African man sporting shirt

bound in a cage: The Tree of Life

bound in a cage - Cherry

When I was a Christian youth I remember how burdensome, and full of pity was the work of learning to ‘hear the voice of the Lord’. The sermons and seminars, the study of scriptures heightened the anxiety, and forever, it seemed, was the cry, the angst of not know if ‘we would ever be able to discern the voice of God.’ It was terrible and frightening an experience for me as a teenager.

Actually the ease of knowing the voice of Spirit comes from childhood. If a child's circles can remain in the simplest levels of existence in play, eating, sleeping and growing being still, and listening to divinity is child’s play. But for adults taught to shed childhood realities crudely and cruelly to re-visit their natural state is as easy as their capacity to unlearn, to play, to be still, and breath like a baby.  The accoutrement of speed and the over-emphasis on fast paces underscores the brutality to the soul. It is like a pounding on the ears from a stereo system at full blast. If adults can unlearn a belief system to sit upon the Earth, their Mother listening to the creatures great and small seen and unseen who run, and live, and thrive and struggle as animals, as birds, as creatures, shape shifters and travelers between worlds the voice of God, or the Divine listening with the rest of Creation becomes a family affair. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories  

RECIPROCATION

black woman lounging demurelly on bed !!!!

“To love someone is to acknowledge the goodness of who they are. Through loving a person we awaken their awareness of their own innate goodness. It is as though they cannot know how worthy they are until they look into the mirror of our love and see themselves.”― John Gray

BETTY PAGE

Betty Page 2

FACE IT

beauty of a woman swimming underwater by Toby Christensen !!!!

“It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.” - Horace quotes (Ancient Roman Poet. 65 BC-8 BC)

Friedrich Nietzsche

beautiful body of a diver, Isis, underwater

“Meaning and morality of One's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities and the healthy person explores as many of them as possible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative and risky.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

wife in closet

“We, as a nation, would be far more advanced in the important arenas, and more of our sons would have lived long productive lives had women's wisdom and insight into the fundamentals of life and death were respected. But the inability of the Western belief system and creation stories cannot support the complex relationship women have with life and death during conception or birth. Ignorant of and unable to grasp these mysteries we all suffer in needless uninformed ways that tell, in our deaths, how little we know about the vital energies that sustain and balance life for one and for all of creation.” – Gregory E. Woods

Sensuous Whispers

art = Queen of Fire by Leonid Afremov

Audrey Hepburn's pretty legs in a man's shirt

AUDREY HEPBURN

"There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don't need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain." - Audrey Hepburn

“She sure could, and the women I know who do control the room, imaginations and measure the stamina of discipline a good man needs to support, love and be with her!” – Gregory E. Woods

LEAH LAMAT’S beauty story

“... the deep flow of the after-effect of being loved, loving and discovering the internal mysteries of being grace the appearance of a woman who is easy to gaze upon, want, need or desire. It is the formlessness of a woman's forms, her face that connects indigenous creation stories, like Corn Mother and Kanati from the Cherokee nation, to the restoration of broken souls and lives.  When Elders talk of a woman's beauty it is but one perspective of the Divine that shoulders its way into the wildness of youth, and the deeper musings of middle age.

Yea, a woman’s divinity defined by someone’s limited visual acuity remains a simple equation to them, but the expansion of thought, and a sacred hold on things intangible is the prerequisite Sacred Women use to weigh the words of admirers, and the dumb who don't grasp how to live in the open relationships of daytime beyond mere existence.” – Gregory E. Woods

When I was young. . .

I saw her in Morocco at a party. She danced as I sat shy, but aroused many many years ago. She cooked for me, and told me her name was Fatima. She was from Senegal. She was tall, dark and her allure and its power was not poetry it was raw unleashed power that grasped and filled me. I was unable to resist, but I did, but everyone in attendance knew the dance she danced between my legs was for me. Even though I was just learning the languages her language was crystal and clear to me...

