TOUCH.

Fatherhood is the theme here. This shot reminds me of the way 

Black fathers prior to the 1980's tried to invest in their sons. 

photo by Russell Frederick. (2015)

II. 

The mystique.

Mommy and many other women I studied growing up held their mystique quietly. Their silence around their mystique bound this particular knowledge in an unseen perception felt by touch. Touch is unseen translating one essence to another. Ignorance makes it an elusive serpentine energy, embracing the essential within what balances a son is first insinuated by their mother's touch.

Touch.

There is that word again. Touch begins renewal, awakening and feeling. 

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

10/30/18 

the Okey Doke gets the weak mind.

Things my Parent's embodied and taught!

A Lady by definition, A Man by Development. 

In the folds of what it means to be a lady is the acceptance of being free as a way of being. A lady is a development from girl to woman, and woman to lady. It is an art; and it is an intangible substance one cannot touch, but be touched by nuance and substance. A lady can play with this substance fully understanding the role has responsibilities and is awe inspiring because it is a state of being crudeness has no access to...

I should stop here. My mother taught these things in her movements and the way she danced with the essential elements I just described! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/7/18 

Janice Payne at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, August 2018!!

Impossibly good looking dark skinned women are often intellectually and spiritually engaged in processes of development. It is daunting for men not so inclined merely wanting to get laid! When I was young my father's influences worked to my advantage. I wasn't a player. I built relationships, indifferent to getting laid. My father taught me when I was a teenager the integrity it takes to be a man and this was an early teaching he gave his first born. It is an untaught skill set boys do not get for selfish reasons. What those selfish reasons are and how selfishness has become a component of adulthood clustering in the corners of sound humanity is at the center of women's angst in their lifetimes! Selfishness, in a violent social climate, adds to the danger of citizenship in the States sharpening the point of rape.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
August 10, 2018

IN the Depths WE Know.

I am therefore we are.

Embracing one's self becomes an art after the arduous task of arising from the lowest esteem childhood should not have given an individual. The country we live in boasts of its potential to take life with its many weapons and tactics of war with no simplification. There is war, and rumors of more war behind the stamina a warmonger has in a competition with lust a whoremonger has crawling within his or her body. The lack of beauty in a desire is the loss of soul given up, not for adoption, but abandoned by basic misunderstanding of what is basic to life: how to love, and why we love.

God may have made us, but we choose to believe in whatever myth comforts our angst the further we stray from the fundamental elements of truth, and Creation, as was made by what is beyond who we can possibly associate as God. It is our belief in God that stifles us. It is discovering the balance within the Goddess that comes with the Goddess that releases us from the pendulum of trading places with the knowledge of Ma'at's feather, not to judge, but receive the touch of what whispers to us constantly, "I am Life! I am Life! Mother without Father is imbalance leaving a craving for that balance and a return to what works for the I AM."

It is in us all.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
Jan. 12, 2017

Lemuel, my first born son, kissing Mommy in her last months before her death.

Give the Drummer some...

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

Every time I see a child playing drums, or playing sticks on tables and just drumming his little heart out I sing within with silent joy enjoying and knowing how the magic world of drumming translates and transforms the drummer.  I always express that emotion saying in an almost sing song voice, "Oh!!! Just wonderful!"  

My mother never let on when my endless drumming got on her nerves. She kept encouraging me in her silence as she putted around the house doing this and that, cleaning and what not. She taught me to make a drum from a Quaker Oatmeal box when I was six, and as a teenager smiled when I turned up one of her ancient artifacts from Central America and focused learning the rhythms Mongo Santamaria played on the recordings from Daddy's eclectic record collection. It was Mommy who gifted me with my first hand drum, a tumbadora made by Latin Percussion on my 17th birthday simply saying one word that capsulized it all and assuaged my angst created by church dogma around creativity and music: "Play."

I look forward to children's imaginations expanding by the limitless power of being allowed to express himself by their families, but most importantly by their parents. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.10.16

Don Ramon Santamaria Rodriguez (Mongo Santamaria) would be 98 today April 7, 2015

drums and percussion instruments from parts of the world.

After Life

Today is my parent's wedding anniversary, or it would be. They are dead. They are active and alive within me and their descendants. Even today people who knew them hear the resonance of my parent's voices, their spirits, and their meaning(s) within their bodies.

