We Speak Into Tommorrow

wedding day bridal itch



Maya van de Wiel at a party in summer of 2014!!!!

"How you, or any of us carry ourselves tells us and each other of the prophecies we are and come from and eventually will become by our relationship with the stories we tell ourselves." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10.5.15
 

Their Heart Stories



Black woman defying something within her.

September 15 ·

 

The pose of Black women defying something within them is often heralded. We tend to ignore the signs left in the wake of a woman's passing. At times, beauty is a curse. It blocks the view of a woman's pain pitting her against the idea of herself and facts of her life. Young and between the two pillars her foundational structure determines her next step, the way she turns and smiles into a man's eyes and the words she utters into her future can easily hide her self from the spirits she protects herself from. Who teaches our young women? Who does not teach our young women? - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9/24/15

https://www.flickr.com/photos/benavente/albums/72157621757052253

Drumming in Sunday drum circle at Malcolm X Park in Washington D.C.
 photo by Pablo Raw



black French maid sat upon her desk.

September 15, 2015  ·

Teacher of the Year?

I had elementary school teachers who were good looking. One was a stunning beauty, but mean like you wouldn't want to believe, and I have to say I had to endure. I learned to look beyond my teacher's beauty, and with beauty gaze into what was awe inspiring sometimes, perplexing other times and still within what came to be a creative process I developed to survive school, which I disliked, I decided to learn from them and the horrible experience of their contempt for me and boys.

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.24.15





 

BELIEF to HAPPINESS ?

Part I.

"There is more to overcoming a broken heart, and anything beyond your sound advise, Sinclair, is a dare into the darker realms of our Being. 

Learning to love oneself, sharing one's story with others and casting one's care upon the Creator are valid strategies. But, they avoid the deepest obstacle: what one actually believes. There is a big difference and a vastness between what one actually believes and the religion one claims to adhere to. Our beliefs are built upon the stories nestled deep within us that govern our lives. If one will not, cannot probe deep into their soul to discover the stories that govern their lives they are bound and committed to repeating those stories over and over again." 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.8.14

Part II

I don't think happiness is a choice. If it is a goal attaining it without the ability to be centered and peaceful within one is merely being a junkie in search of the next high. Happiness is a state of being. It comes from within as does our breath. If one has to learn to be accessible to the higher things of life because of deep and personal travails any happiness is a by-product of the spiritual work, the physical accomplishments, emotional growth and maturity, and the development of one's spirit. 

Happiness can come from being around certain energies. Happiness can come from seeing the sun rise. True happiness comes from within us. When it does it is not easy to have it taken from one's Being. Happiness can stay with us as long as we can maintain the balances that support and justify the need to be happy.  Also, one can enjoy sex and in the midst of it release their spirit into the realms we all come from and will return to in the bye and bye. Sexual energies are the most powerful because of their relationship and kinship to what we know to be the Holy of Holies. Happiness upon examination can become an arduous task if one is seeking it, or it is a joy along the road of becoming who we are born to be upon the face of the Earth, our Mother in this lifetime! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.8.14

black dress worn by Mereana Taki 

Part III

Mereana, when I look at you I think and I feel. I sense in your presence the ocean, the sand and the waters of Life. It also comes to me that a woman's beauty can drift up upon you like a sudden mist from the horizon while sitting on a sandy beach day or night. Beauty can surprise you in the places it lives, and what she lives for. Beauty can arise from the smoke and the ash of rebuke and bad words and lowered esteem and shattered dreams. However Beauty arrives to the senses or floats up to her point of origin Beauty remains as the mysterious spirit of what needs to be said about the condition, the state of the soul and its power. Beauty is soul power and it lives in those tending their gardens. - Gregory E. Woods 

Ann Marie Rios in dark shower

Astonished Waters



Tuvana Türkay (born 3 October 1990) is a Turkish actress best known for her role on the Turkish TV series Yer Gök Ask.

Tuareg woman

Tunisian woman in white dress - August 27, 2013

treed Black woman

 

A Perspective of Wealth & Women



Victorian era's illusion about white women was a kind of disdain

Kylie Jenner, 17

The reality star reportedly has a respectful $5 million - and she's not even 18 yet! She may have already started investing some of the dough in her new mansion.