“I could be your wife. I could be your lover. I could be in you. Can you live without me if you turn me down, or I walk away from seducing you?”

from Songs of a Father by Gregory E. Woods

ADAM & EVE

"... deep penetration transforms Life." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

EAGLE & CONDOR prophecy

The prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor is retold by many nations, many people. 

The Q'ero prophecies say that when the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken. For the eagles of the North cannot be free without the condors of the South.

It is now. The awakening - the return to nature and the cycle of nature is now. As we join together, without regard to lineage and separation of path, in an unbroken circle we share an understanding of the messages of that awakening. When the consciousness awakens, it is then we can all fly like the eagle and the condor. In truth, we are all native. We have all come from nature, from Mother Earth herself, and will all return to her. The golden light in the cosmos is the fire of spiritual light sharing eternal flames of love to all equally.

It has been shared that for nearly 500 years the Q'ero elders have held sacred the preservation of the "pachacuti" which is a sacred prophecy of great change. In the film, The Road to Q'eros messages from the Andes, we begin to see the unfolding of the prophecy. The unfolding began when the elders of Q'eros came to the North to perform a shamanic ritual that had not been done in nearly 500 years. This great gathering "mastay" and the sharing of people from all four directions continues. The Q'ero are sharing their teachings to prepare for the day of the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South will take to the skies to fly once more together unified in "munay" (love and compassion). It is in "munay" that these gathering's will occur.

This prophecy shares the great change will birth a new society of remembering.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR SOVEREIGN NATIONS' ACTIVISTS

mikaela crank red nations model

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.  We must sail sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it, but we must sail and cannot drift nor lie at anchor.”

 –Oliver Wendell Holmes

WINTU HEALER

Florence Jones (1907-2003)

Florence Curl Jones, Wintu spiritual leader and healer, died on Saturday, November 22, six days before her 97th birthday. She was the most fluent speaker of the Winnemem Wintu language, and was known as a "top doctor" by Native people throughout the western United States.

Born Florence Violet Curl (Puilulimet) on November 28, 1907, on the McCloud River (Winnemem, or "Middle Water") south of Mt. Shasta in northern California, she was the daughter of William Curl (Dolikentillema) and Jenny Charles Curl (Chipoki). From the time of her birth Florence Curl was recognized as a special child, destined to become a leader. At five years of age, Florence was forcibly taken by agents of the U.S. government to the Indian School at Greenville, California. Five years later, after the school caught fire, she returned home and resumed her training as an Indian doctor and spiritual leader. At ten years of age, Florence was sent on foot on an 80-mile solo journey along the McCloud River. Soon after this journey, Florence was again taken from her home by the government and sent back to Greenville School. As a teenager, she was sent by the school to work as a servant for a family in San Francisco, where she attended Lowell High School. At age 17, she made her way back to the McCloud River and again took up her training as a traditional healer.

She married Andrew Jones (Jones Valley near Redding was named after his family). Lands allotted by the U.S. to Mrs. Jones' family were lost with the construction of Shasta Dam and the flooding of the lower McCloud River in the 1930s. The bodies of her father and mother, recently deceased, had to be re-buried to escape the rising water of Shasta Lake. Following the death of her parents and uncles, Mrs. Jones assumed the successional role of leader and top doctor of the Winnemem Wintu. Leadership has now passed to Caleen Sisk-Franco, Mrs. Jones's great-niece and designated successor. Mrs. Jones was an expert on the plants of northern California and their traditional uses. Throughout her life she conducted ceremonies at the Winnemem Wintu's sacred sites on and around Mt. Shasta, following a thousand-year tradition. She was recognized by her people, by elders of other tribes, and by archaeologists and anthropologists, as a uniquely gifted healer. Mrs. Jones championed the cause of protection of sacred sites from development. In 1998, the U.S. Forest Service dropped plans to build a ski area on Mt. Shasta due in part to the efforts of Mrs. Jones. Despite unbroken traditions of language, culture, religion, and self-governance by Mrs. Jones and the Winnemem, they are not recognized as a tribe by the U.S. government. In the 1980s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs dropped the Winnemem from their list of recognized tribes without explanation. Mrs. Jones was the subject of a documentary film, In the Light of Reverence, which aired nationally on PBS in 2001.

