Oxum, graciosa mãe!

One Black woman asks a question. photographer, Roland Dawson.

Oxum, graciosa mãe, plena de sabedoria!
Que enfeita seus filhos com bronze
Que fica muito tempo no fundo das águas gerando riquezas
Que se recolhe ao rio para cuidar das crianças
Que cava e cava a areia e nela enterra dinheiro Mulher poderosa que não pode ser atacada


Oshun, Gracious Mother, full of wisdom who adorns her children with bronze, which is too long at the bottom of the water generating riches, Who gathers to the river to take children, who digs and digs the sand and buries money. Powerful woman who cannot be attacked.

Soul Roles

Art by Frank Morrison

Aqui é:

Onde Minha Alma se derrama em palavras para agraciar quem as lê, para acalentar quem as entende, em um entrelaçar de linhas que compõe
melodiosa sinfonia de letras. Para quem souber ler nas entrelinhas.

This is:
Where my soul pours in words to grace those who read them, to cherish those who understand them, in a intertwine of lines that compose
Melodious Symphony of letters. For anyone who can read between the lines. - Ómí Tútú

ARt - African Spiritual Woman.

Seu Ase will be to keep the world...

"Seu Ase será para manter o mundo ... Isso será um pássaro contido numa cabaça coberta. Exercite seu Ase com cuidado! De acordo com o Oráculo de Ifá, Iya Mi Aje Osoronga é o um dos nomes sagrados da entidade misteriosa e divina que conhecemos como poder feminino, ou seja, o sexo identificado como feminilidade, o que implica todas as características de feminilidade! Cultos Africano apresentam as características únicas em um nível humano que existem no divino "IyaMi."

" your ase will be to keep the world... that will be a bird contained in a covered gourd. Exercise your ase carefully! According to the oracle of Ifá, iya mi aje osoronga is one of the sacred names of the mysterious and divine entity that we know as female power, i.e. sex identified as femininity, which implies all the characteristics of femininity! African cults present the unique features on a human level that exist in the divine " Iyami." 

Ómí Tútú

Owl Medicine People at work.

the OLD ways in the NEW.

Yorùbá Orishas – Oshun, divinity of rivers, love, feminine beauty, fertility, and art, also one of Shango’s lovers and beloved of Ogoun

Maria Borges by Rory Payne for Mixt(e) Magazine Spring Summer of 2015.

If the intellectual concepts of water are not sacred the power of man and women is a dead concept. The difference between a whore and a woman is the sanctity a woman embodies, or doesn't. If there is no respect for land based upon the divinity of land as Mother there is only factual dissemination of why land is property, and no soul to the laws of ownership need apply to forcibly remove money as the reason for drilling for oil knowing it will pollute a significant water supply not that far from a predicted drought coming to middle America because of the disrespectful use of water in the past.

Oshun entering American life, thought life, and the practice of leaving altars and offerings upon land would be a return to reverence. African spirituality is older than the modernity of corporations somehow faceless with no soul attached to a body of business practices affecting human life robotic like with no feeling, no real culpability as the laws have been written. But, the centuries of contact with greedy white people deemed this old but celebrated spirituality as the work of the devil. Demonized the Orishas cannot become a part of a lexicon we need to overturn what doesn't work as we face melting ice raising shorelines, droughts as white men make decisions about correcting these problems with profit uppermost in their thoughts and concerns, and economic development as their guiding light of environmental reformation. What we can do is stop our lives and let thousands of American citizens including policy makers and decision makers live in abject poverty in other countries for at minimum of a month to learn how to see with other's eyes, feel other's pain to know American life is not the center of life.

"What does the world see when they see us?"

We will never know if we don't listen. We will not understand if we cannot, if we refuse to, or are unwilling to switch position and live where someone else lives to see how we live in their perspective of us. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Jan. 10, 2017

Cigar smoking old Cuban woman in Havana, Cuba. photo by Ania Blazejewska on Flickr.

Sacred Be Them!

Beautiful Dark Chocolate

"I am strong, full bodied; idealized in my history, scorned in other's perception of Africa: I am the dream, the prayers of my ancestors from deep within our spirituality, as of yet undiscovered by the crude prancing around as if they know what they know not. I don't need to roar. Shango sits atop my head!" - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 1/11/17

She seems to be saying, "I am peering into concentric mirrors encircling the concept and perception of me, and the realities I create by perception and intent. I am a lot." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 1/11/17

"Black American women's tendency to turn men on and demand to be respected for being strong Black women is often a conflict for many men because they need the strength and the woman, not the competition." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 1.11.17

"Dark beautiful women escape from the speculation by being African. If it is embraced and leads towards the Goddess, the High Priest everything she is and has is an asset revered by Men, and unseen by immaturity."

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Jan. 11, 2017

Taste of cocoa.

Orunmila, IFA, & Babalú-Ayé

I Never Surrender..MΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

21 mins ·

 

ANCESTRAL KNOWLEDGE:

Orula is the orisha of great divination. He is the divine and wise man that knows the future of everyone one and its existence. He consults through the Ifa divination and is very accurate on his readings. Orula is the first prophet that came upon land. He was sent and given that gift from the great Olofi. He was instructed that through his Ifa oracles he will entrust the safe being, the wisdom and the clarity within humans. He is there when a spirit in reincarnated in the flesh of a human. He instructs and guides the spirit to the world and gives them a list of what should be done. It is that spirit who makes the decision that everyday man does. Orula was said to be walking amongst the 16 ancestor spirits that make up the Ifa divination oracles. With these oracles Orula can see the past, present and future.

Orula is the knowledge and intelligence that is used to govern the people and triumph over all evil. Orula was with us while Olofi was creating the earth. He is the great witness of Olofi’s work. He even saw the creation of the orisha. That is the ultimate reason why Orula knows our entire destiny. He is a great counselor and his words are of good teachings. Ones who do not follow his words will deal with the wrath of Eshu.

Orula is good friends with the orishas but most of all with Chango. Orula and Chango go hand in hand as Chango also has the knowledge of divination. His trusty friend as well is Eshu who testes the faith of mankind. Orula knows all within mankind. He knows the beginning and end of all humans, animals and all existence. - from the House of Shango this wisdom channeled here to you. 

 

 

Orunmila of Wisdom, Divination & Foresight

Orisha Babalú-Ayé

Babalú-Ayé

In the religious system of Orisha worship, Babalú-Ayé is the praise name of the spirit of the Earth and strongly associated with infectious disease, and healing. He is an Orisha, representing the deity Olorun on Earth. The name Babalú-Ayé translates as “Father, lord of the Earth” and points to the authority this orisha exercises on all things earthly, including the body, wealth, and physical possessions. In West Africa, he was strongly associated with epidemics of smallpox, but in the contemporary Americas, he is more commonly thought of as the patron of leprosy, influenza, and AIDS. Although strongly associated with illness and disease, Babalú-Ayé is also the deity that cures these ailments. Both feared and loved, Babalú-Ayé is sometimes referred to as the “Wrath of the supreme god” because he punishes people for their transgressions. People hold Babalú-Ayé in great respect and avoid calling his actual name, because they do not wish to invoke epidemics.