Between Father & Son: his wish.

From Father to Son: "A time will come, hopefully, a father will know the depth of knowing and understanding his child, his child's destiny, and how it is to be proud of his child's life. Life is a force in the world wedded into a weave complicated by simplicity. How we moved through these webs tells how we balance against the female principles. As we age knowing this balance becomes the greatest challenge. Within it are insights mere belief cannot possibly grasp... " - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4/10/18

Love Hopes Above Abuse.

It is disconcerting the futile efforts to eradicate violence against women without delving deep into the spirit of the belief surrounding the practice, understanding its cultural and non-spiritual roots centered around what lurks within European culture. In American culture not venturing this way is indicative of an even greater set of fears... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3/16/18

Love between a man and a woman still exists...

the Deeper Question.

Serenely beautiful in her youth. Wonder what is next?

What Is In The Middle?

Sitting in the rubble of a past life. . .

Sometimes. . .

Sometimes a man knows a woman is worth the coming home to by the look in her eyes, and the wait to be her mate is worth the preparation. What that feels like equates his manhood with worth, and value... - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 9/19/17 

Some times prayer is the only thing a man can grab on to if he is trying to maintain the code. Other times giving in is the price of discovery, but what path will you wake up on the morning after? - Dawn Wolf, 12.3.16

"Sometimes a woman thinks, I have been told, 'it is too hard! Let me be!' It is in those moments something awakens..."

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories  

Black Hearts



Soul loss of black americans.

"How did Black Americans go from aspiring to excellence to glorifying debased and otherwise degrading behavior?" is a good question someone asked. It deserves a thoughtful response, and a nod in the direction of the right answer(s).

In a word: soul loss.

For the most part it is a question asked just to be asking. Healers at the deeper levels know most are not committed to excellence because freedom is attached to that goal! More to the point: any group who fights hard to call themselves niggers will be just that! And niggers ain't free, and niggers don't like aspirations above nigger shit!

 

This is the consciousness of death beat upon the drums Blacks no longer use properly!

 

And then moments come, and there are gatherings of a class of Black Americans, like Cécile Charles who embody what their ancestors came from and learned to survive with from their complex spirituality deeply connected to the urge to excel far beyond mere survival.

 

 

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

6.2.16



Cécile Charles by Athenia Walker, her personal & professional photographer.
 November 6, 2015.

 

A Letter to a Man, who was President!

The New England Patriots, a football team, were invited to the White House. I saw the blurp about it on TV wondering how those Black men felt visiting a man as low in character and integrity as Trump, considering the things Black people have swirling through their heads about white people and trust. The news papers said only 34 of the team made the trip to the White House. That was a statement.

The biggest thing that came out of it was reminiscent of the way Black Washingtonians made a big deal about the late Mayor-for-Life, Marion Barry every time he showed up in public. This young man spoke clearly without insult with boldness in a letter he wrote and posted online to President Obama from high character.

For a man, like myself, and others this is a real testament of power in a time needing men to be powerful, not in the way white men like Trump think of power, but the way power conducts itself in decency with an order from an intent to build a bridge, and communicate heart to heart. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [4.21.17]



Dear Big O,

I am writing you this letter to say thank you. I want to thank you for what you have done for this country – outside of politics. Honestly, I don’t know enough about politics to judge what was good or bad, but I want you to know that when you said “Yes We Can” – a young man dreaming a dream from rough circumstances in Florida heard you.

When you were elected President for the first time I was 16 and I watched you make the never-imaginable, attainable and I heard your cry to inspire hope. I used those words as motivation and saw your achievement as an opportunity and permission to work make my dreams come true too.

You were the President of the United States – the highest office in the world. You broke a barrier and a stereotype proving not every minority has to use a ball to make a way. You’ve inspired a lifetime of dreamers young and old. Now, kids from my community – and my future children – will know that there is no dream too big – even they could be the President of the United States.

As I prepare for the honor of visiting the White House, I will be there as a Super Bowl Champion – and I will think of you, mainly because the White House is a different, and better place because you lived there. I was a kid that came from nothing and I am living out one of the greatest dreams of my life. I am just grateful for the opportunity to walk on the same steps as you did, and to have a platform to inspire and I hope to leave my mark on history the way you did. One day, when I meet you, I will shake your hand and say thank you to your face but until then this kid is going to continue to dream until I can’t anymore.

Thank you for blazing a trail, but for more than that, for leaving a paved road behind you for others to climb on.


"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your DREAMS!" – Oprah


Yes we can!! DREAM BIG!!