 Florence Jones died in her sleep, at her home north of Redding, surrounded by family. She is survived by her daughter, Grace Marjory Charles. A son, Howard Richard Charles, died at the age of 2. Letters in support of the Winnemem Wintu effort to regain tribal recognition may be addressed to: Secretary of the Interior 1849 C St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20240.

http://wintutribe.net/body_index.html 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "My heart is moved by all I cannot save, so much has been lost.... so much has been destroyed. I must cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power... reconstitute the world."

Winneman Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk at Stanford Mother's Day Powwow of Northern California with other women in 2012

RACE in MEDIA

 From The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003052004n.htm

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

To My Former Students: How Race Works

By NEIL HENRY

   

   Jayson Blair, a young black reporter, recently resigned from his job at The New York Times after admitting to systematic plagiarism and fabrication over the course of his four-year career there. In the wake of the scandal, I sent a version of the following e-mail message to my black former students currently working as reporters and editors at the Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers around the country.

 

  Dear [friends]:

 

  I don't know much more about the Jayson Blair scandal beyond what the Times painstakingly pointed out in its front-page examination, but I do know how American institutions often work, especially when it comes to race. If the past is any guide, it's fair to predict that you and your African-American peers at the Times and other papers will be under increasingly sharp scrutiny in coming weeks and months, just as my black peers and I were at The Washington Post in the wake of the Janet Cooke scandal in 1981. My advice is to get ready for it, emotionally, as best you can.

 

  Cooke, you'll recall, was the young black reporter (she was 26, Blair is 27) who admitted to fabricating an article about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Cooke was fired, and the Post returned the Pulitzer Prize she had won for the article. Those were incredibly tough and traumatic times for many of us to cope with -- not just the shock, sadness, and

sense of betrayal sparked by the incident itself, but also the air of racial mistrust and paranoia that rapidly spread in the workplace like a disease in its immediate aftermath.

 

  Indeed, the toughest part of the Cooke disgrace was dealing with the suddenly sharpened skepticism and questioning attitudes directed our way by a few white peers and editors about our skill, our abilities, our credibility, our trustworthiness, even our right to work there. Bitter and jealous that an "undeserving" young black woman like Cooke had taken the job of a more "competent" white, they blamed affirmative action for opening the Post's door to Cooke and other black reporters in the first place.

 

  Aha! a few white journalists seemed to say, by mood as well as furtive whisper: See what happens when you give them a chance?

 

  Nearly a quarter century later, your era is a bit different.  For one thing, there are more of you working in your institutions now than in 1981. There are more African-Americans in positions of authority, as well. In many ways that progress represents an important milestone in the history of the American press, which first recognized a critical need to grant greater opportunities to minorities and women after the social tumult of the 1960s, when the country's white newsrooms did a generally poor job covering the era's seminal events. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders prodded the white press as far back as 1968 to make these urgent reforms in hiring, saying American race relations and our very democracy depended on it.

 

  But despite such progress it's also plain that racism has a way of adapting from one era to another and poisoning people just as powerfully as it ever has.

 

  In the days ahead you will run into a few narrow-minded, race-obsessed co-workers who will feel suddenly emboldened to question your motives, reporting, writing, sourcing – your very right to hold your jobs. Already the conservative right is pointing to the Blair incident as emblematic of what it considers the wrong-sighted diversity culture, one in which a young black journalist was unfairly coddled and promoted over more deserving (and "trustworthy") whites, to the very detriment of the public's right to know. We're starting to read this nonsense in editorial pages, and the heartland is hearing it on right-wing television and radio programs as well.

