Responsible for tomorrow . . .

Respect your Elders. photo by The Turquoise Skies 

October 22, 2016

Relationship between the People and their Elders and Ancestors are missing pieces in our lives, and cultures. . .

There is a big difference between an Elder and an old person. Someone just getting old is a far distance from a one who has seen their life as a teaching being taught and learned. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

A Mystery Teaching Us

God's Power Is Greater Than Your Problem
Rev. Dr. Sinclair Grey III 

God can make anything that appears impossible a reality. In other words, what may not make sense to you or seem logical in your sight isn't a problem for Almighty God. I need to say that again. With God, all things are possible because nothing is bigger than God and nothing is too difficult for our God to handle. All you have to do is be obedient to His will and trust Him without doubting. 

The Bible tells us when Abraham and Sarah had surpassed their biological years of having a child that God stepped in and reversed what seemed impossible. How so? Because God promised them a child. As you and I know, when God promises, He delivers. Through God's omnipotence, "The Lord dealt with Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him." Please don't miss this. Never doubt God. Never question His love for you. And never think your situation is too difficult for Him.


KNOW THIS:


The lesson of Sarah and Abraham extends into the realms of sexual potency. It is a deep undertaking into the restorative powers of sex, and the resurrection principles sexual energies. It isn't the easiest thing for me to put into English, but being 100 years old Abraham's life force has a significance in its symbolism. I am outside of the lexicon of canon law teaching into the mysticism of thought, action and purpose attempting to explain it. .

First of all we are thinking and thought needs to know it has a beginning. Beyond that where this teaching comes from the archetype within this story is the unthinkable life-death, abstract principle of all that is and all that is not. This the where the beat and the pulse of life-death-resurrection is projected into temporal continuity. This is a battle, a struggle not forever going on, but constantly in motion within the life of the body. It lived in Sarah and Abraham as it does in us all.

Sarah and Abraham came together as promised and their sex was born again into a light and a source of everlasting power not because Sarah was an extraordinary lover, but she and her husband were recipients of particular power(s). Abraham in covenant relationship with his death, and Sarah deeply embroiled in the mysterious aspect of blood and water exalted the principle of life-death beyond the simple understanding of 'in the beginning' tied themselves together and every aspect of Creation acted through their projection against itself and became cosmically deathless.

They destroyed illusion. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.18.13

Cosetta Chantal
May 10, 2013

8 Forces = Creation

hair flung into the air by belly dancer

During the years time moved around and gave me age I've thought about the so-called struggle with the Devil, and I began to see the emphasis on him as a Magician's Trick; a clever way of throwing out of sync where the focus of spiritual work should be: within. Not only is the universe reflected within our being the shadows and the light of our souls is reflective of the elements that compose Creation. Creation is a dance of elements. It is math and law, as Old Man taught me over the same years that gave me age, and insights.

Morihei Ueshiba, who founded Aikido, observed and shared that "Eight forces sustain creation: movement and stillness, solidification and fluidity, extension and contraction, unification and division."  When the Sioux war chief, Sitting Bull was in a battle he said, "Today is a good day to die, for all the things of my life are here." Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and the Light..."

These are long ways of men saying what women teach by their powers of Birth. Life-death-resurrection is the fundamental thread within the mystery teachings of Judaism, and from the ancient mysterious of the Egyptians, and many other indigenous traditions lives these sensible  observations felt in the way one lives with the Earth, our Mother.

War-like cultures have to have an enemy. Islam talks about the holy jihad as the inner battle, or struggle one undertakes within one's soul between light and dark, good and evil. These themes are fundamental to growth, and uncovering the mysteries we come from and are born into and are compelled to explore. If one needs a devil to focus on to become his/her best self; so be it. It is just that Old Man forbade me giving Satan any energy by acknowledging, or saying his name. Old Man said Christians say his name, and gave him more credit for things than they do Jesus!

- Gregory E. Woods, 

Keeper of Stories

10.10.13

The Great I AM

Photography by Omer H. Paracha

This art was inspired by cover of Kanye West's new album, "Yeesus"

This is a powerful Medicine Wheel teaching, and it is an extreme assertion to the mind of many a fundamentalist of Islamic and Christian leanings, and would lead them to harsh judgement, and condemnation of the artist and his conceptual pull towards 'divinity from within'. One person may be a Seeker who discovered with delight the indwelling power of Creation and the Creator exists not as an intellectual abstraction, or a distant authority but as a living entity within and throughout the essence of Life. These people immediately grasp the sanctity of Knowing, and their presence upon the Earth, our Mother transforms darker properties of coarse elements such as judgement into forms of light. That is how enlightenment works.