It is remarkable the way we die, and even more remarkable why we die. It is complex this attitude I have centered around my parent's cords attached to my core. It is one of the unspoken mysteries because you cannot speak about these complexities. They have to live within to be heard, and understood through wisdom. One has to care to hear these forces at work playing with our existence.

Without that play are we alive? ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9/3/16

Lioness by Kavion Robinson 

August 18, 2016  

Many do not know the animal spirit of their other body. Even the concept, the notion of such a thing is abhorrent to their subjugated belief systems. It is too bad. Bondage is deception of one's spirit, blindness to the eye, and a sealant within the ear. If one were to rid themselves of the illusion of not being capable of holding power what animal would their eyes see within themselves?

If or when it happens depends on how deep one wants to live his or her life! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9/1/16




www.facebook.com/kavion.robinson
www.instagram.com/kavionart
www.kavionart.com

Three Years After Mommy Died

"Girding up one's loins is to prepare and strengthen oneself for what is to come. The synonyms: prepare, get ready run parallel with the impetus to change into who can withstand the rough storms of life! What gives strength to bad ideas and equally empowering forces within good intention and methods to create better lives for those we love? And for those we have lost can our strength cross over into the realms of the ancestors, or the dead to fathom meaning to the passing of say, a child, a parent?"

 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10.11.15

 

Mothers in the kitchen



Prudence Moe in the kitchen

"One of my favorite memories and present day joys was watching my mother and aunts cooking and each day watching my wife in the kitchen cooking. It is soothing because each meal preparation ends in prayer." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.22.15

 

FOR "THE PEOPLE" !



Eagle by Corinne Parks

Within one of our Lakota origin legends, a young Lakota warrior scouted desperately for food as the Hohe (Flathead) closed in on him. Beyond mortal help, he cried out with a prayer, “Great Mystery, allow my brothers and sisters to hear my voice before I am destroyed!” As a traditional Lakota warrior, he recognized his impending death. He cried out “Great messenger whose feathers extend beyond ...the heavens, remember me!”

The eagle hearing these cries responded, “Brother, I am your sister. I will call upon our family’s strength to save you.” Immediately thereafter, this proud Lakota warrior humbly saw fifty eagles descending. Yet it took only six of the eagles to save this Lakota warrior. They flew him high up in the mountains to the Lakota and the eagles’ ancestral nest. Few among the Lakota today realize the significance of the nest which represents the perfection of the Great Mystery.

-Wanbli Sina Win



Mereana Taki says, I don't hate white people. I challenge every single national myth (they've) erected in (their) own name at the expense of my people...

Humans have been deeply conditioned to fear their own Souls ... question their own Spiritual integrity supported and encouraged by the terrorism of Feudal occults in organised crime families they call 'religion'.

Look at the state of humans sucked into the Fairy Tales of Europe which romanticise the Terrorising Royals who have construed their robberies, rapes, violating transgressions of the human condition as 'progress' and 'civilisation' under the banner of Common Wealth an...d crudely disguised as Capitalist 'fair play' ... when it is their elite strata and design as exoterrestrial occults ... humans harvested in child hood to optimise the energy of innocence then transforming it into fear, debauchery, sadism and every form of depravity available to EAT THE SOULS OF HUMAN INNOCENCE.

Perhaps the 'Fairy Tales' of Europe need to be taken LITERALLY as the story of the ruling elites and not simply childhood 'myths' and supposedly outrageous 'stories'?

Who is benefitting from all of the generational suffering perpetrated upon humanity in the name of 'religion' ... material paradigms of 'riches' ... energy rape and pillage of the Divine Earth as if legitimate and ethical ... all of this FEAR is feeding the Predators and keeping the Fantasy Nightmare of alien rule over the Earth alive. - Mereana Taki (4.6.16)



Artist Hale Woodruff's Amistad Murals - The Revolt is the depiction of Sierra Leone's national hero Sengbe Pieh, known as Joseph Cinque in the West.

