Broken by LAW

Murderous woman.

"The deepest fear a woman can conjure within a man is her being absorbed into killing..."

~ Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

Feb. 12, 2017.

Death certainly stalks women scared inside of marriages and relationships with men violent in their nature who feel dominance is based upon the subjection of his woman to his will. In the aftermath of her breaking point his death is his design. The law doesn't see it that way because laws meant to protect men's proclivity towards violence against women needs to be protected by law so that by chance if a law maker finds himself in such a predicament facing jail time for beating his woman he has an escape route. Biblical laws, the laws within the Torah, and the Qur'an protect men's inability to have restraint. It is this simple. My studies have shown me nothing to contradict this finding.

When Death stalks it finds a way to reverse roles. The beatings a woman receives from a man is a beating from men. In her defense is her endurance, and the breaking point when she can take no more and kills the man. It happens in a variety of ways. For several reasons there are women who get away with murder. As much as it is wrong it is right.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Feb. 13, 2017

a Sacred Woman is Still

sacred poise 

Well, there is a spiritual law at work. When any of us project into the universe our intentions those words are a declaration and a challenge. The universe will test every utterance and challenge the integrity and strength of one's intent. It is the way the invisible comes into matter. That is the core of the Adamic story between Eve and Adam in that order. We are mysterious forces in nature and the universe. Small we may be, but our word and our spirit can reach beyond the scope of our presence into the timeless quality of will, intent and integrity into the Beyond, the Unknowable Unknown!

Detractors are not so much haters as they are spoilers and deeply despondent. They haven't formed their alliances with the higher powers within or outside of their being. For them it is comfortable to be fearful in their mind's eye. It is their illusion, and it is their painful illusions that teaches our will and assertions. Our job and immediate concern is to make right choices!

Now, the Biblical scripture that reads, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper." is a shield. It is a powerful shield defending one's soul and esteem from attacks. Not said, but implied is the completion of a warrior's effectiveness relying on offensive strategies. At this juncture of the teachings it is important to point out one of the innate problems of a Christian's focus and obsession with a Messiah. This obsession has the tendency to weaken one's powers by defending a faith and a belief mechanism. A warrior need need not primarily defend his God, or his essence because the warrior is the essence of the 'how' and the 'whys' of that discipline. A warrior's skills and purposes are misplaced defending his faith. He/she lives their life and the life force it creates generates its own offense and defense when necessary. Not understanding the depth of the warrior's main discipline has killed and injured millions in numerous wars for God over the centuries. The question to that state of being guides the student of religion and Self into the low echelon of soul sickness.

Let history speak to that story.! ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 7.12.14

Glance into a Woman's Life 

SAMPSON

Black woman undressing

breasts of a Black woman held by her

"Sampson stood between pain and belief, love for, and service to his People, the God of Creation, and the fires boiling in him for the woman he loved, and had to be inside of, and lost a conflict. The conflicts of great men are different from regular men steeped in mediocrity and the mundane. Their conflicts are of a complex nature because of the dual tasks of being ordinary and approachable, and dark and deep within the responsibilities of the strong man of God, and country. If it has taken centuries to retell and fathom the complexity of Sampson how much study of self is required of the strong men in modern times?

Spiritual sciences advance ahead of the intellectual developments of mankind in some seasons, and in other seasons it is the reverse. One element often out of place within men are the emotions. The intelligence of emotions is in the landscape emotions dwell and occupy with imagination, and deception. They are led by a wise Eunuch sometimes who has no commitment to the directions he can lead a soul. Other times emotions are led by a steely brand of soldier, and there are the multiple times emotions are led by women in command of the forces between their legs.

"Pussy and divinity; one comes from the other. Which came first?" This question came to me in my Dreamtime some years ago,and it is a question Sampson had to answer one way or another. For Sampson Delilah's pussy and her love for him and what she could do to a man was intoxicating to both her and the mighty Sampson. How he answered the question without counsel undermined the inner strength he possessed that was balanced by several sources of power from elements that sustain Earth, Dreams, and Creation. Coming from different places Sampson was created by prayers, love, angst, pity, sorrow, brutality and revenge. The divine source of his being came from and was captivated by the strongest source of power upon the Earth: the Womb of his Mother and the Wombs of his lovers.

