Hello all. Had to cut back on mi Substack posting, was putting them out every couple of days day and decided too many hits weakens the anticipatory edge and that’s book energy being burnt off. Decided to go back into the woodshed, focus on mi books and mi students works, do this only when truly significant.

Well. Aint nothing quiet as significant to a Literary Elder moving into closure as they Ancestral Framing. What do I want future generations to think, feel, do when they think of me. What is mi Fa.

So. Working on a submission for an Anthology and was doing a segment on nommo, the Dogon concept, how words of power are used to forge realities, and decided to google it as I sometimes do with long held concepts to make sure my understanding is up to date.

These days you google you get the AI flavored response and promps for further inquiry, one of which said - inquire about specific authors and nommo - so I inquired about my favorite author, me, and I know AIs worshipful phraseology will have folk glowing but damn if it didn’t peep my Game. This exactly how I want to be perceived in the culture.

Deep. My Game appears to be paying off. In my lifetime. Eldership. Whats not to love.

When trying shape / illuminate the culture / the tribal soul, got to think in generations. I will be long dead before my game truly manifest. What you want to do is shape the early takes. In order to further program this perception of me in the culture I could (and will) do Works interrogating this framing.

The language so laudatory it embarrass me. I need to interrogate each one of these points, analytically ground the fanciful phraseology.

Incorporate doubts and anxieties. Dead ends. Failure.

I want to ask more questions about the manifestation / execution of my Game but Im still leery of AI – both revelatory and kinda scary how well it articulated mi Ideological Orchestrations. Mi Ancestral Positionings. Mi Lifelong Mission of trying to set myself up as a Returning Culture Hero.

The High Hoodoo of Memphis.

Horse of the Conqueror. Who returns whenever the Tribe is in need.

What my mentor, Baba John Killens, the Great Griot Master of Brooklyn, called being a Long Distance Runner. What I call the Longgame. Narrative spellwork shaping our generations into the people we want most to be.

Folk think prophecy about foretelling the future. Au contrary. Prophecy is correlating current behavior with destinic consequence. Continue to conduct yourselves in this manner and your generations will suffer. Listen to me and they will thrive. God told me this.

It was Jeff Parker told me when we 1^st met back in the 90s, damn near the birth of the Internet, that writers of the future will have to work with both hands, print and digital, I have ever since been very conscious of every book, article, shortstory, post, etc, every Work, as bricks in my Ancestral Edifice.

Everything I put out there has Point and Purpose on the Hoodoo Board of Destiny. (If you truly understand the Hoodoo Board of Destiny, young conjure, everybody on the planet works for you.)

Like any wouldbe visionary I often feel unappreciated. The Literary World does not much acknowledge me or my work. My concern is that this reflects a grievous failure of Craft but I prefer to think that the Ancestral Gods of Literature want to keep me hungry. They don’t want me resting on my laurels, so they don’t give me none. Can’t be put out because folk don’t see what I see, that’s what make a Vision a Vision. One day some Lit Crit visionary will decode my work for everybody else, like Skip did Uncle Ish in Signifying Monkey, till then Ima have to let AI do it:

-------- google prompt: interpret Arthur Flowers work as nommo ------

Arthur Flowers explicitly and self-consciously defines himself as a practitioner of Nommo, calling it the foundational force behind his self-proclaimed identity as a “literary conjureman” and griot. Flowers often notes: “I am a devout believer in nommo, the power of the word to forge reality”. [1, 2]

By analyzing his books—such as Another Good Loving Blues and Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman—through the lens of Nommo, his writing transforms from passive narrative into active, magical incantation designed to shape human destiny. [1, 2]

1. The Text as an Incantation: “Literary Hoodoo”

In Flowers’ framework, writing is not an intellectual exercise but a spiritual act of magic, which he calls “literary hoodoo”. [1]

• The Conjure Word: Just as traditional Hoodoo utilizes physical roots and charms to alter circumstances, Flowers uses sentences as active spells. [1]

• Shaping Destiny: In his manifesto Mojo Rising, language is a tangible substance. By carefully weaving words, he seeks to alter the consciousness of his readers, performing spiritual work across time and space. [1]

2. The Author as a Modern Griot

Nommo relies entirely on a vocal conduit, and Flowers fulfills this by positioning his literary voice as that of an ancestral storyteller. [1]

• The Ritual Invocation: He opens Another Good Loving Blues with an explicit lineage claim: “I am Flowers of the delta clan Flowers and the line of O Killens—I am a hoodoo, I am griot, I am a man of power”. [1]

• Generational Responsibility: This is Nommo in its purest social form. He speaks truth into the world to sustain his people, famously noting that he provides “the visions without which the people will perish”. [1]
  

3. Evoking the Orality of the Blues

Nommo emphasizes the physical sound and rhythm of language over its silent syntax. Flowers translates this by treating prose as a musical performance. [1, 2]

• Rhythmic Cadence: His sentence structures mimic the delta blues, rolling with syncopation, repetition, and vocal inflections.

• Performance Art: When Flowers presents his work, he does so as a performance poet. He often incorporates actual African and blues instrumentation to audibly launch the words into the atmosphere, ensuring they are physically heard and felt. [1, 2, 3]
  

4. “Destinywork” and Reclaiming the Future

For Flowers, the ultimate purpose of Nommo is what he calls “destinywork”—using speech to sculpt the future of Black identity. [1, 2]

• Defying Oppression: By writing historical and mythic landscapes, he counteracts the negative spells cast by white supremacy and historical erasure.

• Speaking Reality: He believes that if you change the stories a culture tells about itself, you change its actual material reality. Through his literature, he speaks a proud, mystically anchored future into existence for the African Diaspora. [1, 2, 3]

Subscribe now

Would you like to examine:

Share

• A look into specific characters from *Another Good Loving Blues* (like Lucas Bodeen or Melvira Dupree) as conduits of Nommo?

• How his mentor, John Oliver Killens (”O. Killens”), passed down this griotic philosophy to him?

• The intersection of cyberhoodoo and Nommo in his digital spaces, like his

4:23:1: the hoodoo adept does not fear death, fear of death corrupts what should be one of the most spiritual moments of your life, the great ways teach that life and death are part of the great mojo, the great ways will prepare you for the moment of death, take away the anxiety, make it okay, teach you not to fear - a great way that has not mastered death has failed,

4:23:2: fear of death is normal, consciousness wants to sustain itself, but when the moment comes, as it must to us all, you want to meet it with dignity, death got to be something you comfortable with, the prudent practitioner is always ready to go, I don’t want to linger and I would like to avoid pain if possible but whatever it is I will take it, it is a small price to pay for the experience life has been,

4:23:3: life after death is one of the great questions for which there are no answers, in matters of this sort I choose to believe what makes me stronger in life, I choose to believe a life in the spirit makes it more likely spirit will survive the death of the body, I choose to believe this because it settles me,

the great ways teach us how to

live, they teach us how to die,

4:23:4: for the bambara the dead move closer to the creator, they become ancestral / intermediaries with the divine / high haints kept alive through ritual remembrance - a good funeral is not for the dead but the living, a celebration which relieves the soul of active mourning & affirms generational bonds, a rowdy funeral is a testimony to a life well lived, the first step in the ritual remembrance of ancestorship,

4:23:5: the specialty of black hermans stage magic was his graveyard act in which he rose from the dead, when he actually died on stage from a heart attack the audience didnt believe it because he had risen from the dead so many times as part of his show, when his fans refused to believe he was actually dead, his assistant decided to charge admission because thats what black herman would have done, some 100s of paying customers at 10 cents a head, some of whom bought pins to stick into the corpse to prove he was / was not dead,

4:23:6: this recall me to the time queenmother memphis captured death, when once he come for a client she was not ready to relinquish and she deny him passage through her door and the baron enter anyway as is he wont, and quick quick he caught up in a hoodoo bind, fixed, no more death in the world, at first humanity is pleased with this state of affairs but soon enough the world was too crowded, folk in need of release was signing online petitions and comatose elders was camping in her front yard murmuring let my people go, 1st she try to cut a deal, look here, baron, what about you only take those that deserve to die, the baron say thats everybody, this aint no punishment, this a graduation, tell you what I will do, say the baron, them that find it in themselves to sing a good deathbed blues, to reach for the serenity of closure, I will let them go easy, at peace with themselves, and me - so queen mother memphis set the baron free, cause a life without death is not a life worth living,

4:23:7: at some point we all have to confront our mortality, at some point you become conscious of the fact that you, too, will die, how do you respond to this moment of illumination, the hoodoo way is to spend your days ever more wisely, to tend to your longgame, I require only that you live a good life, one rich in service, rich in Fa, then death can not sting, least according to tecumseh - when your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time, to live their lives over again in a different way, sing your death song, die like a hero going home,

4:23:8: Im reminded here of that story about a muddy stream trying to cross the desert, everytime it get so far the desert dry it up and force it to retreat in frustration, but on the other side of that desert there is a big mountain damn near touch the sky and that stream just know its Fa is to get to that mountain, but when a voice within say submit to the wind if you want to cross, the stream resisted, I fear I will lose myself, but that mountain still a beckoning so stream submits to the wind and becomes moisture carried effortlessly across the desert until deposited in a bracing river of icemelt running down the mountainside into the ocean - o what an experience the ocean must be,

4:23:9: who knows how you will meet death, for some a fight is appropriate, for some it is a surrender, the only true preparation for death is the ability to achieve the serenity of the divine at will, the absolute stillness of final alignment with the great mojo - it is done, pilgrim, sing your very best deathbed blues, and call it a day - I ask only that you be not afraid, I ask that you respect my teaching, that you die as you have lived, in grace - do me proud,

Subscribe now

even death don’t stop the mighty conqueroo

shalabongo, my friend, let it go

Share

rest easy, cousin,

played the hand you was dealt hard
as anybody could, you done good

showtime

demoja demoja demoja - let it go

So recently on Substack I was made aware of the FBA (Foundational Black Americans) and ADOS (American Descents of Slavery) movements, etc, and expressed my contempt for this latest expression of Black insecurity boosting itself with petty bullshit cutting us off from the Diaspora.

