi.

She also was the speaker at the 2016 Spring graduation.

Michelle Obama’s Style After the White House

By Christina Baez

October 26, 2017

Michelle Obama has always captured our attention when it came to her choices in fashion with good reason, and after leaving the White House her style continues to shine. Former President Barack Obama has stated that she is the embodiment of grace, grit and style...  

Michelle Obama presented the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2017 ESPY Awards on July 12, 2017 wearing a Cushnie et Ochs dress. She wore two Hearts of Fire rings worth over $20,000!

Michelle Obama during a live conversation with The Women's Foundation of Colorado President and CEO Lauren Y. Casteel in Denver, Colorado on July 25, 2017. 

Study of ourselves, our Women.

FIRST Woman, ascension. artist unknown, unnamed. Sorry. 

Fighting woman from a West African nation.

Fake hair, (for those few who do), fake eye lids, fake nails tell what story on a Black woman physically defined with an enviable body. It is a solid question the answer to will be revelatory. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

First Lady Michelle Obama on the grounds of the White House.

Sense of Women

Words of Michelle Obama mimicked...

I agree and believe Mrs. Trump copied Mrs. Obama, for reasons neither will state publicly; but I acknowledge both are women, in a country that fundamentally and historically does not put stake in women's worth, or place value in their advise. Both were speaking from a woman's place of heart the patriarchal structure of American society cannot stand for, with, or put enough stock in to stop fighting, hating, taking and colonizing! We, as a nation, are not the Iroquois Confederacy!

"We have to use the forces that gave us world power; so what sense does it make to change that?" millions said when the last elections put Trump into office.

The call for peace is unreachable for so violent a people to create, and the cry to stop the violence is as absurd as asking a cougar to stop hunting sheep, and other animals!... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/14/17 

Wonder Woman as a victim.

A reminder of

I, we, need a reminder of who a Lady is, and what the definition of a Lady is in the proper form~" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

[8/15/17] 

1st Lady Michelle Obama 

IN Pain is SHE!

older Black woman, Jo-Ani Johnson, 64.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the deepest wounds she was afflicted with and endured in the eight years of her work in the White House with bare honesty in public recently. Speaking at the Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s 30th anniversary celebration, she was asked during the event honoring her as the first Black First Lady by the president, Lauren Casteel: "What was the hardest thing about breaking this glass ceiling being the first Black First Lady?"  

Mrs. Obama said, "“The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut.” This was in reference to opponents calling her an ape and commenting about her bottom. She told the women in the audience to own their scars. She also asked them to encourage younger women who are having their first encounters with sexism or racism.

“Women, we endure those cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut,” said Mrs. Obama. “We are living with small tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. And we’re still getting up.” 

Women need this encouragement during the transition away from the patriarch structures governing Life, as we know it, and boys without nurturing initiations, and without instruction into men need understand why!  

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
July 30, 2017

Abuelita, at the plaza of Mani, Yucatan. Her name is Dońa Maria.

This photo by Teko Alejo was taken near Mérida, Mexico.

First Lady, First Lesson

What Michelle Obama Can Teach Us About Raising Empowered Girls


Michelle Obama delivered one of the most powerful and heartfelt speeches at the Democratic National Convention last week. As I listened and watched our First Lady, I couldn’t help but tear up with emotion and pride in what she has represented for so many Black women. As a wife, mother and daughter Michelle exemplifies to the country and the world the essence of what it is to be a strong, beautiful and intelligent Black woman.

Here are some lessons Michelle can teach us as we raise and empower the next generation of Black women:

1. Women are a powerful force. Women have had to fight a long time towards equality and rights. For Black women, this fight has been paved with many additional challenges and this struggle continues today. Women have had to adapt and acclimate to break through glass ceilings at work, gain the legal right to purchase a home on their own and access to opportunities more likely to be given to our male counterparts. By Michelle Obama embracing her femininity, strength and perspective she brings to the table as a woman, it has made her even more respected and acknowledged.

Lesson Learned: Women don’t have to act like a man to be strong and successful. There is incredible strength in our femininity. This is an attribute we possess which is unique to us as women.

2. Mothers create the roadmap for their daughters. Michelle Obama came from a working class family. She didn’t allow where she lived or what she may have lacked dictate her path in life. She didn’t make excuses for not succeeding. Michelle worked hard in school and her career. This mirrored what she saw in her mom and dad. Your daughter is constantly watching you and looking for cues of what’s acceptable. Often, what you do is more important than what you say because kids mirror your behavior. Look at FLOTUS and her daughters. You see two confident and focused young women. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree!