A woman is never the weakness of the man's strength. She is a weakness to weak men, but to strong men the essence of her being is primal to his thinking and his existence suckles nightly on who he is man to, and during the day burns a fire he cannot quench when her legs open unto him the secrets of divinity, spiritual resources of camaraderie, and give him access to the higher creatures in the higher realms. There was nothing simple or childish about Sampson as a man, a Judge over Israel, or as the savior of his people. Jesus also deserves fair assessment as a man by men in these times as manhood is dragged before a league of nations to be judged for past misdeeds. Those misdeeds center around the penis, and men's inability to take on the mantle of strength of responsibility and be a Protector, a Priest-Warrior, a good son, wise husband, and a friend, in the deepest sense of the word. Worse of all was the unacceptable misunderstanding of Power. For that men are judged by the energies they created through rape of children, women, and other men.

Manhood is a deep calling from one lifetime to another. It is not a wonder why some in between worlds cannot amass the courage it takes to be a man in any lifetime and seeks to cross the gender lines in this lifetime because science has merged with soul loss and created a technology without the guidelines of divinity.

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

8/12/12 

breasts full & big

Asian woman Genevive Valante 

Black woman's perfect form!!!!

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 Messiah as Superman!

Why Superman is a Better Jewish Messiah than a Christian Messiah: A Mythic Movie Review of Man of Steel

Pearl Praise afloat...

I got to see Man of Steel just before vacation (I stood atop a Mayan pyramid - about as close to a ziggurat as I'm  gonna get, being a Jew, so that was awesome) and now I am ready to comment on it.

Much has been made about the christological spin given the Superman mythology in this movie, and I found much of it quite moving, if somewhat heavy-handed (I'm thinking of the "surrender yourself" come-to-Jesus moment with the priest, where a picture of Jesus is hovering right over his shoulder). It certainly shows how a really, really good myth can be the bearer of many vectors of meaning. The screenwriter(s) foregrounded some nice elements of the Superman mythos that resonate with the Christ story. Good christ-figures fill popular culture, from Klaatu to Gandalf, and only a first-class whinger would complain about bringing together two great western mythic tales ("Chocolate!" "Peanut Butter!" "Wait, they taste great together!").

I must observe, however, that the Man of Steel as the Prince of Peace is, IMHO, an awkward fit. The narrative proves Kal El = Christ to be something of a case of Procrustean bedding (Sorry to throw in a third mythic tradition here). And here's why I think this is so:

For while the plot contrives that Kent must surrender himself for the good of humanity, he neither has to suffer death at the hands of the people he has come to save, nor does he die, crucified or otherwise, by anybody, not even General Zod (Yea, Michael Shannon!), the Prince of Darkness. Indeed, he actively works to escape his fate, and does so successfully. The only two people who willing and successfully sacrifice their lives are his father (the Joseph stand-in) - who does so for the ethically questionable principle that it is better for others to die than for his son to prematurely reveal his true nature - and the Air Force colonel who does, in fact, destroy himself for the sake of saving humanity, but in a way that is more Torpedo Squadron 8 (look it up) than Jesus of Nazareth.

Look, there is no question that the master myth undergirding Superman is a kind of messianism: the particular religious brand of utopianism that centers of the special individual, gifted with unique powers, an individual who can and will transform our reality for the better and advance all that is divine, just, true, and right, improving the human condition. The messianic myth, writ small, is arguable at the very root of the superhero as a genre. Fair enough, but how, then is Superman more Jewish than Christian? While the messiah is the special invention of the Jews, messianism is also at the very heart of the Christian myth. Even so, it is useful to recognize Christian and Jewish forms of messianism as  categorically quite distinct. The uniquely Christian vision of the messiah is the supernal empowered “chosen one” who surrenders and sacrifices himself and dies for the good of humanity, his death bringing salvation in a way his life could not. The Jewish messiah, by contrast, is the empowered “chosen one” who strives and struggles, who to the very end lives for the good of humanity, ultimately to triumph over adversity and evil, but without losing himself. And so too, is Superman. While Christ-motifs will eventually appear in the long story arc of the Superman comic run (7 decades and counting), in their earliest form, and in their overarching mythologies, all comic book heroes conquer evil by defeating its minions, not by transcending it through their own death.  Leading, fighting for, and living for humanity is an archly Jewish myth; the master motif of Superman. This Jewish myth is actually the foundational premise of all the early superhero mythologies. 

