IN the depths: accountability.

Masks are so fashionable more often than not people await the nearness of their deaths to unmask themselves. Is that too late?

Asked that question millions of Christians believe it is not, as well as believe a sinner can sin his/her entire life and give their life to Jesus at the end, or near their death and obtain eternal life! Is that fair, true, or an irreconcilable difference between being authentic or disingenuous getting by without discipline of soul, of mind and spirit? 

One of the wisest insights into human development came from the mother of King Solomon. She advised her son in many ways that influence the warrior, and chisel impeccability.

She said, "A man that cannot control his spirit is like a city without walls!" 

If those words are guardians of higher truths why delve into truths if lies can sustain us?  

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

9.1.16

The Art of Bernard Collins 

www.facebook.com/bernardcollinsjr
www.facebook.com/Bernard-Collins-Jr-Visual-and-Spoken-Word-Artist-171309302930476
www.bernardcollinsjr.com

Our Histories

City of Sayil of the Puuc region, just behind Uxmal is one of the great cities of the Puuc region. The Mesoamerican city reached an extension near the four square kilometers. Among the most important buildings of this archaeological zone of Yucatán, are the Palace and the Mirador.

Chalchihuitán, Chiapas, masks made of carved cupapé wood, stucco, resin and shell, during the Viceroyalty, were placed at the entrance of the small cave of Monte Virgen to simulate a barrier of guardians that would cause fear to strangers and protect So the ceremonial offering deposited in its interior. They were elaborated between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. - anon











I have deep feelings of resentment for this law, this distributive way of being, of eliminating identity!!! There is nothing polite or nice to say about this disruption of the flow of our ancestry! I am thinking about all the nations believing in this mess who are self-eliminating themselves as the white man, who created this system of thought hoped!! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [Creek, Crow, African]

Members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877, including some with partial European and African ancestry.

Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are those enacted in the United States and the former colonies to define qualification by ancestry as Native American, sometimes in relation to tribal membership. It ignored the Native American practices of absorbing other peoples by adoption, beginning with other Native Americans, and extending to children and young adults of European and African ancestry. ...It also ignored tribal cultural continuity after tribes had absorbed such adoptees and mixed-race children.

A person's blood quantum is defined as the percentage of their ancestors, out of their total ancestors, who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American, and one who has no Native ancestry, has a blood quantum of 1/2. Since re-establishing self-government and asserting sovereignty, some tribes may use blood quantum as part of their requirements for membership or enrollment, often in combination with other criteria. For instance, the Omaha Nation requires a blood quantum of 1/4 Native American and descent from a registered ancestor for enrollment. - anon

*Photo* Members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877, including some with partial European and African ancestry.

Hidden

Jomel Neter said "The African Mask behind that social mask is a personal truth,

what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of."

 

ART of our Souls

The Painter by Georgia AL Fullerton
www.facebook.com/georgia.fullerton.1

the Afrikan Mask as Jomel Neter points out,
"behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really,
really believe about who we are and what we're capable of ..."

 

the MASKS



the Afrikan Mask as Jomel Neter points out, "behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of ..."

 

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. It time to put in work stop marching. Only through experience of times and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart." ~ Jomel Neter April 28, 2015  

noose tie

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. ~anon
 

PLAYMATES

Playboy model Rebecca Lynn

Kendall Rayanne

SEDNA

Sedna Mask
photo by
 Peter Hughes

Sedna, legend tells, was a beautiful girl who lived by the sea. Although many courted her, she would not leave her widowed father, and refused them all. But one day, a raven disguised as a handsome man came to her. He promised her a better life - and best of all, he promised he would also provide for her father. And so, full of hope, Sedna left with him.

But he took her instead to a desolate island, where she was cold and hungry. When her father came at last to visit, he grew very angry. Taking Sedna into his kayak, he paddled into the open sea, but Raven caused a terrible storm to arise. And Sedna's terrified father, in desperation, hoping to save his own life, cast his daughter from the boat.

Sedna clung to the side of the kayak, and would not let go, until her father cut off her hands with his knife. Then Sedna's hands and fingers fell into the sea, becoming the the fishes, the seals, and the whales. And handless Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean, where she lives still in a house of bones.

"Sedna is cold and naked,"Grey Eagle, a Native American ceremonial storyteller and world-wide scholar of indigenious mythologies, wrote in 2004, "She is covered with a tangle of hair she can't comb out. And all the broken taboos and sins against nature of the people fall through the water, to collect on Sedna's body. When the accumulation is too great, Sedna sobs in pain. And all the sea creatures leave the shore, to gather by her door to comfort her.The people know then it's time to gather and publicly confess their broken taboos.

This is how they do it: The men, remembering Sedna’s father, do a dance of contrition. Slowly dancing, they sing of their remorse for sins done by man to women, to earth, and to her children. And all the people send Sedna their prayers. Their shaman purifies herself to take the dangerous journey to the underwater world where Sedna lives.

When she finds Sedna, she gathers fine sand to cleanse the filth from Sedna’s body. She sings while tenderly picking the crabs from Sedna’s hair. And she offers Sedna the confessions and prayers of the people, their promises to change their life stories. So Sedna is comforted, and asks Creator to forgive them for the ways they have become out of balance.

Her sobbing is no longer heard in the waves, and the animals end their vigil, returning to offer themselves again as food. She is generous, and forgiving. Knowing this of Sedna, the Inuit are inspired to return Her gift by making better life stories, and treating their relations with love and respect."1

For the Inuit there must be rites of reciprocity with the Great Mother when they become out of balance. As She suffers, so must they. And so they dance, purify and pray, to restore the balance between the above world and the below world, between men and women, between themselves and Creator.

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