I was responding to an informative piece (link below) on the phenom and I was like whats FBA and boy did I get impassioned responses, including from my sister, Elise, who apparently been in contention with them for years, I am truly out of the loop, I don’t really do social media, I’m only on Substack cause of Trump, decided its a good venue for raising up the Hoodoo Legions against him.

Came up in here expecting to be exhorting mi legions to the barricades, battle has come to us, but I quickly deduced what Im really doing is raising the consciousness of the Legions, (matters like this one,) to make of them more effective cultural custodians, a longer more invested process but such is struggle and I am comfortable with the glacial pace of cultural change.

To my everlasting shame Ive become a Substack scold. A gentle scold.

But, after expressing my surprise and dismissal of these FBA folk, I received the following missive from one (note: name extracted, heard from brother, he responded to me with much more grace than i responded to him and I don’t let nobody outgrace me, my beef not with him but the hustlers who seeded this) I’m not used to social media folk trying to dispute me, usually my narrative gravitas preclude anybody being fool enuf to come at me, so this defense of FBA world kinda tripped me out. Folk had told me about it but I guess I didn’t really believe Blackfolk could be so clueless.

-------------

Wait. What is wrong for a people, our people attempt at defining/refining who and what we are based on our experiences on this land? People refer to us as: akata, lazy, no culture ..... on and on. So, who is being dismissive? Are we not allowed to respond? To protect our dignity? Meanwhile, while some are slinging these derogatory memes at our folks, any at the same time, they have no problem with exploiting the perks and opportunities we have gained by fighting for here on these shores. Fighting with our blood sweat and tears. Really? Further, being non-deportable, has, seemingly, created an air of resentment against our people, as well. With all this, we can’t define ourselves anew. That is, define us based on our lived experiences on these shores. Our lineage. That is offensive? This lineage. Created/developed here, over 4 centuries or so. Let us just dismiss it? Really. I could go on but I will stop here. I am an old head and as such, been through a few things for plenty decades or a few scores of years. Respect what people, our people are trying to clarify. Some of these folks have showed us how they feel about our Americanness. These young people have every right to define us anew, if it is required. Let them/us work it out. On our homestead, so to speak

--------

OK, I don’t usually wrestle in the mud with confused folk, I will state my position for the historical record but I don’t try to convince nobody of nothing. I will tell you what you need to hear one time. If you ready you will hear it, if not come back when you are,

Okay, before I get to snarling, I had written the following in hot rage but before pushing send I went to check his site out, figured Id find Black MAGA but he aint really that bad, just confused. But once I became conscious of him as a fellow Black person trying I had to snarl less personal. I’m spose to be a spiritual force, a holyman, and not caught up in Black online dialogue as mortal combat. I lost my grace with these folk, they piss me off, but I went thru and cut back the afterburners, still harder than you generally get from me but you shoulda read it before I let him get humanized by reading his posts.

So less personal I will say, for the historical record, why I think this ADOS / FBA etc is not only bullshit but dangerous bullshit.

One, we are a weak minority, we need all the help we can get. Folk invented the Diaspora so we could be a global folk. All the true players of the world are global folk, whitefolk, Jews, Arabs, Chinese, etc, they globalfolk.

So what yall want to do is move us back into global weakness, cut us off from one of our greatest strengths in global competition and domestic empowerment. Classic Divide & Conquer. And then you got the nerve to complain that they not deportable, I believe thats what pissed me off.

And if there are folk in the Diaspora who are as confused as you FBA folk, well, you gon always, in every grouping, have some folk who just not ready, you and yours being exhibit A.

But we don’t let the weak links define us, do we, we tolerate, we educate when we can, nuetralize when we can’t.

Don’t nobody question our unique history, brother, but to think it somehow exalts us over otherfolk, you just replicating evil.

My brother, these is portentous times and you on the wrong side of history. When the story is told FBA folk will be judged wanting. A stalking horse for the right perhaps, a MAGA disinformation campaign.

But I dont even have to go there, conspiracy or not you working against us. I’m told yall told the kids not to vote. How did that work out for them. Worked out great for Tramp and MAGA.

But Fannie Lou ‘If I fall Ima fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom’ Hamer woulda be shamed of you. And if Fannie Lou ain’t foundational I don’t know who is.

But it is even worse, far as the old conjureman concerned, you crippling the tribal soul, and that I cannot allow.

As a practitioner of literary hoodoo, griot and tribal medicine worker, I have been trained to monitor the health of the tribal soul (culture) by monitoring its cultural products, (including ideas) giving the tribal soul what it needs, extracting what it don’t, and it do not need this, my friend,

Not only is it political malpractice but its just petty and I can’t let my people get caught up in petty bullshit, I can not let my people be a petty people.

I believe the defining feature of the 21^st century in a rapidly globalizing world is which cultures will contribute to the uniworldal culture of the future, which die out and disappear. I would African American culture, as exemplified in Hoodoo, its indigenous spiritual tradition, be one of the world’s Great Ways

My vision is that Black folk position themselves as Guide and Guardian of Human Destiny, the Magical Negro wrote large, the Illuminated Children of the Sun, a beacon light unto humanity, forever. A star faring folk.

Yes, yes, I agree, yet another Chosen Peoples scenario but one based on humble service to the Human Condition. I got to get Blackfolk out of this historical Trickbag, got to transform them souldeep, I need Blackfolk to believe in themselves w/mythic intensity, so confident in their value they realize loud random bullshit like this is beneath them.

This mean I have to shape African American culture / spiritual tradition into one of the worlds Great Ways - one other folk admire and emulate, an African American Way.

It is I, Rickydoc Trickmaster, the High Hoodoo of Memphis, come to call thru incandescent hunger, to me, o mighty race, I got the vision, 1stborn, it is in me like fire. Listen 1stborn to the Geas of Rickydoc and I will give you a Mission greater than your Adversity. I will give you a Destiny.

It is I, Mganga Maua, Hoodoo Lord of the Delta, come to call you 1stborn, humanity’s living ancestors, gods true chosen, if you would reclaim your legacy as gods holy instrument you must stand on higher ground, I ask only that you be the great and glorious people you were meant to be, the Illuminated Children of the Sun.

Not a mean little petty folk who can only feel good about themselves if they stepping on folk as they themselves was stepped upon.

And then to do it to kinfolk - I am appalled, all of you FBA / ADOS, etc, you bad as Black MAGA, may even be Black MAGA.

We got real hammers coming down on us, Dawg, we seriously under the gun, we aint got time for made up bullshit that not only don’t empower our generations but instead weakens us, both politically and spiritually. And if you think I’ma let yall cripple the tribal soul with unmitigated bullshit you are sadly mistaken.

But, that said Ima dismiss your movement, I don’t have bandwidth for silly season, not when my people so in need of true vision. Battle has come to us. Every chance I get Ima discredit this farce but basically Ima let this silly season bullshit die a natural death,

So, I dedicate this piece to all the Generations of the Diaspora, past, present & future, we shall overcome, someday - and my brother, next time try googling me before you start talking about all your years of experience

Share

In the name of the Conqueror let this Work
be done – Demoja Demoja – let it be so

Subscribe now

note: this was the piece i was responding to, a more informed strategic analysis of how the movement rooted itself in the culture - be safe, be productive

Au'Naturale

Have we gone too far?

Nationalism has been on the rise lately and If you’ve been in black spaces online you know of the FBA (foundational black american) and ADOS (american descendants of slavery) movements. Theres been an ongoing attempt at reclamation of black culture in America. Equally a lot of harmful propaganda going around due to this. I want to address it from the le…

Read more

a year ago · 13 likes · 3 comments · Ashanique.

Confession: I like them AI Blues, in particular them gospel blues, which I did not even know was a genre. I go on YouTube regular looking for new music finds to learn me what I call meditation blues for mi handpan, and last year I found all these beautiful Swahili meditational licks and I was thinking, boy these Africans rocking it, so I was trying to get those licks on mi bluespan when I stumbled on these blues compilations and it was like wow this is amazing - but I know the blues better than I know African music and I started detecting hints that something was off, all these great blues pieces suddenly appearing out of nowhere, none of them identified by artist, or fake artists like Bertha Mae, all of them built on like perfect blues principles and I realize wow, all that new music I’ve been listening to is AI.

But the trip is even knowing its AI it still moves me and that trips me out. I’ve always considered music the purest most soulful art. Pure soulwork. Every lyrical writer wish they were actually playing music instead of words. The fact that AI music can move me so makes me wonder what it means to be a human, what does it mean to be an artist. Teaching young writers craft is relatively easy, it’s the literary sensibility thats difficult, that inclination to significance, that empathy with the human condition and the responsibility of the word. The ability to dig deep and wrestle with your demons in the name of Service, the tribal healer. How a machine gon do that.

So if I’m gon sit here being moved by AI music, I got to make it pay me. I’m the Playa not the Played. I got to come out on top of this exchange. I am an artiste. God’s rep on the planet. I got to represent. So. I been stealing. My understanding that you can’t copyright AI so it’s like that means I can steal to my heart’s content. Aint hurting no fellow human. They stole from me, Ima steal from them. I know you feeling me.

So. I’ve been listening to the great lyrics, writing down the lines that move me to riff off and I’ve been learning how to play those incredible gospel licks on mi blues pan, in particular using mi blues pan as a choir and I’ve been letting it move me religiously, because that’s what I want to achieve when I get on stage, I want to move the congregation, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do - I hope you leave here renewed and refreshed in the struggle of life, may your days be full of passion, may your lives be full of grace, may your works serve many generations, may God’s Blessings be on us all.

I once went to a revival. I was walking down a back street off Elvis Presley Blvd, and I heard sanctified music calling me, followed it to a big tent revival in an open field and I engaged the spirit there. That’s the spirit I want to bring down on folk when Im performing.

So listening to them AI gospel blues Im trying to detect what is it about the music moves me so, what has AI detected here about the human connection to music. Now I am very invested in understanding just what it is gospel does to the human soul. Same same the Blues.