Well said, Mereana. My mother taught me the European stories on purpose to learn their ways from the inside out, as strategy and knowledge for tactical thinking. It was and is still important to take advantage of Colonial education because hidden amongst the dogma, the grief and terror, etc. are clues, the bread crumbs leading to our freedom of thought, mind and spirit. . ." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories (4.6.16)

 

Emerge

Emy Reyes

"The way women express themselves, and the way they talk revealed a great deal to me as a 15, and 16 year old boy. I was painfully shy, but determined to speak my mind freely with girls. Because my father instructed me, and an aunt informed me during ceremonial initiation the penetrations into my spirit parted the proverbial waters of perceptions. In this way, (I didn't have this language back then) in a glance I understood the difference between expression and talk. Alone with this I learned to speak easier and easier with the girls in school, and later wandering the streets of Washington DC on my own I put into practice the spiritual teachings of being alone, together, and a part of divinity belonging to the women I met." - Gregory E. Woods 3.31.13



Carrina Suicide, a SUICIDE GIRL

A Contribute to Oneness

big legged brown woman 

"There are many things to rejoice about not the least of which is the relationship with and the real presence of Black women in our lives. How they change we change. How they walk we follow. The surprise they are is the prize they are when in the realm of the essence of what it means to be a woman, to be an African woman and to be a lover or the mother of your children. All of those things are compositions, music in the language of soul.

I say this in tribute to my mother, what she taught and stood for and became in life and her death!" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.22.13

black diva

ONLINE LAW

Most people are losers off-line so they have become characters online ,due to their miscarriages & failures iin life, living their life as a pathological liar within the walls of the Internet, ,people remain alert my friends, don't be deceived by the offline loser ,Who only status is begin a character online telling lies( AkA pathological Author) - Charlotte Saunders Ferguson 9.14.15

That is a good observation. My mother considered getting on Facebook. She weighed the options but thought there was little to gain in cyberspace. It may be faster obtaining information, but amassing information for the sake of amassing information was meaningless if knowledge led one nowhere. I advised Mommy on the subject. My advise was aligned with what she instilled in her children.

"Whatever you do in cyberspace let it be what you do in the real world!"

The spiritual world has its commandments and rules as well as an Earth Walk. Cyberspace is from our imagination, in one sense, in the air where Satan was banned according to the Hebrew creation story. An old woman told me that explaining why and how she remained in control of her faculties using the computer in her old age. My mother never played with Facebook. I am glad she didn't because Facebook doesn't adhere to the rules of the Air in a sacred manner and neither do millions of others understand the element: Air. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.14.15



Eye of Horus

 

MY FAMILY IN RETROSPECT

August 29, 2015 

should be a good day. I have no way of knowing. 

Today is the first day of September 2013. It's Sunday. Mommy has been dead since April 8th, and we are two days shy of her wedding anniversary. We didn't know how to approach the day. Lemuel, my first born son who was born on April 8th, came up with an idea that worked because it seemed to be a part of the family vibe we are all running on. We had a gathering at my house. It was our first. Jan and I have only been in this house about a year and a half. We'd just entertained her brother, Bud, and nephew Johnny for a week. So, we had some cleaning and fixing to do.This would be our first party, and the first time we entertained on our lawn.

To a backdrop of country music playing on the radio it was fun. Everyone showed up late. Cynthia (my little sister), and Daddy were the first to arrive carrying horse shoes and a couple other games along with their chairs and a card table. Michael's family came. Their oldest, Olivia, with her charming self was sporting glitz and glamour in her playful way. She has a voice activated diary. Her little brother Benjamin is engrossed in kicking the soccer ball. The newest addition to Michael's family and the clan is Joshua. He came into the family the day after Mommy passed away. He is a little and strong brown boy. Laughs a lot. Full of joy.

My first born, Janvier, arrived with her husband, Nehemiah sans les enfants! This was a first. Vania, my youngest daughter, had Janvier's children. My grandchildren arrived later much to my delight. They'd been on an outing with their Aunt Vania. Eric and his family arrived after dark fell. David's youngest son, Daniel, and only daughter, Leila  arrived in Leila's new car. Leila is 23 years old! Our flanking neighbors stopped by to meet the family. We enjoyed this. My next door neighbor, Michael, met Daddy and just as I thought got engaged in a lengthy conversation. Mary, on the other side of us, stayed a long time, and just enjoyed herself. When I introduced her to my little brother, Michael, he extended his hand to shake it and took it back apologizing.

"I am sorry. My hands are dirty."
"That's OK." Mary said, "I work around a lot of dirty men. I'm used to it.!"

We bust out laughing.

All in all and everyone together made it a joyful night of sharing and talking, and laughing. It feels like Mommy's presence is always light and a feather distance away from me. I've awaken and seen her standing close to me. I've glimpsed and sensed her adjustments to the world she is in, and I've wrestled with the feelings of brought on by my wandering on the peripheral of those worlds, and the pressure I sometimes feel wondering if I'd let her down in my inability to grasp the healing modalities of the physical body. I haven't been able to feel the separation as a terrible gouge because the state of being present and in the moment I held during the months of her decline has not changed into anything else. Beyond that how am I doing? How we doing? Everyone has a story, and insights.

