Grieve in Water

IS LUMBEE LOVE DEAD? 

When she is sick and dying, who last shall, vigil keep beside her lonely, lovely waters if not we, those indigenous to the waters of the ole Lumbee fail to protect her in the present? Will we stand up and safeguard her beauty as only we see it or do we discard her as a mere swamp, remiss of our duties owed to her bounty? 

by jojo brooks shifflet, Lumbee nation 




The grief in water doesn't leave us, not in this culture we live living, as if we are distant from cause and effect. The average person does not pay attention, or heed the warnings of scientists, or the obvious evidence on a walk along a stream in a forest, or a park's pool. Women are not respected at the significant levels their creation orders the world's original structures. American, or more specifically, European historic practices have not respected this state of being. This continued practice embedded in thought life and practice does not care for water in a sacred way.

Protesting companies fouling up our waters is different from care for water as a sacred responsibility with prayers, the words and songs of power delivered from the womb daily! This passes as social responsibility, but the custom of separating Life into parts indifferent from each other cannot see the whole when profit is the gauge measuring 'progress'. Measuring is destined to devalue one to gain the other, so water like Earth are in danger of irreversible poisoning. A population dismissive of sacred things, and sacred responsibilities is incapable of exercising compromise, or changing self to save a planet, or grasp how the elements live within our "who we are"!

In layman's terms, we are in a 'clusterfuck'! In respectable verbiage we are in a pickle! In reality, we are killing our grandchildren to feed our children! This is the spirit of a mentality resistant to change, reform and being human.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
Feb. 9, 2018

Water Carrier.

Sacred Art Work by Le Ah Tiamat titled, Sky Qwake

New Home?

Earth bag home

The Spirit of Europe and Euro-Americans.

~ Mags Whittock observed and wrote: 

“The leases are located near the homes of Navajo residents and just outside a 10-mile buffer from Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. It’s as if the Bureau of Land Management couldn’t care less about the concerns of the Navajo Nation or any Tribal interests. Trump and Zinke have continued to rubberstamp industry demands to industrialize this sacred landscape in spite of calls from the Navajo Nation and the All Pueblo Council of Governors for a moratorium on fracking in the Greater Chaco region.

“It’s obvious that this lease sale is another slap in the face to the Navajo Nation and New Mexican Pueblos from President Trump and his Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke,” said Nichols. “More importantly, it’s another sign that Trump and Zinke have absolute disregard for American public lands and the cultural heritage they sustain.” 

Trump to Sacrifice 4,500 Acres of Greater Chaco for Frackin 

November 18, 2017
Eco News 

Today, in defense of clean air, clean water, healthy communities, and our climate, a coalition of conservation groups called on Trump’s Bureau of Land Management to reverse plans to auction off public and Tribal lands in the Greater Chaco region to the oil and gas industry. The BLM is moving ahead with plans to sell more public and Tribal lands for fracking in the area despite intense opposition from conservation and Tribal interests.

“Once again, Trump and Zinke have failed the American public by declining to disclose the true costs of fossil fuel development on our communities, air, water and climate,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “Under Trump, the BLM’s sole job these days seems to be to grease the skids for the oil and gas industry to frack and industrialize the Greater Chaco Region.”

WildEarth Guardians, joined by the Western Environmental Law Center, Amigos Bravos, Chaco Alliance, Dine Citizens Against Our Ruining Our Environment, the Natural Resources Defense Council, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and the Sierra Club, opposed the BLM and U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) plans to auction off 25 parcels containing 4,434 acres of publicly owned land to the fracking industry at the March 8, 2018 oil and gas lease sale.

The leases are located near the homes of Navajo residents and just outside a 10-mile buffer from Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. It’s as if the Bureau of Land Management couldn’t care less about the concerns of the Navajo Nation or any Tribal interests. Trump and Zinke have continued to rubberstamp industry demands to industrialize this sacred landscape in spite of calls from the Navajo Nation and the All Pueblo Council of Governors for a moratorium on fracking in the Greater Chaco region.

“It’s obvious that this lease sale is another slap in the face to the Navajo Nation and New Mexican Pueblos from President Trump and his Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke,” said Nichols.“More importantly, it’s another sign that Trump and Zinke have absolute disregard for American public lands and the cultural heritage they sustain.” ~ author unnamed 

Chaco Canyon Anasazi set for fracking by Trump administration.

photo by Evalyn-Bemis 

Elder Teaching Grandmother

Dedication to Papatuanuku our Earth Mother.

Rahkweeskeh Miller:

"The heart of the family nurtures all of the family, and is supported by the family."


Mereana Taki: 

"These are called whakatauki by some of us, proverbial sayings of Olds. They aren't to be read only literally as they apply to the Earth as to the Human both. Is the Love unconditional to the Earth Mother and the Human Mother? They are one and the same potentiality of life for the one who will undertake the journey of universal Love as personal expansion." Sept. 19, 2016 

Love land . . .

From Linda Black Elk::::

Have you ever been to the prairies of North and South Dakota?