Thank you, Jacoby Brissett


P.S Holla at me to help you with your broke jump shot

Riddle with Truth

There is a sneaky quality to white women like Ana here, who shows a sliding side of seduction that alleviates the pain of crossing the color line for the tangible results of good relationship, good sex and good times. For many this is a paradox because the American anthem seems to say we are equal, but the consequences of interracial marriage with whites is hard. Not only because the culture is based on race division, but because the 'purity' of white blended with the genius of the African blood is a mixture of the conqueror and conquered! 

Popular culture loves to shove its head into the proverbial sand straining to believe its own myths are stable and true and refute that, but they don't matter. The truth is the painful truth. 

We need a revival of the truth. We already know from our personal lives how frightening our truths are, so why can we not evolve to the national level after our own personal transformations, if we make them, and transform at the national level? The international level will take care of itself because change spirals outward, and our global position affects the world.

Imagine it. Imagine how powerful we would be if transformation was the guiding light, the objective of keeping the world's people in good health with comfortable lives at the center of American foreign policy?

If we lived this deep how deep do we need to plunge within our own souls to generate this type of energies?


~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.20.16 

Baiting with a look.

Bless Her Way.



Sassy, defiant and assured she is right on target with her opinion of self. It is in the eyes.
 

The deep purpose in her eyes is convincing. Perhaps she is on the walk to herself.

These are the things an elder thinks of. - Dawn Wolf Keeper of Stories 6.28.16

 

Language heard by Soul (3)



bicycle rider facing a road.

We are all facing a road at each juncture of our lives. The decisions we make are based upon belief, knowing, fear and hope. Trust factors are in there because we sometimes have to trust the process we embarked upon when we decided to become part of this lifetime. 

This is what a warrior thinks about. What he or she does as a warrior is based upon the code they live by. Do you have a code? - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (Dawn Wolf) 6.28.16

Purpose



Angelina Jolie speaks as US Secretary of State John Kerry listens during an Iftar reception to mark World Refugee Day at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Washington on June 20, 2016. photo by Anadolu Agency

Frequently, people mistake jobs for purpose and the purpose for living to the next day is for mere survival, not in service to others. What is your purpose? Why are you here on this planet and not another?

Years ago, when my little sister was in college she drove long miles from somewhere in Virginia home in Southern Maryland to tell the family a recent news story. Apparently, a baby was born. His first words at birth, "Jesus is coming back!" were his last words. He died after uttering them to the astonished nurse and doctor crew delivering the baby.

That little incident went into a vault never to be heard again but many remember it because the baby lived his purpose and left us. How his life purpose rippled is in the retelling of his story. How does your life ripple? ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6.26.16
 

its Not nice to be a fool.

Universe

Balance is the only path to heaven. But it is the nature of the domesticate to seek imbalance. It is the nature of the domesticate to seek things in his or her own favor and usually as much as possible--selfishness. To come from the self-perspective as though self-perspective is absolute--when the reality is it is always incomplete. For that reason ALL domesticates (which includes virtually all modern humans) are doomed to HELL and are devil worshipers!! Just remember our Indigenous ancestors lived in heaven, the Garden of Eden, before the infection. They lived in heaven because they sought balance above all other things. Because balance is Wakan Tanka. Balance is love. 

 

 

  We have a choice we can abandon the hell forced upon us by the Wasicu and embrace the Indigenous ways of living of our ancestors and heal from our addiction to the selfish ways of the Wasicu or stay in the hell that they created for us." - Teacher unknown

Water Nymph Trae Harris

 

HOPE IN THE CITY

Stacy Renee's Art


Cities rush by us, or we feel that way as we rush through cities hurried by fear and panic at the possibility of failing, or being late for something. Forever clinging to someone else's perception of us one's youth and vitality can be sapped up by the way we had to, or felt we had to give our soul to working for a living. It is a grim choice for most it seems. For many a young woman dreams are forgotten and suddenly remembered standing where she feels naked and vulnerable in a city. For as long as it takes a light to change a decision can accompany a revelation and she or anybody can turn and walk away from it all, and take on the process of remembering themselves! ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.30.13




naked woman in the city.
Stacy Renee, artist.
June 3, 2013 

Unyieldingly Sacred by MJ Lindo

 

Restoration

To have seen so much violence
borne of foreign invasions and
then the need to eke out a life from
the remnants of dehumanising and
dehumanised remains is something ...
to sift through carefully while the
tides of life within you are recalibrating ... ~ Mereana Taki (2015)


 

AFRICAN TALES: the price paid

tattooed babe in a chair was all he saw and the only words out her mouth devalued what could have been the gold of her soul. Without the tutelage of soul and spirit a boy would never see the woman if he was taught about sex through the practice of gang rape. It is a troubling kind of mentality that reeks within the bodies of many young Black and Hispanic men across the United States. It is an ingrained process in many neighborhoods. It isn't mentioned in polite and wealthy circles, or the upper, or middle class neighborhoods. It should because many of the better educated families are losing the mentality of their sons to this notion of women as objects; as pussy for the taking.