 

  Few seem yet willing to point out that the Blair experience, while painful and infuriating, is no more than an anomaly. It has nothing to do with race or diversity efforts at all. It's the singular story of an emotionally troubled human being who crumbled under the very corporate pressure you guys courageously contend with, indeed flourish in, each day. The system at the Times did not catch on until too late. This human being was very young, and he happened to be black.

 

  Sadly, it's the last fact that some whites will find the most telling. Black. And in the process they will conveniently ignore the far more important and stirring reality that legions of African-American journalists around the nation --  hired through similar diversity policies – are performing at the top of their game with excellence, distinction, and tireless dedication and zeal.

 

  I don't need to list names. You guys know who you are. You're covering every beat imaginable, from city hall to the White House, from Wall Street and film and sports to the war and reconstruction in Iraq. But the public generally does not know that, any more than the public knew "Jayson Blair" was the byline of a black journalist before the scandal hit. (It's curious, too, that little mention is made of the fact that it was another journalist trained under a minority-hiring program -- a Latina and your fellow Berkeley alumna, Macarena Hernandez, at the San Antonio Express-News – who finally alerted the Times to Blair's fraud after he plagiarized her terrific reporting.)

 

  But that's racism at work, isn't it? It nests and festers amid such willful ignorance, and is now set to follow its pernicious path in the months ahead in your newsrooms.

 

  It's a truism among black people that we have to strive to be 10 times better than the average white person in society just to catch an even break. You will feel this sense of pressure even more intensely now. Your every mistake will be magnified, your every step scrutinized, especially if you are young, smart, and ambitious. Some whites will, almost by some atavistic impulse, look upon you and your skin color now and see nothing but Jayson Blair, just as some white co-workers looked at me, Michele McQueen, Gwen Ifill,

Courtland Milloy, Juan Williams, and others back in 1981, and suddenly saw little else but Janet Cooke.

 

  Amid such pressure you may even end up doubting yourselves.  You're only human, but fight that stuff as best you can. No matter what happens, weather the storm and take

solace in all those who believe in you, no matter their color. That includes an old teacher like me who sympathizes across the generational divide.

 

  There was a time back in 1982 when I seriously considered homicide, did I tell you? This is what happened: A white editor pulled me aside one day several months after Janet Cooke's firing and asked me if a feature story I had written was true. It took me a minute to figure out what the devil the guy was driving at, and when I did I felt myself about ready to explode. I really came this close to grabbing him around his flabby throat and banging his head against the wall. But I didn't. All I could do was take a deep breath, choke back the rage, and answer that yes indeed, I had been to an illegal cockfight in rural Maryland. I told him I'd spent days digging into the story, was proud that I had gotten it, and that the article was quite true in every vivid detail. I swallowed the hostility, in other words, and the story ran on the front page.

 

  There may be similar times ahead for you. I hope not, but there may be. My advice is to try your best to keep your cool and never give anyone a reason to doubt you. Above all, remember this: You've earned your right to practice your brilliance.

 

  By the way, it's amazing the way race works. A few years ago a white reporter for The New Republic named Stephen Glass was fired after it was revealed that he systematically plagiarized and fabricated his work. As I recall, no one decried the diversity culture in which he was hired, nor cast suspicious remarks about the credibility of coddled young white journalists. Today, Glass has a novel out based on his experiences, and Hollywood is set to release a film about him.  He was featured recently on 60 Minutes. He's doing quite well, performing on the talk-show circuit now, and seems headed for riches.  I point this out for no other reason than to illuminate how American racism can be amazingly selective in its memory and lessons. Keep up the good fight, and Go Bears.

 

  Neil

 

  Neil Henry is a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family (University of California Press, 2001). He was a staff writer for The Washington Post from 1977 to 1992.