Later into the night Daniel (David's son) and I drummed. I took the drum back to the soil and core of the West African shorelines and forests, and inner cities struggling between the old and the modern. I called Elegba first and other Orishas unto us before I guided us to the Realms of the Ancestors (Ikole Orun) carrying the seed of our powers from Mommy to us into the presence of Mommy in Ikole Orun. In the basement with her grandchildren there with Daniel and I drumming, and Elijah (my first grandchild) and others dancing we came close to Mommy. Immersing ourselves in the density of the spirit of the conjured realms, and the ancient rhythms all of us stayed attuned until I returned us along the same paths and out to our starting point, and release. - Gregory E. Woods 9.1.13

Instagram Chicks
August 31, 2013

"This picture has nothing to do with the story, or the experience. The photographer captured light and pure joy and it internally sparked life into me and I was flooded with memories and emotions of my life's high points and Mommy's words and spirit rushed into and out of me!"

http://icismiley.com/new-girls/page/1.html

Black Mothers White Images

Betty White in 1951

Betty White re-invented the image of motherhood, and womanhood in Colored people's minds in the 1950's and '60's. She replaced in a lot of Colored kid's minds their own mothers when they were dreaming about ideals. Because Betty White was on television, as was Timmy's mother on Lassie, and Daniel Boone's wife, and Kitty on GUNSMOKE were on there too many of us dreamt of them as our mothers, wives, or girlfriends, if we could catch up with their ages. 

It was innocence, but it played havoc on some people's minds these ideals and the idea that beautiful white women on the screen were the ideals and our mother's were just Colored. But, in the end, and at the end of the show, or movie our mothers cooked dinner for us and tucked us in at night and all was well and our need to be loved and cherished had come true looking up into our mother's face knowing she was the truth. 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.29.13



My Vintage Look

Betty Page tantalizing !!!!

VISIONS CAN'T DENY THEMSELVES

Unbelievable!
September 4, 2009
from gallery of
 Zenzi Zynzelay-Hussein Whitsett

"She (Damaris Starr) creates the songs of praise within my spirit, and amongst the spirits serving and tending to me, and guarding and guiding me she, in her eyes, seems to sense it all..." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 8/25/13

by Marlo Herring Photography
August 20, 2009

"What is beautiful and comforting is to have a safe place to return to physically and by thoughts further down the life line. White parents with things, and capital, wealth, and all create legacies from a different way of thinking. Not occupied and obsessed with survival they chart courses, and create legacies. Jews and other tribes do the same. Outside of the scratching of survival is not murky waters, but paths easily followed by the way a child's spirit has been studied, and guided into adulthood.

This was my father's way of seeing and my parents' way of being, and Mommy's way of perceiving each child's spirit under the light of where they were in life. This continued until I was deep into my thirties in my dark time!" - Gregory E. Woods 8.25.13

Andrea Velez

 July 28, 2013

Mystery to Powers

a Black woman's strengths in character
08.2014 

Vera Delight 4

My mother and other mothers emphasized and taught daughters to sit properly. "Cross your legs, young lady!" was a buzz in the air in my childhood. Women were instructing their daughters to use and practice magic in practical ways. Legs, I learned as a teenager, contained enormous energies from rushing out, away and into men. Control of men began and ended with what women concealed or restrained themselves with crossed legs. Since then that deep sense of appropriateness is more deeply embedded within my body and mind. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3/24/15

Vanessa Videl crossed her legs pulling up her long dress as she did...

1970's woman 

an ELDER TALK: Crossed legs

beautiful legs of a mature Megan 2

A woman's crossed legs speak directly to something and speak about things we (men) cannot touch save by permission. I learned that difficult art in my late teens. Or rather I began to learn that language as a teenager because of my mother's tutelage. So subtle the art I hesitate to share it in this medium. This is one of those things best absorbed between a boy and a man on a walk, or in the quiet excitement of girl watching anywhere there are women to pay attention to. That venue, or setting makes the impression of the words, the insights into women, and the women's reactions to our presence potent. In a public setting man to boy is felt at deep levels by older women. They sense the exchange and at anytime I can, and have interrupted a woman's shopping asking her opinion, or including her in the conversation. The effect is immediate and brings every point home. I've never had a negative experience with this style of teaching a boy, or young man. Women are glad to participate in the developmental process. It is a womb contribution. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12.2.14