I guess it is save to say, "Beauty and Art are in the eye of the beholder, as well as the Sacred is within the body of Belief."

The deep probes into the psyche have traditionally been the way of the Shaman, the Healer who took care of the People in smaller social structures (sedentary tribes, towns, nomadic tribes). But, the time of the one-on-one tutelage to pass down spiritual and sacred knowledge to an apprentice has been forced to become an old model. The population has exceeded any projected number. Only the dreams of Seers, long dead saw these vast numbers of people upon the planet. Moses saw it, but few solutions to the complexity of living were revealed, and the art and responsibility of taking care of the soul, and the collective of souls (community) was left to the design of each era's spiritual people. This form of survival challenged the emotions and the tactics, and responsibilities of traditional healers, and Shaman forcing a creativity upon the lot of them to 'see' into the futures of their times.

My Grandfather-Teacher, Ojuku, was slow and meticulous. Our one-on-ones held us tight together for decades. I felt the shifts in my being within the context of our very private and intimate settings. The secrecy was a style of learning. It was linked to the dangers he faced first accepting and then learning his craft alone for many years. I asked him once to write a book.

He said, "No. You will write my book."

Interesting aside: Old Man was right. I would write his story in my living and service. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.29.13

from collection of Hans Bayer
August 28, 2013

Nascent

Traci Bingham naked in boots!!!!

Pamela Anderson...

To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me. - Isaac Newton









I.

"You don't grow old you grow old not growing." a spirit told me once in the long ago when I was suspended between the worlds. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 











II.

"Death is the final stage of growth. The seed dies to bring the plant." was one of the deeper teachings Old Man gave me in our years together. Those teachings did not come to me from him as if he was a drop of water and I, the mouth gaped wide beneath the faucet. We were a process where his harshness jarred my senses, his examples sheared away the layers of sleep with awareness of time as a non-consequential point of reference, and the space between consciousness, and magic were narrowing my perceptions into formlessness that kept me in a state of learning, and hunting. Our way was the old way of Grandfather and Grandson, Teacher and Student, Master and pupil. 

This tutelage opened me up to the places I was familiar with before and during my childhood. You see my dilemma was one of relevance, and I was not relevant as a young man. The obsessions and preoccupations of my peers were curiosities to me. I gazed at what held them transfixed fascinated, but untouched, or enamored as they were with the things they worked hard for. Looking for and finding work stirred the deepest sorrows within me. What I was born for had no place in the time I needed to feed my family. So, I learned to shift and change myself into a body of energy that appealed to whomever needed to be impressed enough by me to hire me. It worked to the degree that I had food, fire, shelter, raiment and water. It was enough! We did not die, nor were we wet in the rain. Our stomachs did not rumble us to sleep, and the fire did not go out. For that I was grateful.

We lived next to forests deep and wide. I was grateful. My teachers lived in those forests, and I learned, developed and arranged myself into the mists of dawn, the intergalactic exchanges of twilight, the internal dialogues of night time, and the surprises of daylight! What that means is not simple, yet it is simple. 

Olivia sitting in grass with a basket of fruit naked  is telling a story we can deny, but live out in contradictions and conformations of the truth of the story she is telling in her stillness. - Gregory E. Woods 11.15.13

III.

"True priesthood and true mastery is maintaining a level of divinity at a constant on." I learned from Saarifaa Saa, an African priestess from Georgia, in my long ago. In our relationship Saarifaa Saa was the elder who taught me from the inner circles of the Women's Womb teachings. I don't know how to speak of those times without the naïveté  I held and the naïveté  left within me after those times passed.  What I can convey about that lifetime is expressed in my living, and my perception, and how I am perceived the way a story is in its being, its context. - Gregory E. Woods 11.15.13

actress Elizabeth Berkley
More Elizabeth Berkley pictures

IV.

Finding a woman and being found by a woman are not the same thing. Being available and ready for the woman you need is the third teacher of a man's spirit. These three are teachers. You have to see them as teachers, not adversaries, or adversarial warriors assailing your soul. My covenant brother Rev. Jon Chandler during those times of meeting and associating with those three teachers told me, "You have to become vulnerable to her to be a strength to her."

I had to learn which one of the three teachers this wisdom was applicable to, and what part of me would be accessible to the inevitable changes each teacher would bring to me. It proved to be a process each teacher put me through. In the end it turned out to be the Coyote tricking me into a life away from mere existence into a life steered by the first and the second teacher into the presence of the third teacher who became the wife I have now. 