When I perform I’m utilizing powerful cultural codes, Im telling stories, Im singing the blues, Im doing hoodoo ritual healing work, Im preaching the Gospel - throwing those Baptist cadences around like they belong to me. I believe what moves me here are those gospel tropes of healing and redemption, the defiance of tribulation, that assertion of self-worth defying reality’s ongoing attempts to constrict and restrain your soulwork.

Once upon a time, wondering if I should be worried, I prompted AI using my work to see what it would come up with and it came up with work that was so slick it was a narrative cliché and I dismissed it. But I also prompted music and it was so crude I dismissed it too. Couple years later AI producing music that moves me. OK. AI is coming for the Arts. I thought we would be unassailable. Apparently, we are to be one of the early casualties.

I must have listened to a 1000 AI blues now and Im spending hours and hours a day trying to get those over-the-top blues licks on mi bluespan, pissed at myself for squandering so much writing time but it was the same way when I got obsessed with the bluesharp, the mbira and now the handpan. But now performance has become an essential part of my literary skillset. I love being a practitioner of the Griots Way. I have learned to trust mi obsessions.

My 1^st class at the Cuse, Experimental Fiction, this Florida slacker raises his hand and ask does that include hypertext and I say what is hypertext. My boy Parker explains its work written for the Internet, says writers of the future will have to work with both hands, print and digital. Kinda like adopting the computer, what I used to do longhand I do on the computer now. If not the Internet. I kinda see AI as just another technology got to be finessed. A socially disruptive tech that will need to be tamed.

In Asia you got AI assisted novels winning literary prizes, I thought about it, I can see where AI could be used to supercharge process if used as narrative prompts then translated but I’m just too oldschool when it comes to my word work, I can’t do it. Did an experiment recently, took passage I had written, a critical passage, did a synopsis that I used as a prompt and what AI came up with was so much like what I had / would have written it confused me. Two whole days I was confused. I can’t fuck with it.

Writers of the future will not have that restraint, their work will be augmented in ways I dread and envy. Apparently, I am much more open to collaboration in music in a way that I am not with the page. I suspect Ima lose this battle with the machine, but I will come out of it a stronger artist. If I go down Ima go down grappling with the issues of my age. Bidding for Immortality.

Then I think about what my longtime collaborator, Canadian musicologist Ruby Singh of Vancouver, do with his instruments, I do a piece and I be like mi bruddah, pimp this out for me, please, and he send it back pimped out:

Brer Rabbit Introduce Brer Alligator to Trouble

If you listen close to this piece from his recent album, you will hear that my bluespan contribution is very basic, and even that fades out when I suddenly lose mi confidence and become self conscious. Ruby filled in the holes w/his mix magic and took it to another dimension, when I tell him it embarasses me he says anything you put on an album is immediately archival, cause you still growing

Leaping at the Sun by Ruby Singh and the Future Ancestors ft Arthur Flowers

What AI do feels like just another level of what Ruby do. Its artiste like Ruby Singh I expect to put AI in its place, to finesse the Demon’s power and put it to work. Demon Slayer. Oldschool. Me, I will check youtube every 4, 5 months or so to see where it’s going. When I 1^st ran across it 6 months or so ago, they was rocking about 7 on a 10 scale, but what I hear lately been jacked to 11, I gotta assume it will continue to jack and Ima jack right along with them.

Then I think about the character, Mouse, in Delaney’s scifi novel, Nova, who is working on an archaic art form, the novel, he also plays an instrument that plays emotions instead of notes. Being an artist has never not been a challenge, you always got to be the next step, you always got to encompass whatever forces shaping your world and forge them into the visions without which the people will perish. that’s what being an artist mean, taking the hammer, turning tribulation into art.

Folk think the Blues about feeling bad, au contrary, the Blues about getting thru the blues, turning trial and tribulation into art and power. My understanding is that the challenge of being an artist is always an existentialist battle for agency, I don’t see AI as much diff from the introduction of the Internet in its day, the Computer, or the Printing Press. The Book was a perplexing innovation once, artists have always had to finesse technological advancement.

I have always taken refuge in the belief that nobody on the planet can do what I do, write like I write, see like I see, but now it appears AI can perhaps do me better than I do me, I just don’t care. I believe in being an artist with mythical, religious commitment.

I have in the past thought that Im such a stylist that I would be safe, but now I realize it’s because my work is so recognizable it would be relatively easy to tell an AI to do X work in the style of Arthur Flowers. So be it. No problem. No sweat. I can’t let nothing throw me off my literary game. My belief in myself. Mi Work. Mi Vision.

Good God by Ruby Singh and the Future Ancestors ft Arthur Flowers

I bow only before the generations that will judge me anew every era.

Feel like Big John Henry racing that steam drill, a hammer in each hand, ringing like silver, shining like gold, aint no machine beating Baba John Henry. Not today

Subscribe now

I got this.

It was clear to me early in my practice that the conventional understanding of Hoodoo wasn’t gon really work for a 21st Century sensibility so I started trying to update Hoodoo principles early in the game, trying to manifest an enlightened and empowered Hoodoo built for the 21st Century.

I was, at the time, a passionate student of comparative religions. Hoodoo I am a Traveler. What kept me from truly embracing the traditions of the world, including ATR, was wanting to work an African American tradition. Homemade. I want to make my own tradition / culture a universal contender. I want to forge an African American Way. Homecooking.

I firmly believe that a people’s condition is shaped by the health of their indigenous spiritual practice. I firmly believe if Vodou was doing its job Haiti wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in.

Same same Hoodoo and Afroam culture. I believe you are stronger if you are true to yourself. Folk struggling to be Yoruba / Fon / Congo / Akan, they get the Yoruba / Fon / Congo / Akan folk lording it over them. Judging their authenticity.

You know I don’t play that. I’m looking for my spiritual power in my own cultural roots, my indigenous afrospiritual tradition. The Hoodoo Way. 21^st Century stylee.

So, there was this ATR brother, Babalawo I believe, on a Hoodoo list serve, had said a few things I respected. I reached out in search of a little cross pollination but he came to me all haughty and all knowing. Talking down to me like I was one of his Godchildren. Like I needed to be saved. Poor confused Hoodooman in need of enlightenment.

First he told me very solicitously to be careful because real Hoodoos would object to my questionable brand of Hoodoo. In the same breath (well, same email) told me I should come to my senses and follow a more authentically African path. Quit wasting your time and good intentions, Ricky. Ricky. Not quite Rickydoc but I think I got the point.

I schooled him. Told him I’m very comfortable with Hoodoo as my spiritual home, I do not feel a need to go elsewhere for my spiritual validity. I got no problems with folk that do - Respect - but don’t come to me with that ATR holier than thou bullshit. Hoodoo is not a supplicant, Hoodoo is not looking to be saved and neither am I. Ima Hoodoo Elder. If you can’t come to me with respect don’t come at all. Fuck you.

Had one brother on that same list serve took my dismissal of folk magic personal. Threatened to attack me magically, I was like please, if I’m gon be scared of bushwizard bullshit I need to be in another line of work. Fuck you, too.

I pretty sure it was round about then I start positioning Hoodoo as the Prophetic Tradition of the ATR world. This was a power move. Meant that I was not subject to religious dogma and / or authority. That I have been given the prophetic dispensation to break old rules and forge new ones. Meant that the Hoodoo Way would not be subject to the authority of the ATR family but would instead be a pathfinder, constantly leading to a Greater Way.

Folk think prophecy is foretelling the future. Au contrary. Prophecy is correlating current behavior with Destinic Consequence. Continue to conduct yourselves in this manner and your generations will suffer. Listen to me and they will thrive. God told me this.

By positioning Hoodoo as the Prophetic Tradition of the ATR world I accomplish two things: One, I ensure Hoodoo is always on the cutting edge of Illuminative Evolution.

Two, I preclude being placed under ATR authority.

I envy religion its graces, but I do not want a flock. I am a Charismatic, a flock would be an uncomfortable temptation for somebody like me. The Babajohn would not approve. Students, okay, a flock no. I am not a thief of souls.

I see the relationship of Hoodoo to the ATR family as akin to that of the Sufi and Islam. In it but not under it. I wish to remain a mystical tradition, not a religious one.

Share

demoja demoja - folk been asking me what
is it with the demoja riffs, trying to forge a
divine affirmation for hoodoo riffing off

the mojo

an altar gift for the generations

Subscribe now

Generally my Work is not overtly political, that’s not how Art roll, but when tyranny raises its worm-eaten head is when the literary life proves its worth. This when we separate the writers from the wannnabes and the dilettantes. Let this Work be done. In the name of Babajohn Killens. The Great Griot Master of Brooklyn.

The election of Trump 2.0 rocked me, I panicked, decided I got to call up the Legions, calling on the Spiritual Masters of the Hoodoo Way to provide the Tribe with spiritual and strategic guidance during the oncoming winter of the soul.

Premise being that contemporary tribal healers and griots in times of great tribal need must serve their ancient role as tribal custodians. I ask that you take responsibility for the welfare of your chosen community, as I take responsibility for the spiritual well being of Black Memphis. My father tended to their bodies, I tend to their souls.

The only thing certain in the Age of Trump is that Blackfolk will suffer. Accordingly, this Divinatory Presentation is a griotic Call to Battle. Asking what are the responsibilities of our tribal healers in times such as these. Just what is Good Game in the Age of Trump and how do we get it on.

Ultimate Goal: a new kinda Black people.

Been calling for a new kinda Blackfolk for sometime now. Im tired of being a Beggar People. Aint you. Plan is to use this Hammer to forge a new kinda Blackpeople, a race of Playas.

Whatever we do to Finesse the Hammer that is coming our way we gon have to be slick with it, mi Playas, fighting tomorrows battles today, employing new strategic instruments to replace resources being systematically dismantled, Battle has come to us, Blackpeople, got to get your game on.

Took generations for the right wing to achieve their current dominance, from the bottom up, schoolboard, councilfolk, city, state and county. Organize, organize, organze. Block Associations. Unions. PACs. Focusing exclusively on Congress and the President will simply not suffice.