Oblivious to the touch of opulence, and arrogance is the history of a people who have struggled to reshape family as an African people. But the centuries have not been kind, or favorable, or had merciful understanding of what was created within the souls of Black People fighting for survival and dignity. For complex reasons the 21st century is playing out a frightening story in African-American communities and Native American and Hispanic communities across the country. At the core of the dramas acting out in homes and on streets and in prisons the loss of the ability to ground one's self into the spiritual tradition of their ancestors through acts of terror fled the consciousness of the generation.

There are profound ways to shift consciousness, but there are employed actors in the game of terror that have effectively shut down the creative and magical process in children that makes adult mentorship programs too hard to assimilate into the culture of pain, and denial, and fear, and loss. There are words, powerful words that can shift direction and awaken the creative abilities to undo, to unlearn the craftsmanship of dying, and Death, but after thirty some years of attack upon the minds of colored peoples the words of say an Albert Einstein (1879-1955) are too abstract for a common mind to grasp.

Einstein said, "Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live."

There is a lot in there. There is a path to freedom in those words, but people holding on to their tragedies can't hear the deeper teachings that lead out and away from the crudeness. It is hard, and I understand. I also understand that should a Messiah come he would be automatically minimized by the nature of belief that dominates and oppresses the minds of the oppressed.

These are my words. I am Gregory E. Woods a Keeper of Stories.
8.30.13

Dreadlocked beauty of a Fierce woman is a reminder of the heritage, the strong lineage of holy people, mothers, warriors, inventors, strategists, fighters, fathers, philosophers, our ancestral knowledge, the artistic traditions of the soul of the various tribes we came from, and the genius of the spirit of who  we are and who we were as a People. Who we will become is the product of our thoughts, the depth and meaning of our intent, the breath of our ancestors, and our definitions of power, where we stand, and how we envision the futures. It is through our loins in the solitude of turmoil and the relieve of quieter times we can speak to our grandchildren's children.

This has always been our way of surviving, and living in the depth of the moments we have.

 - Alowan Chanteh Inyan Wichasha
8.3.13

tattooed bodies of 2 Black women with big assess was all he talked about. Graham never spoke of them by their names. "They was his bitches!" he claimed.

Little Mike was 12. Only twelve and he looked up to Graham without balanced questions. That was the shame of it and that was the end of it for Don. Don was a quiet man who lived by himself near where all the action took place in this part of South Chicago. He worked as a plummer on the Saturdays his dad needed help, but most of his money was made working for the city government, and his side jobs as a photographer. It was the photography gig that got him involved with Mark and Mike.

Don had taken some pictures of a fight near Mr. Lee's restaurant that sold handsomely to a couple of publications. But, during the development process of his film he noticed the two boys and the delight in their eyes watching Graham brutally beat a woman in front of her children. That stirred Don into rage and later action. He took time to find out about the two boys. Got to know some of their family members, and tried to build a friendship with the boys. It was too hard. Little Mike loved the street life, and was suspicious of Don's intention. He was afraid of him. Thought he was a fag of some sort. It was this perception of Mike's that got Don on Graham's target list. He didn't like what fags had done in his family.

That was two years before Mike shot Don in the head and was initiated into the gang that later turned him out when he tried to defend the life of a woman who used to baby sit him. The gang thought he was soft, and didn't, as they repeatedly said, "Didn't give a fuck!" about the woman. To them she had pussy to be taken, and everyone knew she had no Old Man, and no gang claimed her. She was a working stiff trying to make a living and get out duh 'hood. That's what Rodriquez said after his turn in her.

That was the comment that released Little Mike's rage, and got him shot in the head by his boys. That was the shot that rang out with the truth the neighborhood taught him to scorn and ignore. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.30.13

"We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets." 

- Marilyn Monroe

Adriana Lima, international model

August 26, 2013

Cameron 5 

"There is always hope of redemption!! With breath there is Life. Within Life there is hope to remember and reclaim!" - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of the Drum

Teresa Ware Moody & her husband in church!!!!