Kate Upton, 22

Kate earned a spot on Forbes's World's Most Powerful Celebrities list with her reported $7 million income in 2014. By August of that year, she had raked in an estimated $16 million since becoming a modeling superstar.

Selena Gomez, 22

The actress and singer never needed Justin Bieber's millions - she's standing strong on her own with an estimated net worth of $18 million.

Jennifer Lawrence, 24

Winning an Oscar may have helped bulk up Jennifer's bank account by an extra $34 million in 2014. That would have been a big addition to her estimated net worth of $40 million - enough to cover years of pizza orders.

actress Evelyn Nesbit with her hair down in an era it was forbidden

 

children's stories

Santa Claus 

“It's time for a short story, My Mom and Dad told me of when they got their first home it was a corn crib and Daddy moved it from the top of a hill down to a stream by logs and rolling it , when he got it there he piped in some water from the stream to a sink area which Mommy could use a pump to get water, he moved the ceiling up a little for head room and added to it here and there, don't know how long it took him but guess they handled it great back then.It was hard for me to even think of it when they told me I was only 9 didn't even know what a corn crib was. God I miss all those stories life was hard but had so much more meaning!” ♥  9.10.12

Lori Gladding from 

Angel White Tiger Spirit & Susan Perna's Sacred Circle 

"Now, I don't like the whole Christmas thing, but why is it this picture stopped me cold, and resurrected my happy childhood memories around this time of year?" - Gregory

Christmas time

"... and this picture brings up the deep warm feeling of being six years old, protected, snug and anticipating warm meals, hot cocoa, and Santa Claus the next day. 

My sister, Cynthia and I were so close to each other we shared magic and saw and anticpated in the lookout for Santa together. The way Daddy built the tension through off-hand comments, and sudden outbursts of story we strained 'til it hurt as each day drew to a close to bring in the next one closer to Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve we were sequestered to our rooms to sleep, but we couldn't sleep. Mommy and Daddy were in the living room downstairs doing something secretive, and making slightly muffled giggling noises. A feeling of togetherness rose up the stairs with smells of cookies or cake, and ham and potatoes in the oven while that night's dinner, as always, lingered within me; the satisfaction ever present to lull me to sleep. Not this night. We couldn't sleep straining our ears to hear and understand every sound in the house, and what was that?

"Did you hear that, Cynthia? Did you hear that?"

"Yeah. What was it?"

"Santa Claus and reindeer!"

In the next few minutes we could hear walking on the roof as clear as the dinner music and Perry Como serenading Mommy downstairs. It was unbearable, and each minute was longer than the shadows of a setting sun. Finally, the pain of it all dissolved into us into sleep.In the morning before the sun had kissed the gray horizon we were up and in Mommy's room.

"Wake up. Wake up!"

Daddy used to pretend he was annoyed and try to make us go back to sleep, but our excitement made Mommy urge Daddy out of bed. Downstairs we stumbled with Daddy in tow trying to slow us up with short funny riddles and sayings. He'd suddenly say, "Wait. What was that?" We'd freeze on a stair listening.

"Nothing. Your playing, Daddy. C'mon, let's go downstairs!"

Finally at the bottom of the endless stairs was evidence of Santa's visit: gifts and a lit tree! 

"I told you we heard him. I told you!" one of us would say and squeal with delight at the sight of the presents, and the smell of sweets, and pine, and the warm feeling that was always in the house. - Gregory E. Woods, 9.10.12

Mrs. Santa Claus 

POWER of STORY

Truth in Legends - Cherokee

So what does it all mean?  What truths can be gathered from a collection of ancient Cherokee myths and religious traditions?  From these stories, we can explore the thought processes and mindset of the traditional Cherokee.  It becomes clear upon examining these tales that there are many notable differences between the Cherokee and the white worldview.  Through the myths about the creation, the origin of disease, and the invention of medicine, we see humans playing a very different role than in European legends and Biblical accounts.

In Genesis, mankind is given dominion over the earth and all the creatures and resources in and on it.  In the Cherokee story, the humans occupy a precarious niche in a world created by animals, for animals.  Humans are barely tolerated, especially when they start exploiting the animals for food and skins.  Humans are seen as having much less power, being at the mercy of the animals when disease is introduced.  Instead of humans having dominion over other creatures, the situation seems to have reversed itself.  Humans would have been decimated by disease had they not found friends in the plant kingdom, who helped mankind of their own accord.  In the Cherokee worldview, mankind does not control nature, nature controls mankind.