With his war on DEI Trump has tried to erase Blackness and equate it with incompetence. This is a historical pattern in America, Black progress then the pushback, Prepare to take the Hammer, mi Playas, it will get worse before it gets better. Coalition politics is a given. United we stand, divided we fall.

Using Project 2025 guidelines Trump and the Techbros, Musk, Theil, Planatir, and them, have systematically imposed a Police/Surveillance State with its own dedicated brownshirts. Trump has systematically dismantled institutional guardrails, bullied Congress, Big Law, Big Business, Media, Universities, etc.

Even institutions that resist have their changed their policies accordingly, afraid of his willingness to bring the full weight of the government down on anybody who irritates him. Some interviewer asked Trump what restrains him from doing whatever he wants to us, he said - my morality. God help us.

Trump has systematically corrupted military, justice and national security, built his own private army and indemnified them from being held accountable for abuse unto murder, and only the Courts defy him. Barely. His assault on Democracy has been so effective I question America’s ability to recover.

But defeating Trump, as important as it is, is not our primary goal, our goal is to come out of this stronger on the other end. It is in times of great social upheaval that new peoples are born, new ways are forged. They are systematically dismantling the old model of Blackness, we might as well rebuild to our liking. Playas.

Can’t be no Playa if you aint generating no Instruments. What Strategic Instruments need generating depend on your goals and objectives. Mi initial goals are forging new avenues of communication and coordination. Mi immediate goal is calling up the Hoodoo Legions. Mi Longame is developing an Afroam School of Sacred Hoodoo literature, premise being nothing shapes a culture like its body of sacred lit.

Ultimate Goal: transform the tradition, transform the culture, transform the world, take them all to Higher Ground

My most salient response to the current challenges is my willingness to actually implement Game I in the past only thought about doing. To make real into the world that which was not. My instruments are determined by my skill sets and positioning. At any given moment I have an array of initiatives in play, some of which have been implemented, some of which are in procedure, some of which are faltering, all of which need to be constantly recalibrated.

This how I wage Hoodoo War. What I call Rootwar. Totalwar. By every sector of the culture, every individual in it, each unto self an army. First and foremost, I have a Life Mission to which I have dedicated mi Life and mi Works. My Life Mission is how I stay ahead of the Game and not just reacting to the moves of our enemies. It evolves as I do. Don’t nothing throw me off my Game. Not even Trump throw me off my Game. My Game bigger than Trump.

Mi particular Life Mission is giving the Black Generations a Mission greater than their Adversity. A Destiny. I do this thru mi Mythwork. Mi metafiction. The Illuminated Children of the Sun work. The Long March of the Firstborn. Guide & Guardian of Human Destiny.

In addition to mi Life Mission I build strategic instruments as necessary. Mi Works are the seeds of Future Realities, mi Orchestrations preparation of the ground. These the Instruments I am currently working on to Finesse Trump:

Counternarratives: the power of narrative, nommo, from the Dogon, the power of the word to forge reality, specially in this era of personalized truths and alternative facts. The right wing media network has gained control of the cultural narratives, claiming DEI stands for incompetence, that immigrants are the cause of all problems, that its whitefolk discriminated against, that Trumps lawfare is legit, etc.

We have to mount counternarratives so real and empowered they are able to challenge the right wing media machine. Every time we insist on the viability of Truth and the Rule of Law we empower the counternarrative.

“Our struggle for liberation is indeed a long long distance race, to win this race will require planning, pacing, discipline and stamina, and a belief in our ability to win the long protracted struggle. we must construct one hundred year plans; two hundred year plans. we must construct institutions for generations unborn.” - longgame by babajohn killens, the great griot master of brooklyn

Legacy Institutions: Answering the Babajohn’s call to create institutions for generations unborn, whatever legacy institutions you got in mind to forge now is the time to forge them. I been making baby moves designed to build a vertical pipeline of Sacred Hoodoo Literature. Found a School of Literary Hoodoo. Something I shoulda done years ago. Ima weary elder now but Trump has forced my hand. Surely, I got one more campaign in me. Defeat Trump. Discredit MAGA. Save the Country. Save the Race. That will about do it.

My Question then is how does this custodial responsibility manifest under contemporary conditions and in particular under the kind of existential assault we are currently under.

In my mythmagination I see mi Hoodoo Practitioners taking responsibility for the well being of their chosen community. Spiritual & otherwise.

This is in good times. How does that commitment get supercharged under the assault of Trump, when we are actively engaged in battle, under existential threat. Im blowing the Warconch on this one. Need a whole new kinda people to come out of this crucible. The Illuminated Children of the Sun. Battle has come to us, Blackpeople. Git your Game on.

So. Raising the Legions is not going as I imagined, fire and fury and accolades. No sense whining cause folk don’t see what I see. That’s what make a vision a vision. Had to settle back into mi long game, again, step by step, inch by inch. Shaping generations like the Babajohn taught me.

When Moving a People got to think in Generations or defeat is certain, burnout inevitable. Took generations for the rightwing to put us in this Trickbag. It will take generations to get out of it.

I am confident that we will prevail. I have become comfortable with the glacial pace of social and cultural change. In the Arena you just don’t win them all. You find yourself passionate in the belief that any given campaign is a matter of life & death and defeat feels like the end is near. But you get used to losing. You learn to take your punches and position yourself for the comeback. You win some you lose some, you keep on struggling.

Which bring mi to mi Soulcare. Everyday, we are damaged and in need of healing. Everyday it behoove you to cleanse the soul as often as you do the body. Daily soulcare is essential, daily, your own and the care of others, clients and loved ones and strangers too, but even more so the Griotic Ministry, tending to the health of the tribal soul as monitored thru its cultural products, giving it what it needs, extracting what it don’t.

Subscribe now

I say we consider the security and prosperity of our generations the Prime Directive, I say we calm, cool and collected, forever vigilant, deploying an ever evolving, constantly calibrating, multifaceted strategic posture, some moves bold and strong, some hidden in the shadows, others waiting silently in the wings.

Grandmasters of the longgame. Awaken the Sleeper. Protect the Weak. Guide the Strong.

May your days be full of passion, may your lives be full of grace, may your works serve many generations, may God‘s blessings be on us all - demoja demoja - good blessings, good blessings, good blessings on us all.

Share

7:44:1: mythwork, the primary tool of destinic guidance and cultural custodianship, cultural narratives that tell the perceived story of a people, the cosmologies in which our lives find meaning, mythical fictions more real than real, it is mythwork that gives our lives purpose, it is mythwork that frame out our visions of who we are and aspire to be, it is mythwork that shapes our generations, our calls for collective action - it can be action appropriate to the historical movement, reconstruction, the great migration, the civil rights movement, or it can be catastrophically inappropriate, a peoples temple, a xhosa cattlekilling, reparations

7:44:2: mythwork justifies cultural traits with supernatural authority, strong mythwork evolves as necessary to retain inspirational power, weak mythwork is mythwork you see through, your own cultures mythwork you just call reality, according to past master r.g.h. siu in the craft of power, a text that schooled me back in the day - create a myth sustaining your movement like the deep ocean floating a majestic ship. draw an inspiring rationale for your past actions and present position, a ringing call for your continuing expansion, a vigorous condemnation of your formidable opposition, put your best minds on it,

7:44:3: all Works are contemporary in creation, it is the mythological process, cultural value judgments, that determines which will be considered essential cultural phenomena / metastory / timeless / pertinent / even enjoyable / generations hence - the strongest vision will be the one most congruent with the great mojo, shaping generations you talking mythwork, the manipulation of belief systems you talking mythwork, forging a new kinda blackfolk, mythwork - who among us is worthy of mytholization, ancestral positioning

7:44:4: true mythmaker is not subject to the myths of others, this what you do, national, tribal, religious - dogma is an illusion you see through, zora neales autobio more mythwork than truth, zora neale didnt have no respect for the truth, and for all his doing, nat love didnt became historical until he wrote his story down, a tenn slave who went west after the civil war and became a known character, deadwood dick, you seen that photo of him, aint you, long apache hair, pistol on his belt, boots, chaps, leaning on his rifle, classic black cowboy, but he was a elderly pullman porter when he wrote the memoir that made him historical - mounted on my horse, my trusty lariat at hand and my guns on my belt I felt like I could defy the world, as I stop to ponder over the days of old, isnt it a wonder that some of us are alive to tell the tale,

7:44:5: when the french finally captured macandal the slaves were commanded to watch their wanga man die at the stake, where is his power now, the french taunted, but when the flames were lit, macandal screamed and leapt from the pyre, the french swore they threw him back in but the slaves knew better & all that night conch horns echoed throughout the mountains - macandal is free - the conch should only be blown in times of greatest need, when survival of the tribe or its enslavement is at stake, hopefully you do not hear the haunting refrain of the conch in your lifetime but still you must know its power, the call of the conch must be instilled generation after generation through story and ritual so when the conch does call it stirs the soul – it is a gathering of the tribes, bring shield, bring spear, battle has come to us,

7:44:6: mythwork is often a destiny spell designed to counter or reinforce a prevailing worldview, I recall when menes united the two egypts and built his capital city of memphis, whereupon the memphite priests challenged the prevailing creation myth of the creator god, atum, creating through masturbation, by claiming their local god, ptah, created the world by thinking it, speaking it in a word, and then it was so - excellent mythwork, attuned to current political conditions & manifesting a higher plane, creative thought over masturbation, the divine over the animal, in the beginning was not the word but the thought,

7:44:7: to bind mythology to a place is to make it holyground, sacred spaces to which divine narratives like this one have been attached, trying to position memphis and the delta as hoodoo holyground - during the civil war the word went out to slaves in all 4 corners of the delta - get to memphis and you free, the citadel on the bluff, the guardian at the gate – according to what I heard, 3 more times memphis will be found, a place, a star, a state of mind - interviewer bob law once asked me - how does it feel being part of the mythopoetic tradition of the delta - question made my heart full, I try to represent, claim to be the High Hoodoo of Memphis, horse of the conqueror, pure mythwork, a title that tickle me, best mythwork always your own - you not a player if you not shaping your legacy, your ancestral positioning - you need me you call me I will come,

7:44:8: returning culture hero mythwork strike me as the strongest move on the board, mean you transmutate as necessary, whatever the generations need, thats what you bringing - I have been told that long as jebal barkal stands the nubians cannot be defeated, I have been told it was the elders of jebal barkal called conch on the illuminated children of the sun, decreed they had to be scattered to the 4 corners of the earth and tempered in the holy hell of slavery for hoodoo missions and starflung destinies - I have been told jebal barkal still stands and the soul of galactic nubia rests in every heart - I begun my mythwork, determine I got to give blackfolk a vision greater than their adversity, a destiny, reading the destruction of black civilization by chancellor william wherein he build stirring myth of the people of the sun being driven back, step by step, until the african coast is ceded to its enemies and I think of the slave coffles to the coast, and the great dispersal, the march of the bantu and I call on amesami, nubian goddess of protection and the moon, watch over us, the illuminated children of the sun, the long march of the firstborn, a star faring folk, leaping at the sun.