There is a second way in which Jewish messianism is different. In Christian thought, there is and can be only one messiah. All other contenders are anti-christ. In Judaism, a messiah is a role and a high office, a role not bound to one person, one time in (or even the end of) history. In point of fact, every king and high priest of Israel was a messiah in their own time. Thus, the appearance of multiple superheroes in a single “universe” - the Justice League of America, for example - has a more Jewish than Christian resonance to it.

There is, finally, a dark side to the Jewish Messianic/Superman myth that I take to be a curious kind of "proof" of Superman's essential Jewishness, and this is the Christian tradition of the anti-christ. It doesn't take much reading of Christian commentaries to realize that the anti-christ, as envisioned in the Revelations of John and then elaborated on by Christian tradition, is at its heart fundamentally a critique/polemic against the competing Jewish vision of the eschatological messiah. Cast as descendant of the tribe of Dan (and therefore a Jew), who triumphs and governs in this world, abet as a viceroy of Satan rather than God, the anti-christ is essentially a dig at the "carnality" of Jewish eschatological expectations.

Why am I reviewing this tangential matter? Because of a revealing conversation I had with a campus minister back in the 1970's, in which he declared Superman to be a cunning pop culture avatar of the anti-christ, a pulp-fiction blasphemy meant to mentally prepare mankind for the coming to the real satanic savior, the ubermensch bearing the the "mark of the beast." This preacher, immersed in Christian myth, intuitively detected this "Jewish" cast to Superman, and then deconstructed him through his the prism of his Christian len and, whola, he is revealed to be anti-christ. Or, Superman = Jewish Messiah = anti-christ. My experience of 40 years ago is hardly isolated; see this Washington Post article: 

So while I enjoyed Man of Steel, his ret-con (look it up) as a Christ figure is ultimately a triumph of marketing over innate narrative affinity. Superman is, and remains, more like Menachem ben David, "Comforter, son of David" rather than Christ,
"...eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." ~ Geoffrey Dennis (7.7.2013) 

Pearl Praise small before a giant tree.

To learn more, look up the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism available at Amazon:

BLOOD GOD

Fundamentalists are to be taken seriously. Their faith, historically, leads to blood baths. What is inherent within the blood religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism? What is within Jesus of Nazareth that coldly dispenses judgement and death to non-believers? And Moses and the other patriarchs? What of them? We have a lot of questions to ask of ourselves and each other, if we are to live on the planet. We run the risk if a superior race of people land upon Earth from other planets, or galaxies, and perceiving the spirit of the atmosphere treats us as Whites treated the rest of the world and subjugates us all? - Gregory E. Woods 2.19.13

Pitit Neg Ahier

This is what Nigerians have adopted as religion; Death and destruction of each other.

Vodun/vodou practioners have never been on a quest to conquer or save souls, nor have they deliberately raging war against people who have different views. However, the Abrahamic faith based religion is definitely the soundtrack for violence..

In this image taken from TV showing the bodies of victims of inter-faith violence as a crowd gathers around, in the town of Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, about three miles (five kilometers) south of the city of Jos, Sunday March 7, 2010. Rioters armed with machetes slaughtered more than 200 people on Sunday, many of them women and children, which are being collected from where they lay, in the streets of this central Nigerian town.
(AP Photo/NTA TV)

SACRED STORY

The Mustard Seed


He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."

Matthew 13:31-32

If Judaism had united with Jesus, world Christianity would not have come into being. Instead, a Jesus-centered nation of Israel would have begun. It would have grown in stature, influencing the Cain-type nation of the Roman Empire. It would not have been a Christian country, but would have been Jesus' own country It would have formed the kingdom of Jesus, rather than forming the religion known as Christianity. If that had happened, the country would have inherited the kingship and would have inherited the world. It would have grown and expanded to the point where today it would be one nation encompassing the world. Other countries would have inherited perfectly the tradition of that kingdom of Jesus. It would have become like a big tree with many different branches. Jesus' country would have been the trunk and each nation of the world would have been another branch, connecting to one trunk and one root. The leaves of that tree would have been individual men and women.