conservative woman 

crossed legs of middle age woman 

Christmas at the Woods' house

The temptation, if you are a thinker, or rebellious, is to lash out against religious celebrations this time of year. What I've found at the center of these people (myself included) is a specific anger against something, or someone that contradicted the very tenets of the religion espoused. In very young children it is particularly painful. In adults that hurt can hurtle into space as if it were a comet, or space debris doing a lot of damage to explorers. Without discernment many get hurt from the hurts to our intellect, our spirit, our sense of purpose which may have been damaged in the onslaught that made many of us rebel against the religion of the holidays. However it happened we are responsible for the pieces, picking up the pieces and routing out a journey back to the source of our pain even if the pain came from studying the major questions of one's religion in a library. It is pain. 

I can tell you it is of paramount importance to do this healing work, but I cannot tell you how to do it. I can start with intent. That has to change. Something has to prick your spirit, stir your conscience into re-thinking your life. For me it was my children. They were very young. In fact, Janvier, my first born was young enough not to be in school when I began a process to eradicate the evidence of Christmas in my household. Intellectually, it was grueling because I engaged people in my church. I learned Christians are resistant to changing the story with facts, and the thought of reexamining their practices of belief is a slap against God, they feel. My research was thorough. Its intensity led me to a kind of missionary campaign for the minds of my children. 

Over time, I believe Janvier may have been between 4 and 6, understood my lectures.  One fine day after listening to me again explaining why this was that and that was so, and no Christmas tree she looked up at me and said, "That's fine, Daddy. But, I want Christmas, and Santa Claus!" 

I was done.

I called Mommy. Mommy simply said, "Bring 'em over here. Just bring them over here." And that was that. My children, no thanks to me, have many wonderful memories of Christmas at their grandparents' houses. At the time they had two sets of grandparents, and two sets of great-grandparents. All of my money went to keep a roof over our heads and food in our tummies. I was never able to afford gifts. Plus, the season and its obligations never entered my mind until a week or so before Christmas. My family was generous. They made sure the children had gifts every year. Now they are grown and have extended the stories into theirs.  - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 12.24.14

intense LOVERS

Sacred form amongst Stone People by Denis shot at the Dynamic Nude Photo Workshop, Lake Powell UT

film commentary

Our parents have past lives, and those events they lived shadow or dominate their children's lives like phantoms we glimpse from time to time, but cannot fathom, or know because we were young and vulnerable. I thought about this in my 20's as my childhood became a center stage work in production. It had to become in my mind open theater. As I get into the roles that played a role in my thinking I saw the shadows of my parent's childhoods in my childhood, and through face to face discussions with Mommy and Daddy I learned. More was learned as a father because my father came out of me in shocking ways. I was unprepared for this, but I had no opportunity to whine about it. I had to develop a course of action.

My first action was to talk with my wife, Renee, about it. We came up with an idea. Looking back it was probably Renee's idea. Anytime I was scolding the children she would monitor me, and when I crossed a line and acted like my father she would in a small voice say, "Herb." until I caught it, and stopped.

Herb is my father's name. The other side of his brilliant child rearing techniques were the mistakes he made with his first born: me. Daddy admitted his mistakes to me when I was 12 years old, but resolving the contradictions was reserved for my young adult years. With my brothers, sister, wife, and my parents learned to unravel and unlearn all that stuff. But it started with Reflection that led to Introspection. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (1.25.13 )

Sacred Geometry design drawn by Sasha Grey

I Remember I AM

Dec. 19, 2012 was a couple weeks from the start of my mother's physical demise. On the first of December she complained of intense head pain, and from that day forward couldn't drive, and began not remembering things. Later in the month she asked why I'd called. I told her an unction deep within my spirit.

"What did you see?" she asked.

I told her there was a figure of some sort, a form like a being, a man above her head pressing down into her head. I didn't understand what it was, but I described it and how it felt. Mommy said she saw the same thing and didn't know what it was either. But, it was happening to her. Later in the months my brothers not trusting the analysis of my sister and not liking the contradictory reports on her health, or why she wasn't seeing a doctor my youngest two brothers went to our parent's home and took over. Mommy's doctor's appointment was set, and I decided to accompany my sister, father and mother to all the appointments. 