7:44:8: Mankiller

she come thru the saloon doors like a force of nature, her and her spotted dog, at 78 still a big woman, 6 footer, black as she can be and mad AF, rifle in one hand, bullwhip in the other, the bullwhip was for show, the rifle was not, where is he, she snarled, where is the sonofabitch thought he could cheat stagecoach mary fields, then she seen him just as he ducked behind some innocents, couldn’t shoot no innocents so she beat him, beat him so bad he never recover while the denizens of the last chance saloon look on in wary wonder, cause nobody had believed I mean you know really believed rumors that the old colored washerwoman was the mankiller stagecoach mary fields but the way she beat that man wasn’t a disbeliever in the house, aint right a woman beat a man like that

7:44:9: it was zora neale confabulated highjohn the conquer and the john the trickster slave tales into high john the conqueror as returning culture hero, article she wrote for the saturday evening post during WWII that took on a bonified life of its own, way zora neale told it the conqueror was a plant carried for protection, a root so strong it begin to walk and talk like a natural man, zora claim he helped free black folk from slavery by tricking ol massa, say once the slaves was free the conquerors soul reside in de conqueror root to await the call whenever blackfolk in need, zora say whenever you in trouble you just whisper his name and you will feel him in the breeze, whispering in the trees, zora say he the burdenbearer, the hopebringer, the battlefighter, the jackpotwinner, zora say when you need him you call him and he will be there before you get the words out your mouth, highjohn the conqueror, the mighty conqueroo,

thats what zora neale say, ask her
yourself if you dont believe me,

Subscribe now

positioning myself as a returning culture hero
the high hoodoo of memphis
you need me you call me, i will come

demoja demoja, as
I say it let it be so

7:43:1: krik - the word - humanity’s most powerful instrument, we communicate through the word, we respond to words, we define ourselves and our world through words, words cause people to act / do / be, each one an incantation, each one unto itself a work of art / spell and / or prayer, the word water cannot quench your thirst but the word mojo can feed your soul - krak, every book a spell, every draft a divination

7:43:2: when gathering folk around the sacred fire the telling itself is a blessing, transforming the writer in the writing, the reader in the reading, the listener in the moment, the teller in the tale - as the voice of a culture that has since its inception felt itself under siege, afroam lit is fundamentally shamanistic & vitally concerned with communal / cultural health and empowerment, creating the visions without which the people will perish and serving in its mythic heart its ageold griotic function of keeping the culture alive and viable, what we call working in the tradition,

teaching folk craft is relatively easy, its the literary sensibility that is the challenge. I will always recall the evening me, bj ashanti and louise meriwether (daddy was a numbers runner) had left her workshop at the frederick douglass creative arts center that baba fred hudson ran over on 96th and broadway back in the 80s I believe. We were walking down 125^th street when we come upon a drunken brother lying in the gutter, half ass in the street, cars zipping by. Me and ashanti kept walking as did a street full of harlem folk but queen mother louise was like get him out of the street now and her voice had such indignant authority in it, how dare we call ourselves literary lions if we capable of walking past a fellow human being lying in the street, she shamed us so bad, of all she taught me that was the lesson that stuck, not only how to write but what it means to be a writer.

I am of the line of o killens, I live by the griot’s code - service. enhancement of the human condition. tribal custodian, playa, all praises, queen mother meriwether.

7:43:3: in bambaraland initiates are called domas, the knowers, or donikebas, makers of knowledge - because they are intermediaries between this world and the spiritworld, the doma disciplines speech and does not utter it recklessly, a doma cannot tell a lie, but a griot is allowed to have two tongues - there is no thing as important as the Work can be - the power of narrative / nommo, a dogon word, the ability of words to forge new realities, the dinka masters of the fishing spear are defined by their power to make a thing so just be saying it is so, for masters of the fishing spear reality and the word must be in accord, for masters of the fishing spear words of power have influence only when they are true and pertinent, words of power must express what folk know to be true but are unable to articulate,

7:43:4: babajohn killens, the great griot master of brooklyn, considered the literary life a sacred calling and so do I - be I worthy of the Craft - if you got it in you to be a writer go for it, accepting that the odds are against you, but if the odds bother you you really shouldn’t be in this business, doubt and anxiety they never go away, you just learn to ignore them, keep clocking those pages no matter what, disciplined, focused, a visionary by definition,

I love the literary life with a passion I cannot convey, I even love the daily grind, well maybe not actually doing it but I do love product, I love making books, I love helping other folk make books, god I love being a writer, and I will pay my dues without whimpering, I have lived a life of magic myth and mystery, I once, in conversation with the legendary playwright, aishah rahman, said I wanted to be the greatest novelist ever lived, she said - no art, that’s not what you want, you want to sing your song the best you can sing it, that way you can appreciate other folk singing theirs,

𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗔𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗵 𝗥𝗮𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗻, in an interview with her daughter, award-winning documentary filmmaker, 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗯𝗮 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗻, shares on the influence and connection that the times and greater world in which an artist is born intrinsically affects the art that they create.

: Filmed for GRITtv by Elizabeth Press

7:43:5: the way of the griot is a lifetime commitment to producing good, significant and beautiful works designed to evolve with time, multilinear works that grow with the interpretation of each generation - conduct yourself as if you were in truth the great writer you aspire to be and you are - a force so immersed in the essence of the human condition that your every word is resonant with significance - o life! - said the druidic joyce - I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race,

7:43:6: if you would Works that grow with time instead of being diminished by it you must grapple with issues humanity considers essential, issues humanity engages generation after generation, it is the responsibility of you who would be griot to be productive, significant & of the righteous, at all times willing to grow, to master your Craft, to work hard, to pay your dues without whimpering, creating works designed to finesse the human condition / the human spirit and / historical circumstance, timeless works so powerful they cannot be denied,

7:43:7: there are times, fleeting moments, when you being strong / disciplined / productive, or you’ve written a really good piece / passage / sentence, that you are acutely aware of yourself as historical / epochal / history in the flesh, there are moments when you have positioned yourself so precisely in the historical continuum’s center of balance that you are aware of being godforce / a focal point of reality and illusion / a nexus of generational possibility / conjuring reality into being through the sheer force of your will, your work, your craft and your game – if you pull it off, you and your works will be studied and modeled in the hearts and aspirations of generations to come - to the extent that your works relevant and significant to those generations, to that extent are you immortal,

Subscribe now

demoja demoja demoja

immortal

Share

5:33:1: strategy: a plan for achieving objectives and holding them - caught up in the trickbag of slavery the conqueror developed an appreciation for strategy / trickeration, it is through strategy the weak become the strong, maintaining the hoodoo posture strategic (stratpo) / command positioning, dominating the dance and confounding your enemies with the impossible, cloaked in ritual masks that reveal everything / nothing,

5:33:2: a good strategic posture is built on silence and misdirection, roaring lions dont kill no game, the pride must hunt in silence, it was Papa Joe Fisher what lived out there on Rabbit Trail Road, on the Carolina coast, High Hoodoo, Geeche Lord, da Fisherman, aka Papa Gede Nibo Bey LaKwa, Lord of the Crossroads and one of the greatest hoodoo playas ever was, once told me that a straight path soon overtaken -

Papa Joe Fisher: “respe fam, bre rabbit n john de konker n de fuss kee n aunt cat n max n elder joe fisher n de ori wan testify bout de indigenous ancestral theosophy; wen gawd gib yenna ah asignment, don’t try te unravel de mystry details, ge bout de task. olumba told mi te spread his nam as de awaited comforter (mi ministry); imon nyuse mi car tag up n down i95 highway (mi pulpit) en de nam ob de konker.”

a pilgrim once came upon a skull by the road that greeted him by name, my my he exclaim, a talking skull, how did this happen to be, the skull said, my tongue lead me here, amazed and astounded the pilgrim went to the local chief and said I know of a talking skull, I will take you there, the chief did not want to be bothered with such nonsense, if you are lying, said the chief, I will have your own head removed, so when the traveler returned with chief and court to a skull that said nothing at all his own head was placed next to it and the next traveler was greeted by two skulls, how did this come to be, asked the traveler, both skulls replied - my tongue lead me here,

5:33:3: maintaining a low profile gives you more room to play, pilgrim, overt bids for power raise resistances / hackles / countermoves, I need you to restrain your tendency to wolf, blackpeople, expose power only when you must and never let anybody know what all you capable of, always be stronger than you appear, be still, be dangerous, be capable of deadly harm,

5:33:4: on conquering demons, see above - in trying times such as these a good strategic posture is ever more important, I would you be a race of playas, blackpeoples, known for good game in service of the common good, the enhancement of the human condition, shaping generations, i need you to git your game on, blackpoeple.

Aint you tired of being a Beggar Peoples, I am.