Today it is raining and Mother Earth is soaking it up and nourishing all of those roots and tubers that are going to sleep for winter. There's still a ton of wildflowers - goldenrod, sunflowers, cleome. The butterflies and bees are still busy - even in the rain - and the bald eagle couples are settling into their massive nests to keep warm in the coming months. Some of them have eaglets.

When the wind blows across the tallgrass prairie, it looks just like golden ocean waves. The hawks love to look for mice on those windy days, because it's difficult for the rodents to hide among the moving grains. The pronghorn and bison graze lazily next to each other, while herds of white tail and mule deer, skittish because of the coyotes, stand in tight cliques...always on guard.
The Missouri River - the Lakota call it Mníšoše - winds through the prairie - moving steadily in its altered course. I always wonder what it was like to stand on the shore, underneath massive cottonwood trees, before the river was dammed. It is still so beautiful, quiet, and alive with the activity of jumping fish, frogs, and water fowl.


This is why we are here. This is what we are fighting for. This is what we are protecting. I just wanted you all to know what is in my heart. #NoDAPL

NATURAL LAWS

"I believe that ancient tribal cultures have important lessons to teach the rest of the world about the inter-connectedness of all living things and the simple fact that our very existence is dependent upon the natural world we are rapidly destroying." - Wilma Mankiller, First woman elected Cherokee Deputy Chief, 1991 

creating a world within a world 

"I strongly believe we need to connect with our ancestors and the ancient ones so we can understand our sacred spiritual journey now and the sacred wisdom we contain within; I summons forth the sacred wisdom and knowledge we have for too long allowed to stay hidden. The time for our awakening is NOW!" 

- Michelle RedSun EagleHawk SunHawk  3.2.13

RIPPLES

4 Ways to Avoid Running Out of Money in Retirement

Older couple walking along the beach as one.

People live upon the Earth, our Mother, and our actions and thoughts and emotions connect or distance us from each other. The most notable light spreads upon the valley from the mountain above as the stones thrown into the water ripples outward changing the movement of the water. Our words are like these forces of Nature, and our actions ripple outward influencing and changing or creating stagnation anywhere and everywhere there is life upon the planet, and  how our planet moves means something to each world in the pool of the universe. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 2.22.14 

Former Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan 20 years after her Olympic days. 

our SUN & our MEN

Khloe Kardashian

""the sun sets on our ideas of self." ~ dawn wolf, keeper of stories 

At times, I wonder if the Western man punished himself for the perceived sins of his ancestors by clouding the skies with acid rains, chemical trails, and other loathsome chemicals, burning coals, the sounds of profanity leaping out, and into the atmosphere billowing upward to choke the light and the image of the sun once worshiped, and studied, and revered mostly, as a spiritual source of insight, wisdom, and knowing??  I wonder if the island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, and the circling trash around the globe are indicative of the trade made for material wealth in exchange for the soul of the Earth, no longer seen as our Mother? 

I wonder about these things as the art of distraction grows sharp edges and renews itself with each denial carelessly tossed out of people's mouths into ears, and the air, and shrugs of shoulders to mimic and show disinterest in outcomes, and distance from the laws and mathematical equations that formulate Creation, prophecy, existence, and the fundamental expectations in the exchanges of death-for-life we subsisted on for thousands of years, and the relationships we  disrespect and have with the multitude of those living with us on this planet! 

I wonder how we will be judged by the slight of hand tricks of our ideologies that govern life on this planet that justify heinous actions, and decisions malicious to the cause of the just, and continuation of life through our loins! I think about this things, and I wonder aloud. 

"What if...?" ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.9.13

tattooed women with the same 'Taonga' on their forearms.
(Maori)

woman breasts to the four winds

EARTH SONGS

Mereana Taki's depth to her exquisite beauty.

There's an intimacy with the Land Mother
she's inside all of the senses communicating
that soft touch of greens in every shade of deep
inviting blues that sing the Sun out of the Sky
South Pacific amniotic waters washed naked ...
and People of every hue and persuasion thrive

 

Mereana TAKI Dec. 2, 2015

Maori woman from across the pond.

 

a New Day !!!!

Twyla D'Vine by Autumn Luciano in yellow !!!!

the rebirth of Kerosene Deluxe says, "Crawl out of the dirt and find your path!"

 

TWO WORLDS

"To me an older Himba woman embodies some intangibles the Western world can only guess, or speculate about. It is what they knew, what the land taught them, what their ancestors enjoyed about being their ancestors, the women's breasts, their wombs, and the way they care that spoke to me years ago when I was looking for a wife. Their accessibility to the realms closed to the cynical Western mind is what I ached for my children to have mingled with their breast milk.