None of us knew how our lives would change, or that cancer was discovered eating away in Mommy's brain, and the lymph nodes in her left arm were in the fourth and final stages. 

"How could that go undetected with all the visits to the doctors over the years? How the fuck does that happen?" I raged hearing this news. I could not say those words out loud. We weren't raised that way. No matter how we felt we had an example to follow and Mommy and Daddy's was the way, the truth and the light.

What Mommy's sickness meant took the life of our lives and changed everything we knew into action to care for Mommy in the beginning until we were assisting in her transition to the other world. In the end Mommy died in Michael's house (her youngest) with her first born (me) present. How I miss my mother. Mommy and I knew it would be a loss to live with as the loss of her mother was a loss she told me how she lived with.

I can't write anymore. I am crying like a motherless child. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories  11.22.13

COMMERCIAL BREAK

My father was very clear about television, and how it is be regarded. When I was five years old we lived in Chicago, Illinois. It snowed deeply in those days. When the proverbial Hawk flew in it was butt shaking cold. The snow stood above my head and up to Daddy's waist, at least.

One day a decision had been made, and Mommy bundled me up for the bitter cold to walk with Daddy to purchase our first TV set! I could barely moved. I remember how hot I was in the house. Only my eyes shone, and I couldn't hear too well, but when we got outside all that heat disappeared in the first wind, and was glad to bundled, and warm.

I remember looking up at Daddy. He was a giant, and impressive. He wore a long black wool dress coat and not hat on  his head.

"Daddy, why don't you have a hat on?"

Daddy looked down at his first born, and said with deep resonance in his voice. "Men don't wear hats."

You have to hear me tell this story. Reading it does  no justice, and imparts no power, or grant you the sense of my father's depth and its impact on me then and now. I loved hats. I wore them a lot. I wore them to bed sometimes in my childhood. It wasn't until I was wearing police hats in my late 20's I stopped wearing them with the spirit I wore them. Police hats are stupid in design for tactical reasons, and the look dumb on me, and worst of all caused my hair line to recede prematurely  and rapidly.

That aside I need to talk about television and commercials as Daddy taught us. Daddy is a complex man, and when he dies one day it will be his legacy of words, discipline of mind and spirit, and the countless times his sons sat in counsel with him learning, reviewing and evaluating subjects simple and complex.

Our parents were deliberate in their practices and the things they allowed us to do. Television was not the center piece of our home. Daddy protected us encircling us and the home Mommy created and sustained with prayers with his personal powers (and they were considerable) and keen intellect. Mommy kept an aroma of sanctity astir, and my imagination, as well as my siblings, were wet with dew, and awash with play, and engagement in the multiple sensations of childhood. Television came and went as a spice in our lives we were not devoted to, but enjoyed.

Older, and an adult Daddy, in the midst of a serious discussion, made it a point for me to understand that television is about commercials, not the content of shows. "It is important you understand that, Gregory." he said that afternoon. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.7.13

mysterious aspect of a Pakistani woman

LETS TALK REAL LIFE, What good is 911, emergency help , that is what they call it , Police, Fire dept. and others? We pay with our tax dollars for this service . You call for help and someone on the other end has got to know your life history before help is on the way. I can see if you are trying to keep me calm or ensuring me help will soon be there, but to keep asking me a bunch of questions and I am wondering weather I am going to live or die . If someone is playing a game with them , that is what the law is for. Just think what if Jesus did us that way? every time that you needed help , He would start asking you a bunch of questions. On a serious note , we need to reevaluate the way this system is working , a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death. - Richard Pryor


I understand your concern, Richard. I share the same, but recognize the science behind the practice, and the thinking that has gone into the system. It is a system. There are systems of thought to weigh and consider as well as scenarios, and personalities and the level of discipline and training in the variety of people who call 911 emergency services. 

I am not posing as an expert, but I've thought a lot about this service and how calls are handled as a civilian, and as law enforcement person, hunter and a killer. Central to each role is breath, and from every operator's outlook both the operator and the person calling need to start each discussion centered. The cadence of the voices of each operator seems to be measured and calculated to slow the heart rate of the caller and the personnel. Without a simple centering technique confusion, delirium, and the uncontrollable reign of panic can run amok and nothing will get done. 

The Word says, "A man that cannot control his spirit is like a city without walls."

Without that core nothing is, or can be stabilized, and clarity will not, cannot enter into the equation. 

Gregory E. Woods 5.7.13