REPUBLICAN SABATOGE

When Ray Lisa said, “Obama has already sold this country down river. We owe the Chinese x amount of trillions of dollars, they now own this country lock stock and barrel, and they are in the process of taking over our banks. Ask Obama to explain all of the FEMA housing prisons that are springing up around the country. What will you have left when Homeland Security comes in the night to take you and your family away! Obama is going to steal your home, your bank account, and your life! Wake up America you have no more freedoms; you sold it out when you voted Obama in! You’re not on the elite list and even if you were I would worry! Just a matter of time! We all have targets on our backs! Glad I do not live in the USA any more!” no alarms went off. Not flare went up to alert Ray, to state the obvious: seven, eight and more decades of history, political intrigue, and maneuvers took seven, eight and more decades to happen. They did not occur when Obama was elected into office.

The United States is a global power, and the people; the citizens within should be global thinkers with a global perspective and insight into a myriad of things. We shouldn’t be peddling dribble and remain engrossed in trivia, and simple-minded campaigns about, for example, the President’s birth certificate. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

BALANCE & STILLNESS

Many times outdoors in rustic settings the story of balance and commitment rises to the level of consciousness Nature spurns a soul towards. I've sat in precarious places barefoot completely aware of the dangers at hand or beneath me, but held captive by the beauty of my surroundings was transfixed, safely, to a spot within the moment of danger and beauty. It is a wonderful state of being I have shared with animals themselves gathered up in the wonder at hand, but vulnerable in their worship and awe to the lone predator who might not be captured and awed by the spectacle the Earth, our Mother has revealed.

Jane Rule’s words, "To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for." are dangerous if they are merely given an intellectual nod of approval, shunned to the side, and covered with the dust of relentless activity. Alive, and given life by active participation the joy of childhood returns which is exactly where the high masters of Life urged us to return balanced by the maturity acquired while living deeply into the splendor, the challenges and mysterious of Life, and the subtle frankness one carries after making one's Death his/her ally!

I can think of a time Chandler and I were in the forest. We came out of the thick greens of trees, and vegetations onto a small clearing of tall grass and looking up one of us said, “Look.”

Above us. Way above us three or four Hawks were circling, hunting, and surveying the landscapes below them. Suddenly one of them broke free of the circle and dove straight for us. Chandler and I were spellbound. We couldn’t move it was so powerful and beautiful the way the bird focused and kept coming towards us. One of said, “This is awesome (or beautiful).”

“It is.”

“But if he hits us we will get killed.”

“It will probably hurt, but the beauty of it…”

“It’ll be worth it.” Somebody laughed, and just a hundred yards or more above us the Hawk broke his dive and veered off and caught another air current and traveled leisurely up to the circle of Hawks circling, hunting and surveying the landscapes below them. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

STILLNESS & BALANCE

I'm all for taking responsibility and making and keeping commitments; I think one of the most important things that we can do to make our lives more positive is to be someone that other people can trust and depend on. But I also really enjoy the pleasures in life--the long walks on a nice day, the picnics by the lake, the peaceful morning spent at home doing nothing, watching good movies and reading good books. I know far too many people who are so buried in commitments that they never really have any time to do anything fun with their friends, and they burn out so quickly when they live like that.

While I kind of wish that it would be possible to live an unbalanced life with the pleasure side outweighing the commitment side, I also know that that wouldn't be such a good thing--one of the things that makes the pleasures so enjoyable is the knowledge that we have lived up to our commitments in order to be able to spend time on a pleasure or two.

Commitments are extremely important. A life without commitment is empty indeed, devoid of purpose or direction. But far too often we see commitment as the main purpose of our life, or we fall into the trap of over-committing ourselves so that we lose out on many of the pleasures. Too many people have come to the end of their days with tons of regrets for having spent too much time at the office and too little time with their families. And those pleasures are the things that recharge our energy, that refresh us and re-invigorate us so that we can come back at our commitments with new energy and more staying power.