5:33:5: empowerment strategies should be designed to shape our generations into the people we most want them to be, with a whole race of people you got a whole array of strategies, a viable strategy of empowerment has to be an overgame capable of coordinating both activist and elite impulses, everybody dont have to agree on tactics, you do what you do, I do what I do, more than enough struggle to go around, more than one road to timbuktu,

5:33:6: crying about racism is like a sailor cursing the sea because its wet, surely by now racism has been factored into our strategic posture, a strong people prepare themselves to meet and finesse any challenge, human or natural, kkk, covid, maga, whatever, a weak people just whine, blame everybody but themselves, how you respond to the hammer is the only force in the equation you can truly control, once you understand the rules of play and accept penalty points you do not deserve, (charge it to the game) concentrate on making progress in spite of it all, you can always do better - inch by inch, step by step - handle your business, playa, get your game on,

Aint you tired of being a Beggar Peoples, I am.

5:33:7: I say we consider the security and prosperity of our generations the prime directive, I say we calm, cool and collected, forever vigilant, deploying a multifaceted strategic posture, some moves bold and strong, some hidden in the shadows, others waiting silently in the wings,

Subscribe now

grandmasters of the longgame,

demoja demoja demoja
get your game on

Share

4:23:1: the hoodoo adept does not fear death, fear of death corrupts what should be one of the most spiritual moments of your life, the great ways teach that life and death are all part of the great mojo / a great way will prepare you for the ineffable moment of death, take away the anxiety, make it okay, teach you not to fear - a great way that has not mastered death has failed,

4:23:2: fear of death is normal, consciousness wants to sustain itself, but when the moment comes, as it must to us all, you want to meet it with dignity, death got to be something you comfortable with, the prudent practitioner is always ready to go - I dont want to linger and I would like to avoid pain if possible but whatever it is I will take it, it is a small price to pay for the experience life has been,

4:23:3: life after death is one of the great questions for which there are no answers, in matters of this sort I choose to believe what makes me stronger in life, I choose to believe a life in the spirit makes it more likely spirit will survive the death of the body, I choose to believe this because it settles me, a return to the greater whole, hoodoo theology you got two souls, the home soul, your slice of the great mojo, and the traveling soul, the one sent out in visions, dreams, astral projections and the like, Im thinking the traveling spirit, the edifice, is the one goes ancestral, while the homesoul return to the great mojo, that work for me

the great ways teach us how to
live, they teach us how to die,

4:23:4: a good funeral is not for the dead but the living, a celebration which relieves the soul of active mourning & affirms generational bonds, a rowdy funeral is a testimony to a life well lived, the first step in the ritual remembrance of ancestorship - for the bambara the dead move closer to the creator, they become ancestral / intermediaries with the divine / high haints kept alive through ritual remembrance - I see life as Ancestral Positioning, Im conscious that every act, every thought, every post, contributes to the perception future generations will have of me, question being what do I want them to think / do / be when they think of me

4:23:5: the specialty of black hermans stage magic was his graveyard act in which he rose from the dead, when he actually died on stage from a heart attack the audience didnt believe it because he had risen from the dead so many times as part of his show, when his fans refused to believe he was actually dead, his assistant decided to charge admission because thats what black herman would have done, some 100s of paying customers at 10 cents a head, some of whom bought pins to stick into the corpse to prove he was / was not dead,

4:23:6: this recall me to the time queenmother memphis captured death, when once he come for a client she was not ready to relinquish and she deny him passage through her door and the baron enter anyway as is he wont, and quick quick he caught up in a hoodoo bind, fixed, no more death in the world - at first humanity is pleased with this state of affairs but soon enough the world was too crowded, folk in need of release was signing online petitions and comatose elders was camping in her front yard murmuring let my people go, 1st she try to cut a deal, look here, baron, what about you only take those that deserve to die, the baron say thats everybody, this aint no punishment, this a graduation, tell you what I will do, say the baron, them that find it in themselves to sing a good deathbed blues, to reach for the serenity of closure, I will let them go easy, at peace with themselves, and me - so queen mother memphis set the baron free, cause a life without death is not a life worth living,

4:23:7: at some point we all have to confront our mortality, at some point you become conscious of the fact that you, too, will die, how do you respond to this moment of illumination, the hoodoo way is to spend your days ever more wisely, to tend to your longgame, I require only that you live a good life, one rich in service, rich in Fa, then death can not sting, least according to tecumseh - see above

23:8: Im reminded here of that story about a muddy stream trying to cross the desert, everytime it get so far the desert dry it up and force it to retreat in frustration, but on the other side of that desert there is a big mountain damn near touch the sky and that stream just know its Fa is to get to that mountain, but when a voice within say submit to the wind if you want to cross, the stream resisted, I fear I will lose myself, but that mountain still a beckoning so stream submit to the wind and becomes moisture carried effortlessly across the desert until deposited in a bracing river of icemelt running down the mountainside into the ocean - o what an experience the ocean must be,

4:23:9: who knows how you will meet death, for some a fight is appropriate, for some it is a surrender, the only true preparation for death is the ability to achieve the serenity of the divine at will, the absolute stillness of final alignment with the great mojo - it is done, pilgrim, sing your very best deathbed blues, and call it a day - I ask only that you be not afraid, I ask that you respect my teaching, that you die as you have lived, in grace - do me proud,

Share

even death don’t stop the conqueroo
shalabongo, my friend, let it go

Subscribe now

demoja demoja
let it go

3:19:1: everything work better with a little love in it, love transcends all limitation, enhancing both lover and loved, love bless everything it touch - o let us list the many shades of love, love of self, love of another, love of all humanity, love of all tings, love of the game, love that transcends all the above,

3:19:2: until you love yourself dont even think about trying to love somebody else, loving yourself aint easy, everybody wish they were different somehow, self love is accepting imperfection while striving everyday to be greater than you are - loving folk who love you is easy, loving folk who dont is the test, folk you dont have to love, folk you got reason not to love, folk who different from you, strangers of any sort, all humanity no matter their worth, all jah creature great and small, let love be your calling card,

3:19:3: Im reminded of the day a rich widower at deaths gate called his 2 children to him and offered his blessings or his property, the son asked for his property, the daughter his blessing, so the father got his sons commitment to take care of his sister but as soon as their father died the son drove his sister away with nothing but the clothes on her back and the skilz her father taught, that 1st night in the wild she gathered enough wood to get a fire going and keep the wolves at bay, the next morning she packed up the excess wood and sold it, same same the next day, then she hired folk to gather wood with her, paid good wages and health benefits before branching out into fuels and futures, by and by the local prince, in need of a business manager, contracted her to take care of the palace finances and, as these traditionalated tales go, they fell in love and married and ruled a kingdom known far and wide for the quality of its governance, every week time was set aside for supplicants, and then one day her brother showed up with nothing, having lost all his property through mismanagement he had heard the rulers of this land helped all those in need, well, you can imagine his surprise when he realize the queen he had heard so much of was his long lost sister, who when she saw him cried tears of joy / mercy /forgiveness, and so the brother, made whole and thoroughly shamed, left with the greatest boon possible, unconditional love,

3:19:4: love courage is an emotional courage, the willingness to be vulnerable, have you chosen someone you trust, a soulmate who asks of you your very best, someone you willing to court for the rest of your days, growing as necessary to love properly and well - the fusion of two souls as one is difficult and not without its challenges, there are few human endeavors as prone to failure as love & happiness, choose well, my friend, a choice that can illuminate your life or destroy it, exalt your soul or debase it, a good mate is the very definition of grace,

3:19:5: romantic love is grounded in the physical, and sex at its best is the most spiritual experience ever, a communion of bodies and souls that will exalt you, but if its bad its really bad, and if you feeling soiled, move on – everybody got a little freak in them, trick is finding somebody whose freak nature compliment yours - but the physical wears off, do you move on, go through the hassle of learning somebody new, or do you reach for the transformative, you who have jumped my broom, (no need to actually jump, a graceful step will do, even better a funky one, line dance across that sucker, show me what you got) romantic love is good for getting folk together but it take transformative love to keep them together, adjustments made, lives coordinated, natures accepted - recalls me the time wisdom and love was in courtship of grace, to test them she let it be known that she had died, when they hear she dead wisdom decided no need to rush while love set out right away,

3:19:6: sometime the grind of transformative love sends you out looking for the passion of the romantic but it rarely lasts any more than it did the first time, the cycle just reset, to make a longterm relationship work you got to go spiritual, nothing else will do –I recall when slaveytime madison ran away to canada but returned to virginia to find his wife, susan, suspected of helping madison escape susan had been sold downriver and transferred to the creole, a slave ship bound for new orleans, madison, caught whilst looking for susan, was put unawares on the same ship, at which point the creole set sail with 135 slaves who took the ship and made madison their captain, when the slave women came up from the hold, madison and susan were reunited to the cheers of newly freed slaves, when the crew attempted to retake the ship and were about to be killed by vengeful africans susan stopped it, no more blood, she told them, which worked in their favor when the british in nassau decided not to return them to slavery, so susan and madison lived happily ever after - well, probably not, but at least they was free,

3:19:7: do not try to make your relationships fit a preconceived mold, let them be what they need to be, in de geas of rickydoc love must be flexible, long as it works let it, accept your partner for who they are while encouraging them to be their best, maintaining courtship for the rest of your days, providing emotional support as needed and avoiding deal breakers, that which cannot be forgiven - treat your home like a sanctuary of love

Share

and when you do find some of that real

good loving, find love in your life, if

you got any sense at all, hold on

hold on to love, childrens, hold on

Subscribe now

demoja demoja
let it be so

3:16:1: family, your greatest strength, your greatest challenge, humanitys primary survival mechanism, healthy families are in a constant state of adaptation, maintaining ongoing communication about the difficult things, managing inevitable family tensions - best make time for family so when you in need family makes time for you - osifekunde of ijebu, a brazilian slave, went to france with his master and became a sensation, the french offered to send him home to africa but he returned to brazil as a slave to be with his children again, whereupon he and said childrens slipped away from both master and the historical record,