"The Coyote is the Gentle Trickster. He is all those things that trick us into learning..." I read somewhere. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.14.13

SPACE BETWEEN BREATHS

In the beginning of my first marriage Old Man knocked on my door disturbing my sleep, and romance with an incredible thing to tell me. For the next three, or maybe four hours Old Man told me the Creation story of Life. I couldn't tell how long the story was because his line of consciousness altered mine and I became lost in a space between worlds his words reminded me of when I parted the cloak of existence and entered this journey.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
4.19.13

... deep within the loins springs Life. With words a song, a dream, an idea comes bounding into the forefront of consciousness. It is the continual expression the Creator exemplified in the proverbial 'beginning'. ~ Gregory E. Woods

She stood tall, and boldly before Life. I was in awe.

Powers arise within the beast of a mother's heart to receive her husband, or to perceive the needs of a child, to drink from a lover's cup, to know the deeper things of womanhood. It is a stately posture in one realm of understanding self, but deeper the She of her Being rests knowing the more embolden she becomes in full view of what is dangerous within Creation, and its stories of origin is the source of her powers. These of all of many things makes her formidable, and beautiful, and a subject to behold, a puzzle to muse over, a feeling to know, and embrace. So deep is the feeling of knowing something from the Beyond she creates within a man the grip of his masculine energy lines from within the folds, and shape of her Holy Place, her smile, and deep set eyes of her Heart of Hearts.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3.19.14

FACE: Old Man & the SEA

The old man's picture was taken by Don Bell Photography in San Juan, Puerto Rico
in November of 2012.

SPIRITUAL SCIENCES at work

photographer Omer H. Paracha was inspired in this piece by singer Kanye West's cover to his new album, "YEESUS"!
August 9, 2013

"This is a powerful Medicine Wheel teaching, and it is an extreme assertion against the sovereignty of God to the minds of many a fundamentalist of Islamic and Christian persuasions. One person may be the Seeker, and discovered with delight the indwelling power, and presence of Creation and the Creator existing not as an intellectual abstraction, but as a living entity within! 

The deep probes into the psyche have traditionally been the way of the Shaman, the Healer who took care of the village. But the time of the one-on-one tutelage and the passing down of spiritual and sacred knowledge to an apprentice has been forced to become an old model. Earth's population has exceeded any projected number. Only the dreams of Seers long dead saw these vast numbers of people upon the planet. Moses saw our times, but few solutions to the complexity of relationships and our survival were revealed, and the art and responsibility of taking care of the soul was left to the design of each era's spiritual people..." ~ Alowan Chanteh Inyan Wichasha, 8.28.13

from collection of Hans Bayer
August 28, 2013

SAGE MAN

AN OLD MAN'S DEATH

Al Searle died a few days ago. A subtle murky part of my being moved in his passing as if an ornate bowl was moved from one place in the sitting room to another to be viewed differently or to reflect the sunlight coming through the windows directly. The Old Man, Ojuku, my Grandfather-Teacher died a few months ago. He let go of his life, and his spirit slid playful without a care into the next realm. He watches me with a leisurely studied gaze knowing, as usual, more than I know about what I need to know, and smiling silently knowing I will follow paths that will lead me to the reality, the knowing I have been attracted to in this life will guide my path in the next.

It is a strange, no, comforting thing merging into the Unknown knowing something you don’t know in an intimate way. Strange, but it is beyond English to see the unspoken words around a dying man who has lived a long life outside of the traditions of Judeo-Christian worlds of perception to embrace the roots of existence and the texture of relationships with the mysteries, beginnings, evolutions, and timelessness. Al had spoke to me the last afternoon we had together about the Cup of Perception laying between his wife, dead a little over a year, and himself at 96, frail and vibrant. This cup was the only way the two of them could grasp in a moment and speak to the soul of the matter between them, the matter they come from and return to, and the things which matter most. This cup could alter perception the same way sunlight moving from one direction slowly to another changes the way a tree in his backyard appeared. This Cup of Perception was a merging process. His dying the other day makes this clear to me.

Reading Maria Vamvalis’ blog entry, Life’s Exquisite Promise, she quoted the author of Letters to a Young Poet. The man, Mr. Rilke said, “...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Therein lay an answer to questions I could not ask that ached, and nudged for expression within me.

Gregory E. Woods, Grandfather-Teacher