AFRICAN RED WOMAN

“The transposition of the theme of African womanhood is embodied within African-Native American women throughout the Red Diaspora. The thematic thrust of her meaning in the worlds of mankind is majestic and colorful. It is as contradictory as an assertion of power into worlds that deny Mother’s power yet yearn for it and need its force upon consciousness to shift and change. The music of African Red women of the Red Nations is multi-themed, singular in its devouring appetite for recognition, truth telling, and stories for her children and children's children growth. All of the Red nations who married African women bear her resemblance and her blood is their bloodlines. It is in you. It is in me.” ©Gregory E. Woods 

Michelle Sujai (seated) & Miccusukee Indians in 2010

IMPERIAL DYNASTY of the EMERALD SERPENT

African art - a woman with horns of the Imperial Dynasty of the Emerald Serpent

IMPERIAL DYNASTY of the EMERALD SERPENT


“The Priestess-Warrioress dominated the minds of her subjects without oppression because she embodied the elements of Fear as a woman who created and mastered fears. The People thought highly of her abilities, but stayed away from her as a necessity for their survival. The danger of her lineage was at the triangle, the apex of the triangle between her legs where only one Man ever entered, explored and faltered in his movements. He barely regained his sense of Self prior to their sexual explorations. What he did have of value to her was intimate knowledge of her possessed by no one, but sought by many. She was the essence of a sensuality dark with danger, red with resolution, and powerful enough to scale the heights of creativity, and tar the lower caverns of a soul.

If this isn’t her then who is she?"

breasts of a woman from the Imperial Dynasty of the Emerald Serpent

... the only man who had ever entered her making love to her had this image of her imprinted into his memory as a talisman, a healing balm, an energy of divine principles not easily discern without a mind to serve, heal, empower, and trust in the divinity of her will, her essential elements that made Creation possible, and copulation mysterious. Everything he ate of hers tasted good, and elevated the senses he had to perceive the fragrance of her breath, her tantalizing breathe of Life as prayers, and unctions of her spirit. Such was their union: powerful, memorable, and dangerous.

African woman of the Imperial dynasty of the Emerald Serpent

 

No one dared look at her breasts, but every man did. The strength and the invisible delicate flower petals within her countenance was implied, and the physical strength she projected was not perceived. The amount of hair upon her head took up where her physical strength left off taunting masculine prowess, and opened peripheral vision to see the vision she carried within her capacity to kill, and absorb the men who came to her beds.

Creation story from the Imperial Dynasty of the Emerald Serpent

“Every element essential to the rituals shamans and healers employ took on the forms of animals whose bodies hold their Medicines gathered around the concepts of duality and the serpentine fires of healing and restoration…”

Elders ancient of days in the mountains of the Imperial Dynasty of the Emerald Serpent

“... the Elders Ancient of Days did not allow, permit, or know how to stop praying and doing ceremony for the lands they came from, and the people they are responsible for. Their inability to perceive the lines of demarcation is a telling, a testimony of focused energies their descendents absorb into their bodies..." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

BIG BLACK WOMEN: Mothers of Creation

big black model by Terry Richardson !!!!

Big Black women are all over the African Diaspora either embracing themselves, denying themselves, being themselves or starving themselves into the form of insecure white women, or there are combinations of the four that are defining what African men loved, and revered in their women, and white explorers, in the past, who marveled at and gasped in awe steeped in disbelief at their forms.


Today there is an onslaught of spit, venom, contempt, and caricatures heaped upon the image of big black women who shaped the original designs of the Goddess, fertility, sexual powers, and gave sensuality to the form of Earth Mother’s energies. Why?

Why lies in the answers to the questions about sacredness, avoidance around slavery, and the cultural shame of white men raping Black slave and free women with aplomb throughout their history of interaction with our people. Why is about the inability of African men to protect their women and children as men. The dignity of women, their rights is centered on the energies, and the restoration of dignity and deep respect for African women. Who are these women?