3:16:2: when you find the right mate, marry, chose a mate who is utterly devoted to you, who demands of you your very best, do not hesitate, stepping away from your birth family and starting your own is a critical rite of passage, lifelong companionship a blessing you must purchase with commitment, in de geas of rickydoc aint nothing quite like building a family - as to what that family look like Ima leave that to you, if it works it works and no telling what kind of family mixes folk of the future will blend - before living together as husband and wife, a married couple of the tswana are purified of transgressions and allowed to start afresh - we are a team, you and I, we will not be defeated,

3:16:3: sometime it dont work out, be mature and healthy about it, if you gotta go you gotta, do so with love, the tension is over, you loved each other once, move on with some dignity, let time do its thing, if you have children you got to keep the relationship healthy, you might not be together but you still family, good friendship beat thwarted love anytime,

3:16:4: it appear the destinic point of family is forging those generations, mastering the art of forging resilient children, shaping your generations through them, teaching them how to cope with adversity, helping them achieve serenity of purpose and preparing them to be sophisticated achievers in whatever field they so choose, healthy welladjusted adults, sturdy champions of the social contract, give them roots, let them grow, give them wings, let them fly,

3:16:5: you do not get to choose family as you do friends and loved ones, family you take what you get, tensions are inevitable, be a font of harmony in family matters, calm troubled waters whenever you can, resolve family conflicts as soon as possible, be willing to make the 1st move and be patient, generosity of spirit an absolute must - may the children be forged – goodpeople - may the mature be responsible – respected - may the elders be wise – advisors - may the ancestors be crowned – guides - may the grandbabies be many - generations,

3:16:6: to act generationally is to be conscious of the influence of your actions on your generations, to act ancestrally is to be conscious of the judgment of the ancestors upon your own, try to be worthy of their sacrifices, their dreams, sekou sundiata once said we dreamed you up, dear regulators, like the slaves must dreamed of us, free, keep ancestral lines alive and well fed, their stories told -

3:16:7: or perhaps the tale of the sisters aminatou and abalo here, one day aminatou gave a servant extra food, her sister beat her and her father drove her off, she is taken in by the family of the servant she had fed, it is here the queenmother tells her go bathe in the muddy river, not the clean one, the muddy one - to please the hosts who had been so gracious to her she bathed in muddy water and came out decked in gold and jewels and royal cloth, she return home with many cattle, a woman of means, needless to say her sister went to the queenmother and demanded her riches - only because she was aminataous sister she was told to bathe in the muddy river, not the clean one, but she decide muddy would not do and emerged from the clean water covered in weeping sores, she return to her village where she is shunned by all but her sister, they return to the queenmother, who says whats done is done, but aminatou offers all her gold, all her jewels, her cattle, all she owns, if her sister can be made whole, so the queenmother gives her back the rags she had 1st worn and says you must both bathe in muddy water, when they do they both emerge healthy and whole and now neither of them own gold but they have each other and that will have to do, on this spot, said abalo, I will build a temple, I will be the 1st keeper of the line,

3:16:8: in each generation there will be a keeper of the line, the responsible one, the conscious one, I fear thats you, dear regulator, otherwise you would still not be reading this Work, the one person in each generation that takes on the responsibility of maintaining the family bonds, reforging the family vision,

3:16:9: it was the challenge of family under slaverytime conditions cause the babajohn to resurrect abalos keeper of the line, chosen by the demands of the given generation, only the best need apply, the rest must help howsomever you can, thankful its not you - my condolences, o keeper of the line, my sincerest condolences, frustration awaits you, burnout is certain - when you falter call on eloise and / or elise, patron haints of keepers, a tear, a heartfelt sigh, a whispered plea - we got your back,

Share

it is not easy to be the hand of
rickydoc - good looking out

Subscribe now

demoja

So S. Pearl call me a couple months ago, said she checking out, say if I wanna say goodby got to do it with the quickness. Me and S Pearl we go all the way back. That 1^st John Killens workshop at Columbia back in the summer of 73, she was there, just as fine as she could be. I was instantly smitten but she was way outta my league.

She was even then as much the activist as she was a poet and she was a helluva poet, called herself an Artivist, wrote a play, published a book of poetry, founded a performance troupe, acted on Broadway, she was a primal force, but even I didn’t know how accomplished she was till I started researching this piece. Next thing we knew she had taken Hollywood by storm, Wonder Woman, St Elsewhere, leading role in Minstrel Man, etc etc etc

But when they tried to slot her as a sex symbol she balked, decided to go behind the camera and make her own indie films, Life is a Saxophone, Picking Tribes, Healing Waters, etc, and kept stretching as a Poet - Typing in the Dark, Higher Ground, etc - and Commentator - The Evening News, NPR commentaries, Black Women for Beginners, etc, etc while building institutions every chance she got, a child of the Black Arts Movement, called herself an Artivist: “creating cultural art for eye, ear and heart through film, writing, performance, theatre and music.” (from s pearl website)

When she left the City we lost track but when I moved to LA early 90s we hung tough, Fellow Travelers in the line of O Killens, its like we was Family. She was my conduit to the LA Arts community, mi running buddy, always meant to hit on her but it never went there, well one time it went there but she told me I was gon have to work a little harder, told me I need to put more effort in.

When I moved back to the East Coast we stayed in touch and grew even closer over the years, always swearing we were gon do a collab but putting it off as we both grew older, me still swearing I was coming out there with mi bluespan anyday now, when she call me one day back in September and say if you coming best come now, Im checking out.

And it rocked me cause she was one of those iron sisters that I just knew was gon be a Queen Mother. One day she in her mid 70s maybe, I referred to her as a Queen Mother and she rejected it, Im too young to be a Queen Mother she said indignantly, but she was a Queen Mother, age be damned, so I would call her a QMIT, Queen Mother in Training,

When she summoned me I hopped right on a plane, wo mi bluespan, she had made it clear she was too sick to be performing. She call me at the airport, you here? she say, Im here, I say, but it was late after traveling cross country I tell her tomorrow S. Pearl, she tell me what time. The next day I hunt down her apt and it brings back memories of my LA days, many of them hanging out with S Pearl.

When I got there, little intimate adobe Apt. building, 2^nd floor, just like I remembered, she answered the door, bone thin, feeble, a stick figure, skeletal even, still fine as fuck, still glowing with power, if not more so as the flesh was being stripped away the mojo was shining thru,

I was very somber once I sat in the designated chair, speaking low and measured, almost motionless like any move I made would cost her, she was very weak, spoke in spurts, she had been diagnosed earlier that year but she had rejected chemo etc, deciding to die as she had lived , on her own terms,.

Her Apt was cramped, cluttered, arranged to facilitate dying, everything she needed in reach of her sitting chair, including a blanket on the floor ‘in case I can’t make it to the bedroom,’

Her biggest concern was trying to get her papers somewhere, that’s like a big concern of all my folk, will somebody take my papers, tend to my legacy. Schomberg said no, Emory, where John’s papers are, no. She had a long list of folk said no before her Alma Mata said yes but they would only take her written papers, not her media work, and she had to make the arrangements to box it up and get it there, o it was disrespectful and disheartening but it was the only offer she had so she was giving what little energy she had to the logistics of her tattered legacy,

I didn’t stay long, she tired out quickly, I asked if I could run errands, she said she had folk all over the city running errands, but what she wanted, she said wistfully, was some cornbread, I say cornbread, on it, she say you wont be able to find straight up cornbread in LA, they always put stuff in it, she want her cornbread straight she say and I think I might not be able to buy you some straightup LA cornbread but I can make you some, one of the few dishes I do well.

She offered me books from her shelf, but what I really wanted was to go thru all that sacred clutter for some spiritual artifact for my altar but I was reluctant to acknowledge by asking her.

The plan was to come back the next day, some musician was coming by to ‘serenade’’ her but I felt intrusive in that plan, called the next day and passed and we agreed the next day but the next day she was too weak and the next and so it went till I left town a couple of days later,

After returning to the Cuse I called regular and Id be like reassure me you still here S. Pearl when finally Bonnie said Google her and I find she had died a couple weeks after I left LA, Oct 11^th. Fuck.

So many of my running buddies dead now, its like one pass every week now but some its like the passing of an era and the culture is left with a hole in it. That’s the way I feel about passing of Queen Mother S. Pearl Sharp.

She went easy, on her on terms and was at peace with it. Her mojo was glowing. Demoja. Demoja. But she had been worried about her legacy, her Ancestral Positioning, and now that shes dead I wish to God I had stepped up and reassured her that I would be on that for her but I don’t think I accepted the reality of her dying,

She looked like she was dying but I just couldn’t imagine a world without her in it.

So. The Collected Works of S. Pearl Sharp.

Woulda been so easy if I had used that last session to Implement. When mi girl Doris Jean Austin died her sister invited her literary crew to her apt and said you can take anything you want, my partners snatched up artifacts, I booted up her computer and downloaded her project files, including her last novel in progress.

God, wish I had thought to ask S Pearl if I could download her Works, woulda been easier to have them digital, ask her what she wanted in it, sequencing etc, but she was sooooo weak it didnt cross my mind to Project her.

Now I got to do it the hardway collect her works, have them digitized, etc. etc.

What I really need to know is who is her Literary Executor, if anybody on my Network knows please let me know. Soon as I realize she actually dead I realize this something I got to do,

S Pearl one of the folk on the planet I begged and begged and begged her to do a memoir, you owe us your story S. Pearl, but she just wouldn’t do it, my works are my memoir, she would tell me, but they aren’t, Akua Lezlie, Mama Whodun, Sheree, Danian, Rup, Ekpe, Cequita, Levi, Ibeshe, etc etc, just not.

It was a cultural tragedy that the Babajohn didn’t leave his story, a tragedy I don’t plan to repeat. Its like the 1^st move in shaping your legacy, the one that sets the parameters for your Ancestral Positioning. Since she didnt do it Ima have to do it for her.

