T E A R S

Deep in the American story is this story told by the white men who came to this land, Turtle Island, without their white women whose eyes were filled with terror. European women had never conceived of the concept of women being free, or the intellectual possibility of women's rights until they saw how the women living in the Red Nations upon the land white folks believed 'they' had discovered lived their lives! Today, those daughters, those white women's descendants are still with those terrified eyes they try to hide are unable to free themselves of their terror because deep and silent within the caves of Old Europe is the threat white men whisper in their ears.

They can take what they allowed to become law.  ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3/28/19

Photographer Mercedes Castillo Sánchez. "Rebuke" — with Jose Perez Melendez and Nerea González Cazorla. (Nov. 28, 2017)

Photographer Mercedes Castillo Sánchez. 'Absolve' — with Jose Perez Melendez and Nerea González Cazorla. (Nov. 28, 2017)

Photographer Mercedes Castillo Sánchez. 'Mordant' — with Jose Perez Melendez and Nerea González Cazorla.. (Nov. 28, 2017)

Photographer Mercedes Castillo Sánchez. 'Confined' — with Nerea González Cazorla. (Nov. 28, 2017)

Rebuke — with 

Free Spirits. Different Feel.

Flower child in the 21st century in photo by Siegart von Schlichting. (2019)

The meaning of a flower child has changed over the decades from a dancing excitement to stoic posturing. Strange.  

flower child Maitrieya Sandness in 2013 

"... but the play of it is the essence of it." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 3/12/19 

hitchhikers in the 1970's. 

MURDER, as business.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, departs after officially opening V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design museum on January 29, 2019 in Dundee, Scotland. Photo by Max Mumby. 

"Behind, and beneath the hoopla around the royal house of Britain is the menace of their dark history. It is a foul, bloody history stepped over each time acclaim is raised over the romances of British royalty, but not forgotten by non-whites, who need more than validation. Many recoil in disgust over the way these people's dark history is not addressed, as we are made to feel we should get over it. But, how is that possible when it is still profitable for them their ways of subjugation?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2/7/19

American ME.

Photographer Vern Jensen captured Aliya Mathiesen 

at Pasadena City Hall, March 2016, rejoicing!

"… White American youth are enjoying their illusion of freedom, and their vindication from past misdeeds done by their people. As recently as the other month, when a young Black man was found hung in a trailer park in Virginia, yesterday became today. The lynchings have not stopped, and the cultural vibe of white people's right to take life to get other people's stuff is as vibrant and enforced as ever before. Their defensive structures are stronger under Trump's administration, and whether liberal, or conservative, the benefits extend to both kind of white people. 

It is an old story. It is the fabric of American life. What Black folks can do is the same, and slightly different from what the Red Nations need to do to do more than survive. The other ethnic groups know how to protect their individuality, their culture's dignity, and we all have access to how we gave up so much to recover from the ravages of white conquest, and not lose more in modern times. 

What did our ancestors have that we need today? 

That is all." 

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

Feb. 01, 2019

Aunt Betty. She was the slave of Mr. Walker, at Faunsdale, and was the cook for Rev. Mr. Harrison, Rector of St. Michael’s. The picture, taken in Aunt Betty’s home, shows a typical cabin... - Joan Johnson 

White Women as Subjects

10 minute pose, graphite for Glamour & Fetish Art. 

Art is from the hand of Tim Kelly, from Baltimore. 

This title: "White Women as Subjects" is a volatile one. It is one subject in history too often unknown in depth by today's young American women activists. As well, they are subject to emotions convinced that the intensity of their reactions to social conditions is enough to make the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down! This isn't naivety. This is ignorance. The ignorance of assumption is primarily laziness. Activism is hard work. The hard part of it is the research. Research is work, and respectful of those who lived our pasts.

Understanding European history is basic to the Women's Movement. It explains; no, makes clear why the movement is first and primarily a white woman's struggle to be free. Other women are subjects to the 'crown'. Because of events unique to the 20th century, other women feel apart of this movement. Because the societal changes in the U.S. need to be white led, and the fact of what ails the souls of white women this movement is fraught with internal contradictions. For Black and Red women, the struggle is to free themselves from the histories of their past with white women, and their white men, who traveled the world killing and taking from the rest of the world. In this conquest, the inherent terror white women harbor within their wombs is of concern to us only in our relationship to the horror of what they did to other people's women!

If there is to be a woman's movement let the white women have theirs, and let our women have theirs off camera at the soul level in the ancestral realms...


- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [Jan. 18, 2019]

"Who was really sacrificed on the Cross.?"

photo by Baden Bowen of Ellis Stone.

Woman Alone by Daïdo Moriyama

Woman of Power shot with a Fuji XT2 camera several years ago by John Lehman.

During Jim Crow era...

Sidney Poitier with his first wife, Juanita Hardy, and their daughters.

Ruby Stevens in a publicity photo taken 

during her Broadway hoofer days.

Sophia Loren with mother during the premiere of "C'era Una Volta," 1967. 

no Force stronger than White Men;s Traditional Contempt for Mother.

Border fences have been terrible for wildlife and plants

Since 1994, the US government has been erecting barriers to keep people and drugs from Mexico and beyond out. By 2010, about one-third of the border had been fenced with materials ranging from barbed wire to steel, bollard to wire mesh, and chain link. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has built hundreds of miles of roads to allow the Border Patrol to access remote regions, both fenced and unfenced.

All of this construction has sliced and diced a lot of protected land along the border. And ever since the passage of the Real ID Act of 2005, DHS has had the power to waive most environmental reviews in the name of national security.