They are our mothers, grandmothers, and our birth stories. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Drum

Exu

Exu

The Divine Messenger

Exu (known as Eleggua in Santeria and Legba in Candomble) is the owner of the roads and doors in this world. He is the repository of ashe. The colors red and black or white and black are his and codify his contradictory nature. In particular, Exu stands at the crossroads of the human and the divine, as he is a child-like messenger between the two worlds. In this role, it is not surprising that he has a very close relationship with the orisha of divination, Orunmila. Nothing can be done in either world without his permission. Exu is always propitiated and always called first before any other orisha as he opens the door between the worlds and opens our roads in life. He recognizes himself and is recognised by the numbers 3 and 21.

Exu, for any of you who are familiar with any earth centered religion, fulfills the role of the divine messenger. Every earth centered tradition that I know of, believes that there is some force in nature, or spiritual presence, or some power that allows humans to communicate with nature and allows nature to communicate with humans. It is the function of translation. The divine messenger translates the language of nature into the language of humans and the language of humans into the language of nature.

The most abstract manifestation of Exu is as it comes into being in the Odu Ose 'Tura which appears as follows:

I IIII II III

This is the symbolic representation of the energy pattern that incarnates Exu. This Odu is used as a magnet to invoke the power of the divine messenger. In Ifá Creation Myth, the eternal rock of creation is called Oyigiyigi. This rock separated into four calabashes of creation. These four calabashes interacted with one another to form sixteen sacred principles called Olu Odu or the primal principles of creation. In Ifá the sacred number seventeen represents the sixteen primal Odu plus Ose'Tura which is the seventeenth Odu of Ifá. This Odu has the function of causing the Olu Odu to copulate generating the two hundred and forty Odu that are generated by the first sixteen Odu. This suggests that Exu, in addition to being the Divine Messenger, is also primal seed of generation.

Exu

Ifá is the religious tradition of Yoruba culture. It is the parent religion of all the different spiritual societies, fraternities and sororities that exist within the culture. The reason that Ifá is considered the source of all the other forms of worship within Yoruba culture has to do with the role of Exu and Ose 'Tura in relationship to the primal Olu Odu. In essence when an Ifá priest is initiated, they invoke the first sixteen Odu, then they invoke Ose'Tura. This is a ritual reenactment of the original moment of the Creation of diversity within the Universe. This ritual event gives the initiate a glimpse of the primal event that generated being as we experience in human life. It is the mystical vision of that event that gives the Prophet Orunmila the praise name "Eleri - ipin" which means "Witness to Creation."

In addition to being the Divine Messenger, Exu has several other functions. That of a Divine Trickster and that of a Door Opener. Taking them one at a time, should give a broader understanding of Exu as a force in nature. In the role of Exu as divine trickster, most of the anthropological literature identifies the trickster as a random form of harassment. In some literature Exu is described as an "evil" phenomena and is often translated as the devil. But there is a very sacred function for all tricksters in all traditional cultures. That function is to bring to each one of us the truth that we are all interconnected and inter-related. It is the eternal truth that no one can be totally self reliant. The role of the trickster is to let those who believe that all their problems are covered, that they are a tough guy and will never cry, know that this self perception may not be true. His goal behind his tricks is to create an awareness of inter-relatedness.

This inter-relatedness is not just limited to people. We are dependant on other people to survive in the world and we are dependant on communication with nature to survive in the world. The divine trickster slaps us up side our head when we empty too much garbage in our water. If it is disruptive, we can expect a wake up call from Exu.

The Divine Trickster is not some arbitrary, malevolent force that is out to get you if you don't behave. That is the Christian "boogy man" model. The divine trickster is a fundamental principle of the structure of reality, based on the idea that if you see an egg that hatches and something comes out with wings, there's a pretty good chance that its a bird. The universe is not arbitrary. Exu is also the opener of the doors; the messenger of the gods. He is a great diviner who does not need an oracle to see the future. He owns the keys to all doors, to evil as well as good. He seems to take pleasure in creating compromising situations and trouble between humans but his actions are always justified though he alone knows the true meaning of justice and sees things which are hidden from humanity as well as other Orishas. He can be equally cruel and generous; treacherous, dangerous and capricicious like fate itself.

It is said of Exu that of the Orisha he is both the highest and the lowest, a prince and a pauper who is equally at ease in a palace and a garbage dump. With Oya, he rules over the four winds. He is a great healer and a master magician. His spells and amulets are all powerful and impossible to destroy.