3. Take the higher road. One of Michelle’s best quotes in her speech at the Democratic National Convention was when she said, “When people go lower, we go higher.” It has been eight years of highly intense scrutiny and criticism of the Obama family. Michelle was mimicked in newspapers and magazines, at one point compared to a monkey, and often criticized for her parenting skills by some conservative parties. Her daughters were criticized for their hairstyles and also recently when her oldest daughter, Malia, was seen on video dancing at the Lollapolooza music fest. President Obama was also attacked for many of the decisions he made in his role and paradoxically for being too angry or not angry enough.

But, if you go back and look at the criticisms, you will note Michelle Obama and her family didn’t retaliate or stoop to the level of those who made these negative comments. When asked or prompted for a response to the negative comments, they would always take the high road and stay above the fray. This had to be difficult, especially with their natural instinct of wanting to protect their families.

Lesson Learned: Take the higher road even when it’s difficult. People will remember the person who deals with a difficult situation respectfully versus an individual who reacts negatively or in a condescending manner.

4. Your mind is your sexiest attribute. Beauty fades and it’s fleeting. But what makes Michelle Obama so respected is her intelligence. She is smart and witty and real. She has a sense of humor. Her beauty and confidence are evident, but her intelligence is the differentiator. It makes her highly appealing.

Lesson Learned: Teach your daughters to develop their mind not just their physical attributes. It’s the one asset that will sustain you through a lifetime.

Michelle Obama leaves a lasting impression and legacy as the First Lady of the United States and as a wife, mom and daughter. These lessons she has taught us can help empower your daughters and other young women to create their legacies! - author unnamed

First Lady Michelle Obama with daughters Malia Obama (C) and Sasha Obama (L) Photo by Jacopo Raule for Getty Images

READ: Job Well Done! 16 Accomplishments Of Michelle Obama 

First Lady Michelle Obama surprised little girls before their recital. (Jan. 2013)

To Look Up To.

1st Lady Michelle Obama.

To the First Lady, With Love:
Four thank-you notes to Michelle Obama, who has spent the past eight
years quietly and confidently changing the course of American history.

 By CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, GLORIA STEINEM, JON MEACHAM and RASHIDA JONESOCT. 17, 2016

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

She had rhythm, a flow and swerve, hands slicing air, body weight moving from foot to foot, a beautiful rhythm. In anything else but a black American body, it would have been contrived. The three-quarter sleeves of her teal dress announced its appropriateness, as did her matching brooch. But the cut of the dress scorned any “future first lady” stuffiness; it hung easy on her, as effortless as her animation. And a brooch, Old World style accessory, yes, but hers was big and ebulliently shaped and perched center on her chest. Michelle Obama was speaking. It was the 2008 Democratic National Convention. My anxiety rose and swirled, watching and willing her to be as close to perfection as possible, not for me, because I was already a believer, but for the swaths of America that would rather she stumbled.

She first appeared in the public consciousness, all common sense and mordant humor, at ease in her skin. She had the air of a woman who could balance a checkbook, and who knew a good deal when she saw it, and who would tell off whomever needed telling off. She was tall and sure and stylish. She was reluctant to be first lady, and did not hide her reluctance beneath platitudes. She seemed not so much unique as true. She sharpened her husband’s then-hazy form, made him solid, more than just a dream.

But she had to flatten herself to better fit the mold of first lady. At the law firm where they met before love felled them, she had been her husband’s mentor; they seemed to be truly friends, partners, equals in a modern marriage in a new American century. Yet voters and observers, wide strips of America, wanted her to conform and defer, to cleanse her tongue of wit and barb. When she spoke of his bad morning-breath, a quirky and humanizing detail, she was accused of emasculating him.

Because she said what she thought, and because she smiled only when she felt like smiling, and not constantly and vacuously, America’s cheapest caricature was cast on her: the Angry Black Woman. Women, in general, are not permitted anger — but from black American women, there is an added expectation of interminable gratitude, the closer to groveling the better, as though their citizenship is a phenomenon that they cannot take for granted.      

Read More 

Art of the Feminine: Depth of Knowing

Mrs. Michelle Obama with her husband, Mr. President on a date.

There is a story going around that whether true or not does not apply to most women. Most women have not touched into this power accessible to them by birth, by right within their wombs, and by Creator!