Not every tribe's women have the same relationship to Beauty, or Survival, or with Life, or the mysteries between their legs. Each has some things the others don't have. What the African tribes I know of has in their substance is their origins. The creation of living life on Earth, our Mother for them is the primal assembly we all feast upon, if we are honorable, internalize if we have integrity, feel if we are honest, and understand if we love as we are loved by the mysterious things flowing from Earth Mother's womb to womb in the ancient sense of being whole that the African continent has flowing from deep within her own wombs." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.7.13

larger than life woman

"There is a contrast to the perceptions of a woman's body from East to West and West to East that causes pain in one world, and stimulates honor in another. In centuries past those distinctions were more distinct; prominent in fact. From initial contact with Western peoples and their religious beliefs what has transpired in our collective histories has devastated the holiness of form, women's form, sacred space, and reduced mother's body to the ash of commerce and trade. What do our daughters in the West receive from these intangibles that are consistent in their inconsistencies, and what does the daughter still clinging to her tradition receive from contact with the Western world?

What it is is implied with clarity in the clash of cultures, and the stories told about where, and how the Western world and the indigenous worlds began and will end is in women's bodies, and how they use those bodies. Daughters from both worlds will find the answers within." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.7.13

"For the boys I am teaching have you noticed the definitions of and the distinctions of what we, in the West, deem inappropriate and profane, and the indigenous worldview of women's bodies? It is important to understand these differences of perception." - Dawn Wolf 

eyes of a hard woman

NUT

Mother Earth, Nut, the sky Goddess , arching from horizon to horizon is a child of Shu and Tefnut.

Nut and Geb are the children of Shu and Tefnut. The sky is the body of Nut, the Sky Goddess, arching from horizon to horizon. The stars are part of her and the sun passes through her every day. Geb is the Earth God, lying beneath her. During the day, Nut and Geb are separated, but each evening Nut comes down to meet Geb and this causes darkness. If storms came during the day, it was believed that Nut had come closer to the earth.

black photographer Michael M. Law of Jeniah Campbell atop a stool in black & white.

 

Water Song Deer Sung

an absolute beauty pouring a cup of water on her body

In a study of body is a body of wonder and speculation about what a body needs and means to the spirit in the body. How do you approach a body of knowledge and the spirit of said body containing spirit and emotion? Carnal lust is self-expression. With judgment it is a burden of the soul entrapping the spirit into a endless dialogue with doubt and fears.

I just returned from a walk in a sliver of woods near my home. Littered upon the land were countless leaves and green low growing vegetation covering moist brown earth. A lot of tires jutted from the landscape sometimes creating a collaboration of art and spoil when years of sediment and floods sunk the majority of a tire here and there into the ground. Tires and trash, rusted metals, bike frames made the tapestry look jagged, worn and neglected. I couldn't help wondering how four-legged creatures fared. Broken glass was splayed out in a tragic form in one place unable to reflect sunlight because today is a rainy and cloudy winter day. The stream was narrow with old stories of former glory. Flanking the stream of brown dirty water houses peered down into the narrow swath of hardwood trees just as perplexed as I at the trash each owner had thrown down into the forest. Why? I don't know how to answer such a question if asked of any of the four-leggeds.

Rounding a bend in the stream's course I saw a white tail deer spring out of hiding gracefully with concern about her countenance leap away from me. She stopped to look at me. I shared my thoughts and concerns with her to which she turned and gracefully leaped away.

"In beauty all things find a way to live in the worst and the best of circumstances," she said from the quiet of her spirit to mine. - Gregory E. Woods, 1.15.14






naked Black woman bathing her Yoni in the sun

BODY of Mystery BODY of Knowledge

full body of a Black woman on August 15, 2014 

4.

Over the span of a lifetime a woman can learn to appear one way that is strong and full, but is she? Black women's full body image is a message of their ancient lineage of divinity African women come from and are the substance of. But do Black American women hold that ancient truth to wisdom? Fundamentally, the stories of heart hold the true answers, and more often than not the filtered version of their access to power renders them powerless late in life, or earlier as a consequence of living outside of the powers within their wombs. In shorter words, the commitment to not hold their ancestries in a sacred manner within their being is the tell Death wants to know and see as a way to minimizing what is meant to be extraordinary powers. 

The wombs of women closed leaves them without power ignorant of the truth of knowledge their bodies sing to the worlds they come from and are designed to plant upon the Earth, our Mother; but not knowing the Earth is their Mother Black women suffer needlessly. Most Black women's bodies are desirable. What is the body of knowledge they pass to children born, and what have their men received into their bodies after sex? These are fundamental questions to the women of the darker hue in charge of powerful legacies but whose allegiance is to slavery and their bondage. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3.13.15

Indigenous Women Rising

Mauritius president says traditional science can save Africa

By This Is Africa on July 24, 2015



President Ameena Gurib-Fakim of Mauritius. Photo: Legacy Project

Speaking to the BBC in London, President Gurib-Fakim encouraged African education institutions to promote intra-African science, similar to intra-African trade, so as to find ‘African solutions to African problems’.


She added that the science community needs to revisit African traditional knowledge systems for addressing solutions that the continent could use.


“We need to re-look at what we refer to as ‘traditional knowledge’…in the threats and challenges coming up like climate change, traditional knowledge as well as science will provide a third way for addressing solutions which African can depend on”

She also urged governments to endorse traditional medicine and science, in similar ways to how the governments of China and India have established the systems in their countries.

Listen to the interview below: http://thisisafrica.me/ameenah-gurib-fakim-says-traditional-science-can-save-africa/