Taraji P. Henson in a sequined pink & leopard Basler gown with plunging neckline is amongst the best of our best. Our best is not good enough until our best is not the exception. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 

To a teachable Spirit

Sepia woman contemplating 

The story of the heart is often told in actions, and stances reveal what ails, or exalts one's spirit. The strong body of knowledge isn't the safest place to find solace. The mind will trick you into not submitting to the heart song that knows the truth unable to lie to vanity. City life can alienate the busy person, the lonely, the successful, and the homeless making their heart songs feel like voids one atop the other. It is illusion. Who we are and what we need is within us and reflects in the perceptions others have of us. Answers are everywhere. Solutions abound. It is lifestyles we chose that separate us from the truth of who we are.


Question to ask: "Who am I alive?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10.1.13

September 29, 2013

model: Haley Davis

I HOPE

Having A Deaf Ear To Your Haters and Doubters
By Dr-Sinclair N. Grey III 
  


If you want to blow up from the floor up, you can't listen to everybody. Let me say it another way. If you're really ready to excel, you can't listen to people who have never been where you want to go. People who never stepped out on faith will give you all kinds of reasons why you shouldn't do what's in your heart. Those aren't the people you need to listen to. As a matter of fact, don't even ask them ...to pray for you because they're not the ones in your corner. Seek out people who have faith, have seen God do the impossible, and believe God has something great for you .

The Bible tells us when God called Abram to leave the familiar and go on a journey, "Abram left, as the LORD had told him..." Please don't miss this. You'll always have haters and doubters. From family members to close friends, there's no way to escape it. However, I urge to trust in the One who called you and know that doors will open for you. You can do it. Stop making excuses and position yourself for God to use you.

Aaron Neville at 73 years of age

Sidney Poiter & Ruby Dee in The Raisin In The Sun

Tina Knowles celebrates her House of Dereon

Patrycja Gabana
#12787

GANGSTA' SHIT: letter to a young cat.

Bria Myles

A photographer captured Bria Myles posing apparently on the streets of Los Angeles, California saying as a caption, "Westside, 'til  I die!"

Increasingly, young people are declaring allegiance to their corners in their little neighborhoods in cities across the nation. With ever increasing fury is the conviction that education, and any capacity to learn is not hip. More desirable is the inner world reflected by action that is indifferent to growth, and the larger society. I understand how fear works to multiple itself within the weakened and the depressed, but in contrast I know how strong and indomitable the human spirit is.

It is the numbers of young Black people satisfied with being at the low rungs of a society that has freed up the avenues to attaining dreams, and learning how to function in a system I admit is jacked up. But, the combination of things at work for and against advancement of the soul can be the trajectory out of the quagmire of thinking thoughts not conducive to expansion. I know very well how I ascended and left the darkness that shadowed my life years past. There are so many circumstances to arise from, and measuring and saying one is more difficult than another to overcome is a ridiculous waste of time, and unimportant. What is important is the fight, and the struggle to learn or create the stratagems to get out of the shit one is embroiled within.

If the Three Little Pig story somehow absorbed you into the pages and folds of the story physically, and you were living the experience of the pig, the third pig who eventually cooked the wolf would the story have the same outcome?

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.27.13

Jah Knows!



Crescent Moon

HANWI, THE MOON IS WINKING AT YOU

Blessings and Light are being shared with you this wonderful and amazing Moment in time. Gaze upon this beautiful pre-dawn sky illuminated by a crescent Moon, winking to let you know all is in Divine Order, and a Universe of Heavenly Bodies, yes many suffer, many have died but the portal is opened unto each of us to step into this place of Peace and Harmony.... The Power of Love is weathering all the storms in our World and revealing the Truth to each of us. Blessed are those who are opening to Universal Love. The Awakened Moment is Awaiting You. Let go, Let God guide you to that place of Peace. A place is this Circle of Light is awaiting you. The Reunion of all Souls is Dawning, as this is the Age of Aquarius. Let us rejoice as the Light brilliantly illuminates the Dark. May Peace be with you.

I LOVE YOU, I AM your

H.I.P.P.I.E. Brother, NAMASTE

 



Circle

 

Do Not Let GO!

actress Emily Blunt

When things go wrong, as they sometime will 

When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill, 

When the funds are low, and the debts are high, 

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, 

When care is pressing you down a bit, 

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. 

Life is queer with its twists and turns, 

As every one of us sometimes learns. 

And many a great person turns about, 

When he might have won had he stuck it out. 

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow, 

You may succeed with another blow. 

Often the struggler has given up, 

When he might have captured the victor’s cup; 

And he learned too late when the night came down, 

How close he was to the golden crown. 

Success is failure turned inside out, 

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, 

And you never can tell how close you are, 

It may be near when it seems far. 

So stick in the fight when you’re hardest hit, 

It’s when thing seem worse, 

That you must not quit. 

 - author unknown



concentric circles