Life is about balance. It always has been, and it always will be. One of the most important balances that we can find is that between our commitments and our enjoyment, because either one without the other simply results in diminished returns and little satisfaction.

Questions to consider:

What kind of balance do you maintain between commitments and pleasures?

How does it feel when you start to run low on the pleasures and too high on the commitments? How about the other way around?

How can you make sure that you're getting enough pleasure to balance out your focus on commitments?

For further thought:

Learning not to grapple with every little thing that comes along
is quite a struggle for many of us. The eggs are too runny;
the coffee is not hot enough; the clothes don’t fit exactly perfectly.
Some of us have so fashioned our lives around perfecting the details
of the small stuff that we never catch a glimpse of the bigger picture.
We so distract our lives with details and convincing ourselves that
everything matters that we live out of harmony and out of balance.

Anne Wilson Schaef

"Look at the contradiction. Fierce and sucking her thumb, and like an insecure teenage girl her posture reflects vulnerabilities and her sensuous curves suggest possibilities and pleasures. What a story told without being told." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

CONTRADICTIONS IN PAIN

Boy, 4, Shot To Death For Being Gay Because He Slapped A Boy’s Behind | The New Civil Rights: The New Civil Rights Movement

Untrained minds in bodies immature and uncomfortable in the idea of who they are are the earmarks of the uniformed spirits that mark the evidence of the social and spiritual texture of this nations' being. It is unmistakable the numerous things that transpire in the young man's life, but in what order and what were they? The depth of belief and fear need to be known, in the light, and not lurking within individuals.

We are sick. We share a sickness. Lucas Moses, the alleged killer, is every man's failure to train the mind, spirit and emotions of boys, and firm evidence against the denial of the roots of homosexuality American and European style.

Fear of homosexuality and homosexual predators has been the bane of existence in communities for a long time. That fear has nothing to do with political advocacy, or social acceptability. This sore reeks of contradictions, fears mounted atop others in a tangled knot. The unaddressed structural damages at play in this one household tells a complex story Western society is capable of creating, sustaining but unable to heal, correct or balance! – Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories


http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/boy-4-shot-to-death-for-being-gay-because-he-slapped-a-boys-behind/news/2011/07/31/24662 

"The Fallopian tube, the core essence of womanhood, the Goddess.  What was really sacrificed on the Cross?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

LESS OF LIFE

I have been alarmed for decades at the rate of speed of the decline of the insect, bird and animal nations in my part of the world. The loss glares in our faces and surprisingly does not cause outrage only mild commentary. I do all I can including being mindful of the indigenous plants in my yard and the seeds we plant.  I talk to those nations. Always have.

                       

The most frightening thing, for me, was by a fire in the Virginia mountains one night a couple years ago. I couldn't sleep at first because there were no insects in the woods. Bird sound was non-existent and to sleep, rest, stalk or hunt in a forest with none of these sounds is deadly. With no indicators of hunting animals bears, coyotes, foxes it is dangerous in the forest at night. The only thing I could rely upon was my Medicine, my senses, the fire, my Spirit guides, the Creator's wishes for my life, and the relationship I’ve held for years with the Earth, our Mother. These are dangerous times, but without the relationships between the worlds upon, within and above the Earth, our Mother we will discover a loneliness and aloneness prophesies have not foretold perhaps because the prophets we listen to are not Mothers, or Grandmothers. – Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

miranda rights named after Ernesto Miranda in 1966

 Ernesto Miranda in 1966

WHAT IS LOVE?

