LINKS to Touch.

eye of Horus, the eyes of a Black woman.

Exquisite beauty of this woman quietly sipping morning coffee.

Exquisite beauty of this woman defies and defines something we need, as men, only accessible by touching our core value. Engaging the soul of a man is by definition effortless done by certain women. An experience like this changes what is formed within a man to resist her touch. We don't recover from the encounter, we change because of the touch... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9/28/18

a Serious interjection into...

"Meditation is a study of Spirit the African can look into with long looks into wisdoms old, and revelations newly connected to the Ancients! African spirituality, by definition. is an intangible we touch by peering into the soul of Creation..." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [August 23, 2018]

God uses the birth canal to bring forth many beautiful things (new planets, new stars, and adorable babies). 

by photographer Roland Dawson.

Adriana Lima for Donna Karan, Spring 2014 ad campaign. 

"The impact of the Land of the Blacks overwhelms and has long overwhelmed Europe, 

and her limited genius. If you sit still this comes to you." 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/23/18

Muse is Mahany Pery, the photographer is Adriano Damas for Clam magazine.

Goddess forms ancient of days. 

grg

Ancient Today.

Ank worn subtly by this woman enhances something so subtle it cannot be touched, but touch is its core value...The symbolic power of a thing is a symbol, but the power of a symbol is inherent within the spiritual practices the symbol is made to embody. The cowrie shell from the spiritual practices of West African cultures and the Kemit symbols from the north of the Black continent and from all directions of the Land of the Blacks, the spiritual powers of ancient peoples are potent, even in dormancy. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/16/18

African woman's exquisite beauty...

Darla Crane is a direct competition to the promise of commitment to the principle of devotion to the essence of African womanhood. Perhaps the energetic pull is lust, or it is a merely a childish dare to see what lies beyond. These are the things to ponder as an African in the aftermath of the era of European conquest. The search for identity has to be wrestled from the command of white power over our consciousness. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/22/18

DARK Women

Khoudia Diop by Joey Rosado for ’NYENYO’ Campaign; Senegal 

View 

Traditional woman from somewhere in Africa!

Creation story of EVE. 

Goddess Guinevere is the Goddess of true love. She helps us ensure that we enter into partnership with our true love and she assists in keeping that love alive. Romance is not an outmoded concept- far from it!! 

Ifa in Black Americans

[The] Hip Black woman on a city street attired for the fall in the hippest of ways in the early 21st century will be remembered for something else inaccessible to white women and what they bring to the times. Africanism develops the spirit of the intellect. This is the furthest construct from the consciousness of white Americans. This expansive way of seeing, of looking within one's self is at the core of the spiritual traditions of West Africa, where the majority of slaves were stolen from to work for lazy whites. This way of being is systematically being driven out of Black American children in the schools by Black American's thirst to be accepted by white people.


 ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [August 6, 2018]

Differences between the African and the Euro-American

Abby Parece ,by the way in jeans, makes the light look better back in 2015!...

Abby Parece made a statement in 2015: "If you keep looking back you might miss what is standing right in front of you!" "What would Sankofa say?" would be the question to ask, not being a white man. I am an African First Nation man.

Sankofa affirms the spiritual practice of looking backwards to better see the present and the future. It is distinctly Akan, from the Adinkra system of writing in present day Ghana and the Ivory Coast. In Colonial times European countries after slaughter and subjugation the continent of Africa was divided amongst the war participants against African rule, thus becoming countries with multi-linguistic groups, and cultures living in new circumstances.

The immediate task to maintain cultures and rituals throughout the continent of Africa was, and to this day difficult because Europeans as Colonial powers are extremely brutal. There are quite a number of West African authors, from the 1960's onward who have critiqued this time and illustrated detailed stories of that initial period, and how it moved through the decades. In these struggles, Sankofa was the appropriate technique amongst others to maintain the ancient cultures as France, and England, in particular thrust their nasty spirit into daily life!