That huge, gigantic tree would have been one nation of God. The flowers and blossoms that bloomed would have been of one root, one tree. Even if you took the smallest leaf, it would contain all the elements of the huge trunk. The root, trunk, each branch, and every little leaf would all contain the same elements. It would have been full of the spirit of the kingdom. The spirit of the root, spirit of the trunk -- everything would have been contained within this tiny leaf, which means each individual. My Father-

Adruma Victoria

New York teenager by the Sartorialist

QABALISTIC MAGIC LESSON 3: HISTORY AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOX HEBREW QABALAH AND WESTERN ESOTERIC QABALAH

Western Esoteric Qabalah is a blend of traditional Qabalistic teachings, Gnosticism, Hermetic Philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Alchemy, Astrology, and Tarot. All of the Western Wisdom traditions can be understood through the medium of the Qabalistic symbol - the Tree of Life. That being said, we use the name Qabalah which is obviously Hebrew, and a large proportionate amount of what we are dealing with here had its beginnings in the Hebrew Qabalah, the oral tradition of mysticism practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Scholem who is one of the foremost scholars of Jewish Qabalah states that its beginnings were in Jewish Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism a philosophy and theory developed by the Greek Plato. In this theory, Plato espoused that the universe was made up of emanations of energy which hierarchically descend and radiate from the Godhead through intermediate stages finally forming physical matter and the world we live in. This theory of Emanations is where the idea of the Sephirotic spheres was developed.

Traditional Hebrew Qabalah today, on the other hand, functions as a part of the spiritual practices and wisdom of Judaism. In Orthodox Judaism, Qabalah is used only to interpret the workings of God, the Penteteuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) and the Holy texts of Judaism. Qabalah is a part of this tradition and is used in a very specific way. Hebrew Qabalah of today tries not to vary from its beginnings in Judaism's mystical traditions and is still taught orally, although utilizing various texts as well, only to men over 30 years of age. The Sephir Yetzirah-Book of Formation is the first important text, originating from the oral tradition and was written down sometime between the 3rd-6th centuries C.E. It contains six brief chapters and is the first book in which the word Sephiroth appears. This book describes the creation of the Universe in terms of the Hebrew alphabet and symbolic numbers undoubtedly related to Neo-Pythagoreanism.

The Sephir Yetzirah then became the foundation of later texts. The next flurry of writing and work with the Holy Qabalah was in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Other important texts include the Bahir, written around 1200 CE in southern France. Here we have the first references to the Secret Tree (the Tree of Life) and the description of the Sephiroth as vessels of the Divine Light. It is theorized that the Bahir was probably assembled from other texts that were probably of Eastern origin.


Then between 1280-1286 CE, Moses de Leon wrote perhaps the greatest text on QBL, the Zohar, a series of commentaries on the Bible and on mystical cosmology. For generations considered an ancient work written in Ancient Aramaic, a language which is the root of Hebrew and Arabic, Moses de Leon felt that his work would be taken more seriously if rather than naming himself as the author, instead should be attributed to an ancient author, thus 2nd century rabbi Simeon ben Yohai. There exists no complete translation in a European language - Simon and Sperling translated only 35%, while Kabbalah Unveiled contains three more books.


At this time Spain was a hotbed of knowledge under Muslim rule with scholars studying alchemy, astrology and with much tolerant exchange of ideas between Muslims and Jews, even Christians, in Muslim Spain. Another important work, Gates of Light, Sha'are Orah, was also produced at this time which is an excellent text on Hebrew names of God.


In the Renaissance man considered himself the jewel in the crown of the Universe, becoming the measure of all things, rather than the lowly sinner atoning for the fall. Hermetic philosophy came to the fore and another great exchange of ideas with Qabalah being studied by the Christian Scholar magicians. Under this influence Qabalah now was grasped by Christians as a universal system and a great tool. A few Jewish converts to Christianity helped speed this occurrence. This exchange of ideas and interest dovetails with Hermeticism as a major interest of the time. In 1460 CE Cosimo De Medici, realizing the value of the Hermetica, asked his translator to do it first before even a text of Plato's Republic.

what if Christians, Jews & Muslims understood & internalized this:

As the Elders say;

"The honor of the people lies in the mocassin tracks of the woman. Walk the good road....Be dutiful, respectful, gentle and modest my daughter...Be strong with the warm strong heart of the earth. No people goes down until their women are weak and dishonored, or dead upon the ground. Be strong and sing the strength of the Great Powers within you, all around you. -Village Wise Man, SIOUX