Minka on a South Beach corner

LOVE MAKING

“…the moment love is compared to life Life begins.” – Gregory E. Woods

into MANHOOD

BIRTHING A MAN

"... but it needs to be understood the ideal you are talking about is inaccessible to many men. So the question is not, "What?" The question begins with how and ends with "How do I facilitate this process in the men of my life?" It is a birthing process you speak of, or I perceive it to be so, and birth is not a male faculty. It is an act of power outside of our make up, but accessible to us through what we receive from our women and merge with..." – Gregory E. Woods

"Ata marie ~ peaceful Morning/Afternoon BrotherBlessingz. Yes, the time is upon us when all of this giftedness is able to be freely accessed by anyone who is in need. We are in a time of epochal transformation ...feel it very deeply arriving ...the Young have risen supremely ...Women rising will show us an Ancient prophecy is coming into completion for a new Dawn, a brave new Humanity rising." - Mereana Taki, healer

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

CERTAINTY

Maitrieya Sandness pensive wearing a headband 2

Maitrieya Sandness

“Some of our thoughts remain silent within us stirring up things behind our pursed lips. They needn't come out in a stream of conversation. The longer words sit within us the more the words take on form and act out who they are and what they mean in our lives. Actions speak louder than words. Love is an action. Silence is an action. Reflection is an action. Stillness is an action. These four actions are a Medicine Wheel teaching about becoming a person to be taken seriously.

These four live within you, Maitrieya, making and creating actions in the world within and around you.” – Gregory E. Woods

TRUTH be told...

TRUTH

“HOW WE CARE TO TELL THE TRUTH IS IMPORTANT, HOW WE ACTUALLY COMMIT TO TELLING THE TRUTH TO OURSELVES AT ALL TIMES IS VITAL TO OUR WELLBEING (CONSCIOUSNESS)! ALLOW NO ONE TO DICTATE TO YOU WHAT TRUTHTELLING FOR YOU MUST LOOK LIKE, TASTE LIKE, FEEL LIKE, TASTE LIKE OR SOUND LIKE.!" ♥ - Mereana Taki

Angaangaq (r.) with elders

SHARING

Ngaronoa Merean Taki's imposing spirit

“When we can give unconditionally who we truly are behind our physical eyes is amplifying the Love which makes all Life possible. Share because it is of your Soul to be so and no other reason.” – Mereana Taki

ESTEEM

Ngaronoa Taki

"How many flowers responding to the Sun you know need a go to self esteem workshops?" - Mereana Taki

a Medicine Wheel teaching story

LISA WHATLEY

“Stunning clarity alerts the sense of being present and in the moment. Clarity is also a gift in a relationship with Power. Power in the spoken word clarifies many things weaker vessels need to understand and embrace as their own. You have found your voice and your practice of speaking and sharing yourself empowers people learning about power in their own lives. It is a gift of Clarity you give to people, and you touch kindly.” 

– Gregory E. Woods

AFRICAN WOMAN

African woman's subtle but extraordinary beauty

AFRICAN WOMAN

“All of my life I’ve looked into the faces of black African women and seen the definition of Life. I sensed as a child all I was discovering around me came from original concepts and the first perceptions of Life the African woman passed from child to child. New to the physical plane she facilitated her men’s entrance into a new Earth by the Female principles of birthing and care. Ancient African beauty models the truth of origin and being. Today Beauty suffers from the illusions of a conquering people she once taught, mentored, and pitied from ignorance to knowledge…” ©Gregory E. Woods

African woman

African woman 2

sepia beauty: a question of authenticity

Forget all the commentary. We are gazing into a multitude of things in the face of this young woman. See it. Penetrate it. Understand it. Fathom it. Wonder about it, but don't judge it outside the standard she was created from and creates from as she grows into her life. 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

photo from Oshun Zari's gallery

GRACE JONES, singer

“Her brother is a powerful, elegant and intense preacher. I had the privilege of carrying his bag when I was a younger man, and listened to his words and marveled at his discipline of spirit and mind. I learned a lot about impeccibility from him that day.” – Gregory E. Woods

Debra Messing, actress

Debra Messing

VANITY IS FUN

$30 million dollar dress designed by designer Faisol Abdullah !!!!