In the United States, white Americans have inflicted themselves with gross contradictions to live by as they spread dark forces upon the people indigenous to this land, and the enslaved Africans they kept alive to copulate bringing forth more 'property' to bear upon their individual, and collective wealth. This system of manipulation for financial gain and cultural dominance to this end slaughter ancient ritual practices of the many African traditions that survived the Middle Passage. The Church, the educators, the business men, and the Department of War were the high priests of this orgy of dismantling the soul of people, Red and Black.

The 20th century bore fruit from this violence in both of our communities. Sankofa became more of a presence in the African spiritual communities in major cities as more and more Black American's struggles brought them closer home to who their ancestors prayed better understanding of self over mere survival. Washington DC's African spiritual communities are 'houses'.

There are eleven (11) houses: Yoruba, Akan, Ausar Auset, and one house of Voudoun. Each employ Sankofa in the practicality of unlearning what white people poured into our souls, as bowel. It is safe to say, and accurate to say the Sankofa presents itself to need, and is indifferent to being disregarded the way whites like to overcome their dichotomies with denial insisting upon other ethnic groups to simply get over whatever they (we) think they did to us!


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
March 7, 2018

Abby Parece by EASPHTOGRAPHY in October of 2015.

Oxum, graciosa mãe!

One Black woman asks a question. photographer, Roland Dawson.

Oxum, graciosa mãe, plena de sabedoria!
Que enfeita seus filhos com bronze
Que fica muito tempo no fundo das águas gerando riquezas
Que se recolhe ao rio para cuidar das crianças
Que cava e cava a areia e nela enterra dinheiro Mulher poderosa que não pode ser atacada


Oshun, Gracious Mother, full of wisdom who adorns her children with bronze, which is too long at the bottom of the water generating riches, Who gathers to the river to take children, who digs and digs the sand and buries money. Powerful woman who cannot be attacked.

Balance needs purpose.

A Black woman wearing a denim shirt with open shoulders comfortable in black leather pants is sporting something special a man would hopefully like to explore, if he can see beyond the fashion as style and see.  

"Defining one's self is as important and wondrous an exploration as unlearning the governing stories of one's life. Both definition and unlearning play into the why of existence in a parallel relationship with how things work.

It is more of a mystery not walking this path in Life."

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
12/18/17 

Ank worn by Shāsa Maāt on her third eye. 2016.

Shāsa Maāt

Symbols: What do you live under?

I see an opal shape, the eye of Horus, an Adinkra symbol of love, I believe, the wings of a bird, fire and the Tree of Life! The roots of the tree swirl with 'three'; is that related the three cycles of women's lives? Are there the bird's wings of the phoenix? A lot of questions. Any answers? ... - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 10/23/17 

Symbol of what.

face of an NDN woman wearing Deer skin.

the Ankh is the key of Life, eternal life, strength and health from the spiritual tradition of ancient people of Kemit! 

Symbols of one woman are the mysteries of her essence. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

Carmen Dell'Orefice, a model of exquisite portions of magic, formula for awe and the divine sport of enjoying the process of seguing. . . - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.9.16 

LITTLE RICHARD

Ignoring all the false sentiment and forced support for being aligned with saluting feminine men Little Richard came up in a time of crisis in the Negro community deep in a struggle (once again) to reconstruct manhood. The demons of white sensibilities towards Colored peoples had hard deep feelings about what the law allowed to happen to Black men.

The law allowed itself to be used as white men saw fit, and the law also forbade Negro men from protecting their families from the violent whims of white men and white women and white children. The men struggled with this internally and many defied those men's inclination killing some white men here and there. They escaped north, assumed new names and disappeared into another America.

Little Richard was a great contradiction. He came up in that struggle and pushed his feminine manhood into the face of white people, who fear a power he never identified as power, but led them to acceptance because the sexual nature of Richard's music tantalized listener's contradictions around sex, and sex appeal. Black people were afraid of many things, but proud of any 'Member', as we called one another back then; who succeeded in the entertainment world. Little Richard acquired so much personal power he was spared the severe beatings he would have received from men had he not being so powerful a force and successful. His achievement was so important the African within was exalted, somehow, and perceived by Black folks one way without fear, but pride and by whites with wonder, awe and a reckoning of their own fundamental flaw: inferiority before true genius of the dark melanin and African spiritual powers Little Richard evoked, used and understood.