The First Couple wanted some time with themselves so they went to a little out-of-the-way place. The owner asked the Secret Service agent if he could speak to the First Lady. When she returned, she explained to her husband that he was an old boyfriend.

President Obama replied "If you had married him, you would now own this charming restaurant."

She said. "No, if I had married him, he would now be President of the United States."

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.17.16

mysterious woman in black mask.

Tiara Kristine Harris 4

"The Sacred Woman needs to be taught out from within!"

- Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

 

Who A Woman is Valued By

The day after Mrs. Trump's speech at the Republican convention she is under fire in a way men are not subjugated to at this level of achievement and presence in the world-at-large. There is a clever adage circulating the internet one can easily not examine.

"One is our First Lady, she has College Degrees, the other posed semi-nude for money, and she wants to be the next First Lady." is this a too narrow assessment of womanhood? ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 7.19.16
 

TO THE ROOTS



Harlem couple in the early 20th century.

If we read the Bible, it tells us that
Adam and Eve fell by eating of the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, but then what does it mean that
they covered their sexual parts? If the...
Christian churches had a mind to interpret
the Bible a little more intellectually,
they would immediately be able to
understand the origin of the Fall. Why
were Adam and Eve ashamed of their
sexual parts? Why did they cover them?
They should have covered their mouths
and hands. There is nothing wrong with
sexual organs. However, since people fell
through them, these parts of the human
body became a palace of shame where
heavenly love was violated. A spring of
true love should have welled forth from
there, but a fountain of false, devilish
love gushed out instead. That place
therefore became the stronghold of the
worst kind of love.

Adruma Victoria
May 18, 2016





President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama brought high levels of commitments to goals, excellence, style and diplomacy to the country and the world-at-large benefitted and learned some deep truths ...

 

Michelle Obama & the Sacred Circles

Michelle Obama's round bottom, out of respect for a series of reasons, is out of bounds
as a subject, a byline, or the hook of a joke. Silently, men admire the First Lady's body and the way she
moves and acts like an elegant Black lady. We peer into Mrs. Obama's composure and talk
about it. We have discussions about the core strength she has that monitors enormous amounts
of energies from divers places for her family and on behalf of the
country. The last task is fundamental to who a woman is and is a unique
in design within her essence. Even though the capacity is there for all women foolishness and terror and
profound ignorance has stopped the teaching process of women's sacred circles traditionally the place of
transference. We all suffer from this loss. But, Mrs. Obama in the spotlight embodies much of it.

Her powers are to be studied with truth and knowledge, and respected. This subtly within her nature is now part of the
face of the country, but the brutality of millions of whites in this country won't or cannot see any of these things, or value them in their own women. Because they won't they can't and because they can't they can and do suffer in numerous ways so obvious that other countries are silently sending Christian missionaries to the United States to serve. These are the important negotiations taking place in the world, not at any of the conferences, or diplomatic talks held here and abroad. It is the world within where truth is or is hiding! 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
July 31, 2015

Michelle Obama walking into a room !!!!

IN the Tradition of Excellence: Mrs. Obama

First Lady Michelle Obama is a conduit of the best of Black America in the deepest sense of the tradition of Black Americans. - Gregory E. Woods Keeper of Stories 1.11.16

 

Touched by her I AM: Michelle Obama



Michelle Obama walking smiling in red dress upon blue carpet.

MANHOOD TEACHING

King Solomon’s mother

"My God, in heaven! Michelle Obama is the epitome of the sacred teachings King Solomon's mother passed on to her son. Of all the women in his life his mother's words were the one's he is known for. The words he clung to in his life, and up to his death were his mother's words in his mouth continuing to shape him to the revelation of his Death! Isn't that something to consider?

In the deeper sessions with men sitting in Sacred Teaching Circles I have conducted the revelation of these deep insights into the Sacred Feminine we must all plunge into before our initiations the teachings of Solomon's mother must embed themselves within each man..." © Gregory E. Woods 10.17.12

Out of the Mouth of Babes



Michelle Obama sitting ...

A little girl asks the first lady how old she is, and what follows may be one of the cutest things you'll see all day. http://cnn.it/1HVwlP7

 

FOR WOMEN TO TEACH

Michelle Obama's pretty legs in a dreamy ombré toile de joie dress during her interview for the Associated Press !!!!

Thick between two worlds are women caught in the contradictions of identity. How does a woman navigate through the poles of walking dichotomies, and who will, or should help her? - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 8.27.13 

Miss Myles pulling up socks in bed