“You must live in a dangerous place with the type of beauty gifted to you. You have mastered a set of skills to get what you need, and barter for what you want in a scheme, a society that defiles the Sacredness of Femininity. It is in your eyes the cunning, the beauty, the allure, and the praise of accomplishment you give yourself when no one else will. You are a dangerous creature in the world of men, Monique. You know things.
I honor the warrioress, what you were taught, and what you developed to live among the most mediocre of men vying for your attention. If you keep insisting on the men who have developed themselves into men through process, initiations, and sacred approaches to maturation you will have gotten closer to your mate, the song of your life. These words I speak are mine. I am Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories AHO!”
The song, No Ordinary Love, its delivery, and the singer, Sade's quiet and elegant presence speaks to the historical truth of my love stories. This song speaks to the soul, the testimony of my commitment to loving deeply. I was trained to be a man, a lover, and a protector, and therefore steered away, ceremonially, from whoredom. Young man, there is a Priestcraft to celibacy, love making, friendship, loving a woman, and the path to understanding the soul of pussy is marked with challenge, and pleasures.
I was never a whore. There was a time I wanted to be one upon discovering the average woman was committed to superficial relationships. “You will never find a wife among mistress.” Old Man told me once. Realizing the average American woman was not trained by priestess, and could not grasp the breath of impeccability I was shattered into millions of shards of glass. Fragile as I was I had to hurl myself into reconstructive, and explorative research into the whys of my intentions, and outcomes. Not descending into whoredom was more important than my disappointments. It was the kernel of Life that gives Corn Mother her potency. I want never to make that journey again to reconnect to my Manhood Medicines because the life-death-resurrection of those lifetimes brought so much purity, and joy to me, and ended one dimension of itself into another with deep pain. So there were no permanent deaths. There were resurrections, or re-creations that led me to my wife who restored my soul, my faith, and understood my medicines.
There are few writings on the developmental process of daughters into wives immersed in the Mysteries who are grounded in Earth Medicine the way some Orisha’s connect their feet with the soil and inhale the universe into their present moment. My wife’s mother, an African-Indian woman, taught her five daughters these ways in a secret shape-shifting process to appear as a Baptist woman. It produced the proper number of mathematical equations that compose the spirituality of Womb teachings, Beaver Medicine, Wisdom, loving attention to details, and a deep insight into the soul-fabric of a husband steeped into the mysteries of his calling. Such a gift to have prepared for placed me gently into the folds of Marriage without the prerequisite element of most marriages: conflict. The work to get here was not easy. -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Sacred Medicine Wheel teachings
“A new direction in this dialogue would begin the dissimulation of the Christian doctrines that have birthed the tragedies in African-American relationships. A new direction would be a trip out of a coarse nature into a higher one that begins with discipline. It is a tough dialogue, but our (Black folks) commitment to our pain is stronger than our pain. We need another relationship with pain and truth.
The paths from East to West are the repetitive journeys from illumination to Introspection. We travel from how he or she made me feel to what I think about the feelings into the dark feelings of worth, and speculation. Going back and forth embroiled in this dance we tend to travel South. In the South we deepen the pain and the pleasure having sex and afterwards we return to the East West dialogue, and the East West diatribe. The roots of our definitions of relationship based on conflict attract the same people, the same script, and develop the same fondness for conflict to occupy our time.
Most marriages are founded and established in this triangle and rarely complete the Sacred Circle by traveling North into the place of Spirit, Creation, and Divinity. When the couple stands before the Creator, in the midst of Divinity, and the mysterious prospect of becoming whole their understanding of basic math takes over. Two is a sacred union, and two is the sacred divide. Discipline, and devotion to the spirit of how things work, and ownership of a deep understanding of the energies that join human spirits will hold a couple together when they travel the full circle of energies marriage needs. But typically standing in the North country the experience of Church fails to merge Black couples with the Creator. Why? The answer is steeped in the Christian faith we typically refuse to examine to its root, and our unwillingness to examine the source of our tragedy is the tragedy, and the money made from talking endlessly about it without the prerequisite spiritual work to become ourselves is incredible. But it is emptiness this legacy we gift our grandchildren with. These are my thoughts, my words. I speak as a Grandfather-Teacher. AHO!” Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