So, unlike most federal infrastructure projects, these fences have received little or no input from the public, land managers, conservation groups, or other agencies. Experts had no chance to assess beforehand what impact the fence might have on wildlife, plants, and rivers. Only after the fact have researchers documented instances where fences have interrupted wildlife corridors, and caused erosion and other damage to fragile ecosystems, as well as flooding.

But what evidence we do have is alarming. For instance, Lasky and his co-authors found that the biggest risk comes when fences bisect the range of a small population of a species with a specialized habitat, leaving the majority of the population on one side and the others adrift. His paper found 45 species and three subspecies that the current fence has affected this way... By Eliza Barclay and Sarah Frostenson Updated Oct 29, 2017, 9:16am EDT

Biker, Tianna Brinton in a desert, October 20, 2018 

This is a striking picture of Tianna Brinton. As captivating as it is it is disturbing. Behind this scene is a deeply embedded way of looking at the world that excludes the connections between Nature, and Humanity, and most disturbing the lack of connection Europeans hold with the Earth, who is not their Mother!...

This is a deep input. But, it is on my mind pondering the complexity of how President Trump processes his thoughts with a time worn belief system that holds life, land and women in contempt... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 1/15/19

A History of Violence.

3 White women who pull at the imaginations of a lot of Black men, 

Marilyn Monroe, Sandra Bullock and another. . . 

"What is tragic is the freedom claimed is vulnerable to conservative politics seeped in the tradition of thought from the history of Europe! It is a mistake not to know this history, or these historical connections interlocked in our present state of affairs. It is not about red or blue states, or conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats; it is from the annals of European histories we need to focus upon for insights and revelations from the 'why?' question not studied. Anything else is weak, structurally undermining the very tenor, and strength of what makes this Democracy work as well as it has despite its gross contradictions!" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [11/27/18] 

Adel P. reflects a violent history between the long traditions of Native women and the intention of white people to civilize the Red people. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

Adel P. reflects an ideal the substance of which has laid to waste the ideals of Creation, where the Garden of Eden teemed with Life in what became to be known as Bilad as Sudan. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

"Offerings are essential to ritual and our ceremonies..."

2 point out.

Storytelling of this sort is terrifying because it ends with aging and death. Unable to see, and embrace sacred process the ability to embody spiritual powers is neglected in the process of 'raising' children, and not part of the practice of living in American culture. It began this way. Unexamined millions of tragedies feed each other to sustain the angst of life in the States. It is a strange insistence to remain in the incompleteness of an existence, but one that is very American!

The answer to this riddle is in the weave of its design.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
August 15, 2018

Old woman and her cats.

"[This] Old woman in a short blue dress and an nasty feel to her style of expression is something of a force of reckoning to stand in front of by what is missed. In this absence is the feel and drive of her need for sex..." ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/13/18 

the pussy of Lindsay should be valued, not by its moisture or feel, but by its inherent sacredness. The problem is in the word sacred and how in American psychology removing crudeness from American perception is unheard of by our social norms. Women in European/American  history are not more than 50 years into being respected by white men! That group of men are important for validation because their ideologies are centered around taking and killing! One cannot say it enough. "White men hold women in low standing, not as their equal." ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/13/18 

Shifts

One Texas county just swore in 17 black female judges

By AJ Willingham, CNN Jan. 01, 2019

A new year brought the swearing-in of newly elected officials in Harris County, Texas, and among them were 17 black female judges.

The group of women, who were part of a local democratic campaign called "Black Girl Magic Texas," first made history -- and headlines -- when they won their respective midterm elections in November. Together, they make up what is believed to be the largest group of black female judges to be elected at the same time in Harris County history.

The Harris County Democratic Party posted photos of the swearing-in ceremony, which took place on Tuesday morning.

"Today we usher in a new era of representative government and progressive leadership in Harris County," the group wrote.

The public was invited to attend the ceremony, and images of the event from CNN affiliate KHOU show a packed house.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo was also sworn in on Tuesday. Hidalgo is a 27-year-old Colombian immigrant who unseated incumbent Republican Ed Emmett in November. At the time, Emmett had held the position of Country Judge for more than ten years.

Hidalgo has spoken at length about the importance of diversity in Harris County's government. "We made history in Harris County on November 6 by electing a talented group of individuals who reflect the people and communities we serve," she said in a press release for Tuesday's ceremony. "That would not have been possible without the support of the residents of Harris County."

Harris County, which includes Houston, is the largest county in the state. According to the most recent census data, 43% of people in Harris County are Hispanic, and nearly 20% of the county's residents identify as African-American.

17 Black women judges elected to offices in Harris County, Texas November 2018. photo courtesy of Harris County Democratic Party.

AMERICA, the Great Comedic Draw

Famine looks like this...

White dress worn by Mary Jean on New Years day 2016. 

This was an important day in American history.

Nobody is up this time of day at the beginning of another year. We were asleep other years. Let us hope this has changed. Maybe this will be the "Year of the Dawning of Awareness"!!! 

OK. That was funny. Americans love the slumber of their awareness, and enjoy a non-relationship with intellectual prowess, and have some kind of pride in not being at a high level in their thinking about global responsibility. Their actions demonstrating the juvenile discontent they believe makes them forceful is associated, in their minds, with national pride. It is the strangest thing, but it is very white American!  

Gregory E. Woods, 
Keeper of Stories 

flag & the Black woman is a study unto itself. 

www.ShadesGifts.com