I remember this clearly. Little Richard was a sissy. In those days Blacks made a choice about men like him: beat him, kill him, accept him, ignore him or try to understand. 


- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10/9/17  

the Illusion of Hope.

Ómí Tútú


Hoje ela parou para pensar na vida. Mil sensações lhe ocorreram em meio as lembranças: 'Por que me entreguei a quem não merecia? Por que insisti naquilo que já estava quebrado? Por que ainda não consegui desapegar de quem tanto mal me fez?'.

Chegou a conclusão que seu problema sempre foi o excesso de paixão. Ela desafiou o mundo pelo seu coração, quis provar aos outros e a si que estavam todos errados e que ela poderia dar certo com quem nunca tinha dado certo com ninguém.

Seus erros foram os erros de toda garota apaixonada: Acreditar, tentar de novo e em meio a desconfiança ainda assim insistir.

Dói tentar e fracassar, dói se questionar sobre onde ela está errando. Talvez se ela soubesse esquecer, mas essa cabecinha parece lembrar de tudo, cada momento.

Porque ela é paixão da cabeça aos pés. E tem de existir alguém por aí que a faça sentir que apesar de tudo valeu a pena esperar.

Felipe Sandrin
#ómítútú

Afro-Brazilian woman.

Today she stopped to think about life. A thousand sensations occurred to him amid the memories: ' why did I turn myself in to those who did not deserve it? Why did i insist on what was already broken? Why haven't I been able to let go of who so badly did me? '.

It has come to the conclusion that your problem has always been excess passion. She challenged the world for her heart, wanted to prove to others and to you that they were all wrong and that she could work with who she had never worked with anyone.

Her mistakes were the mistakes of every passionate girl: to believe, to try again and amid mistrust still to insist.

It hurts to try and fail, it hurts to wonder where she's missing. Maybe if she could forget, but that little head seems to remember everything, every moment.

Because She's passion from head to toe. And There's got to be someone out there that makes her feel that despite everything worth waiting for.

Felipe Sandrin 



"If a mature man or woman reads deep into the above written words of Felipe Sandrin, they will hear a grave error of thought, and unfocused intent. The words are those of someone consistent in their consistency, who is unwilling to do the obvious: undo, unlearn." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2/02/18 

"African women's place in the world is essential the way chocolate is a reward of a variety, most cherish, but misunderstand in the context of Africanisms, so long divorced from its rightful place!" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

Soul Roles

Art by Frank Morrison

Aqui é:

Onde Minha Alma se derrama em palavras para agraciar quem as lê, para acalentar quem as entende, em um entrelaçar de linhas que compõe
melodiosa sinfonia de letras. Para quem souber ler nas entrelinhas.

This is:
Where my soul pours in words to grace those who read them, to cherish those who understand them, in a intertwine of lines that compose
Melodious Symphony of letters. For anyone who can read between the lines. - Ómí Tútú

ARt - African Spiritual Woman.

Seu Ase will be to keep the world...

"Seu Ase será para manter o mundo ... Isso será um pássaro contido numa cabaça coberta. Exercite seu Ase com cuidado! De acordo com o Oráculo de Ifá, Iya Mi Aje Osoronga é o um dos nomes sagrados da entidade misteriosa e divina que conhecemos como poder feminino, ou seja, o sexo identificado como feminilidade, o que implica todas as características de feminilidade! Cultos Africano apresentam as características únicas em um nível humano que existem no divino "IyaMi."

" your ase will be to keep the world... that will be a bird contained in a covered gourd. Exercise your ase carefully! According to the oracle of Ifá, iya mi aje osoronga is one of the sacred names of the mysterious and divine entity that we know as female power, i.e. sex identified as femininity, which implies all the characteristics of femininity! African cults present the unique features on a human level that exist in the divine " Iyami." 

Ómí Tútú

Owl Medicine People at work.