This is a fundamental philosophical difference with the white European mindset.  Europeans saw it as their destiny to control and exploit the earth. Cherokees saw themselves in a position that was not quite at the top of the hierarchy of life.  While European types saw fit to nearly exterminate all bison without remorse, the Cherokee always made sure to apologize to the spirit of a deer they had just killed, for fear of retribution by nature.  The stereotype of the Indian as a natural environmentalist in the Dances With Wolves tradition may indeed be skewed, but there is a kernel of truth in it. Cherokees, at least, respected nature more than their European cousins, albeit out of fear for their wellbeing.

Another difference in the Cherokee outlook on life is with regard to the spirit world.  Most Europeans generally think of the spiritual world and the world in which they live as two separate places.  Not so the Cherokees.  In Cherokee myths and stories, the spirit world directly affects happenings in the physical one time and time again.  Supernatural happening are treated as commonplace events. A small ceremony performed by a shaman was able to drastically affect a person's spiritual life, perhaps by removing it altogether.  Raven mockers were seen not as storybook characters, but as real dangers to be feared. Some might call this superstition, but what is superstition to one person is religion to another.  These views formed a coherent belief system for the Cherokees, in which the spiritual world was directly accessible and performed an important role in daily life.

For centuries, the invading Europeans looked upon the philosophy of the Cherokees and other Indians as primitive and timid.  Today, in an increasingly overtaxed environment, we might do well to reconsider the Cherokee philosophy and respect for the natural world. In a society of soulless automation, we could not help but profit from considering the spirituality of the Cherokee world. By studying the myths of the Cherokee, one is exposed to a new way of seeing the world and the role of mankind in it.

From the Archives of Little Mother

AUSTRALIA'S INDIGENOUS STORIES

Aborigine Creation Story

as told by Aunty Beryl Carmichael

This is the creation story of Ngiyaampaa country, as well as the land belonging
to Eaglehawk and Crow. Now long, long time ago of course, in the beginning, when
there was no people, no trees, no plants whatever on this land, "Guthi-guthi",
the spirit of our ancestral being, he lived up in the sky. So he came down and
he wanted to create the special land for people and animals and birds to live
in. So Guthi-guthi came down and he went on creating the land for the people -
after he'd set the borders in place and the sacred sights, the birthing places
of all the Dreamings, where all our Dreamings were to come out of.

Dreamtime (An Aborigine Creation Story)

Guthi-guthi put one foot on Gunderbooka Mountain and another one at Mount Grenfell. And he looked out over the land and he could see that the land was bare. There was no water in sight, there was nothing growing. So Guthi-guthi knew that trapped in a mountain - Mount Minara - the water serpent, Weowie, he was trapped in the mountain. So Guthi-guthi called out to him, "Weowie, Weowie", but because Weowie was trapped right in the middle of the mountain, he couldn't hear him. Guthi-guthi went back up into the sky and he called out once more, "Weowie", but once again Weowie didn't respond. So Guthi-guthi came down with a roar like thunder and banged on the mountain and the mountain split open.

Aborigine Creation Story

Weowie the water serpent came out. And where the water
serpent traveled he made waterholes and streams and depressions in the land. So
once all that was finished, of course, Weowie went back into the mountain to
live and that's where Weowie lives now, in Mount Minara. But then after that,
they wanted another lot of water to come down from the north, throughout our
country. Old Pundu, the Cod, it was his duty to drag and create the river known
as the Darling River today. So Cod came out with Mudlark, his little mate, and
they set off from the north and they created the big river. Flows right down,
water flows right throughout our country, right into the sea now.

And of course, this country was also created, the first two tribes put in our country were Eaglehawk and Crow. And from these two tribes came many tribal people, many tribes, and we call them sub-groups today. So my people, the Ngiyaampaa people and the Barkandji further down are all sub-groups of Eaglehawk and Crow. So what I'm telling you the stories that were handed down to me all come from within this country.

Rainbow Serpent

photo: Aboriginal Art - Heart of My People