So. When I was teaching at the Cuse, Blackfolk of a certain persuasion come thru Id take them to go see Harriet, whose home in Auborn was right down the road, a ritual Keith Gilyard had passed on to me. Keith took me there when I 1st came to the Cuse. Jacked me in her Name one time he thought I had lost my way. So me and S. Pearl go to her grave, guarded over by the magnificent evergreen and she takes the moment to sacred space. Usually Im the one set the spiritual tone but S. Pearl took it home and documented it for NPR, God, she was such a Playa, such a Force.

This the Audio and the Transcript. Apparently I just muttered and mumbled (unintelligible they called it, they coulda said unclear, they didn’t have say unintelligible, like Im slow) I included transcript but you do better to listen, S Pearls voice was a divine instrument.

The Lasting Legacy of Harriet Tubman
NPR, Oct 11, 2006

ED GORDON, host: When Harriet Tubman led runaway slaves to freedom, it said that she often did so with force and a harsh tone. Essayist S. Pearl Sharp discovered that Tubman still has the power to lead and inspire.

Ms. S. PEARL SHARP (Essayist): Recently, I was in Syracuse, New York, breaking bread with the novelist, Arthur Flowers. He shared tales of his sometimes humorous visits, tending the grave of John Oliver Killens. We had both studied under Killens, the esteemed novelist and professor back in the ‘70s, and his imprint is on our writing even today.

Then Arthur surprised me by asking if I might like to visit Harriet Tubman’s gravesite. Now, in truth, I’m not the kind of tourist who enjoys looking at dead buildings and famous folks’ graves. I’m the one who cuts out of organized tours to follow the scent of native food, to find out if there’s a local theatre, and where do folks around here go dancing.

But Tubman is an icon of the struggle to abolish slavery, a heroine whose name is evoked in many movements. So I accepted the invitation to visit Sister Harriet. The next morning we headed down the highway in big, falling snow toward Auburn, New York, 40 miles away. Arthur kicked in his favorite music, Randy Crawford, to set the tone for the day.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. RANDY CRAWFORD: (Singing) The big wheel keeps on turning on a simple line day by day. The earth spins on its axis. One man struggles, while another relaxes.

Ms. SHARP: After escaping from slavery in 1849, Tubman earned the nickname Moses of her people, by leading more than 300 slaves to freedom, then serving as a highly valued spy for the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, she settled in Auburn, owned property, and established a home for aging and indigent colored folks.

She died 50 years after emancipation, and was buried here in the Fort Hills Cemetery. It’s small cemetery tucked into a middle class neighborhood. Her headstone is large and plain. Only her name is inscribed on it, no dates, no tribute. Someone has stuck a red, black and green flag in front of it, the symbol of the Black Nationalist movement. And there is a cement urn to hold plants or other gifts to the shrine.

There are also two federal symbols, a bronze circle about the size of a saucer on a stick that designates Tubman as a veteran.

Unidentified Woman: I didn’t accept it to say Harriet Tubman Davis. What’s the Davis?

Mr. ARTHUR FLOWERS (Novelist): [unintelligible] husband.

Ms. SHARP: Davis, I learned, was Tubman’s second husband. He was also a civil war veteran.

Mr. FLOWERS: That was the only way she could get a pension.

Ms. SHARP: Arthur Flowers reminded me that after all of her work with the Union Army as a nurse, cook, and spy, Harriet had been denied her veterans benefits for 30 years. My mind shifted into stillness as I stood in the snow before this shrine. Tears started to well up, but I caught them all.

Ms. SHARP: I’m fine.

Ms. SHARP: Why would I cry here? Maybe because standing in front of her marker made her real at last, as if I could feel a little of her spirit tapping me on the shoulder asking, are you ready to be free?

Mr. FLOWERS: I really like that tree--it’s always green, it’s always big.

Ms. SHARP: I stepped back to see what Arthur is seeing. I had been so absorbed in the immediacy of the gravesite that I had not taken in the most beautiful part. A huge, gorgeous pine tree hovers over Harriet, and it seems to know it is a sacred sentinel.

And suddenly, I am feeling this joy just at being here. What is this joy? Where is it coming from? It’s like Harriet had just whispered in my ear and said, I’m doing okay, girl. Now, get back to work. But enjoy it. Enjoy it.

Ms. SHARP: I’m just so honored, thank you.

Mr. FLOWERS: Um-hmm.

Ms. SHARP: It’s one thing to read the books, read the history and all of that; it’s another thing to--I guess it’s like it makes it more real. That may sound kind of silly, but it makes her life more real. Let me take a picture.

(Soundbite of music)

Ms. CRAWFORD: (Singing) But the ghetto saw where nature lies [unintelligible] some time again.

Ms. SHARP: Then we drove a short distance to Tubman’s home. Here I learned not about the hero, the icon, but about the woman, a woman courted by her second husband, and who liked to plant raspberries and flowers in her yard.

Ms. CHRISTINE P. CARTER (Tour Guide): When Harriet Tubman first came to Auburn, it was said to have been around 1857, 1859...

Ms. SHARP: Our tour guide, the Director, is Christine P. Carter. Christine feels that maintaining Harriet’s Home is such an honor that she did it voluntarily for 10 years before she and her husband were hired as official caretakers.

Ms. CARTER: ...seven-acre property next door.

Ms. SHARP: When I told her how visiting the gravesite made me feel, she gave me the 4-1-1 on the tree.

Ms. CARTER: The information that I received that it was two trees that was planted there as first a headstone of Harriet Tubman from the family, and to look at it, and from the trunk of it, how they grew together. And then as you look further up toward the top of the tree, how they section off. And I said, that’s just like Harriet to have her family split off from the beginning and at the end come together.

She went off, got freedom herself; went back, made sure her family enjoyed the same type of freedom that she had acquired; and together...

Ms. CARTER: Yeah, I don’t know what happened back there, but my spirit is expanded, brightened. Harriet made all those trips back south, successfully rescuing other slaves without cash or AAA or email, no committee meetings, no post-traumatic syndrome counseling, no support groups. She coupled her wit, her intelligence and her intuition with guide posts from mother nature. And here in this moment, she seems to be still leading some of us to freedom. I had come to her grave with no expectations and had been deeply touched, rediscovering that history is even in death a living thing.

(Soundbite of music) GORDON: S. Pearl Sharp is a documentary filmmaker and actor living in Los Angeles. (Soundbite of music)

Mr. Crawford (Singing): When I lose my way I know just what to do. When I can’t seem to think what to say I come running right to you. You are...

GORDON: That’s our program for today. Thanks for joining us.

Copyright © 2006 NPR.

“Sometimes to get to the light you gotta type in the dark. . .” poetry

this biopoetry from eztvmuseum.com is one of many s pearl bios online, but I detect her voice in this one,

Job description: works words, conjures vision/ on cultural arts, Black history, wellness. “I have not known rape or/ drunk uncles with unlicensed hands/ or fathers who f’d their generations/ These eyes have not witnessed murder/ and I want you to know this. . .”

Born to a poet-singer, taught to bake bread and iron a pillow case without a cat face by a hot-comb wielding, classical singing grandmother/joined at the hip to a child of slaves, great-grandfather / train for radio & TV production at BGSU before color television exists / long detour / return to radio around 2005 via NPR commentaries and essays and some Pacifica Radio moments / “I write soft songs/ hard poems / 3rd eye music . . .”

Bite from the Big Apple, arriving ’64, naïve Ohio flower discovering the real world / independence, living solo, finding voice/ copy writer for TV Guide/ one of many turning Johnson’s Poverty Program into NYC’s vibrant Black Arts Movement/ study under novelist-essayist John Oliver Killens/ poet-ize in Harlem/learn community theatre with Al Fann and Company using Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics as an acting text/ self-publish two collections of poetry / form the group Poets & Performers/frightened substitute teacher by day, high note singer by night in Pearl Bailey’s Hello Dolly / leave B’way for first film speaking role in Gordon Parks’ The Learning Tree — the seminal experience / write first play with music, The Sistuhs, produced on both coasts / break some color lines in TV commercials /know unemployment office too well /sanity preserved (well, sort of) by writing.

“This poem will not be cut/ it will not be cast/ It does not do windows or Whoopi Goldberg imitations . . .” Escape from subway trains to city of angels and agents in ’75 because finally there is work for Black actors in TV / female lead in Minstrel Man (CBS-TV) opposite Glynn Turman/ turn down a role in Roots/star in Hollow Image (ABC-TV), which brings only one work offer: huge bucks to star in porno film/ not! / The Donna Cheek Story, a Wonder Woman agent, Night Cries, guest roles Knots Landing, St. Elsewhere/ Oppressed by town where main product is illusion, including inviolate illusions of Black folks/ Artivist flowers. “Are you now or have you ever been?/ searched summoned silenced subdued suppressed ?”

Co-founder, Black Anti-Defamation Coalition (BAD-C), edit its Media Matters newsletter, therefore “white listed” (with cohorts) for several years by the industry / Hush production managers who say “We didn’t know there was one” by compiling, with support of Alex Haley and friends, the first-of-its-kind 1980 Directory of Black Film/TV Technicians,West Coast / “We still write love poems/ because it heals us/ coming slow in the day/ or late in the life/bandaging pain and absence. . .” 1975, without understanding that I should understand the publishing industry, form Poets Pay Rent, Too, and publish Robert Earl Price’s Blood Lines and my Soft Song collections /co-founder, Lorraine Hansberry Playwrights Workshop/ Sr. editor for Juneteenth, first commercial Black audio-book company/really joking, no intention to actually write Black Women for Beginners, now in 4th printing (distrib. Random House) / Dearly Beloved first short story published / ”Why do you dance our death / instead of our life? / Step into the water child / let the shackles slip from your soul . . .”

Sales and P.R. gig at L.A.’s Aquarian Book Shop & Spiritual Center leads to metaphysical studies/ gain self-permission to be an artist / “Queen Mothers gone to film school/ making messages to reach us/ during the commercial break . . .” reality check: more comfortable behind the camera/ Los Angeles City College, make two films on identity — Back Inside Herself, (1984), a poetic short. [View the Back Inside Herself 2009 Remix on YouTube ] and semi-animated short Picking Tribes, with art by Carlos Spivey (1988) / make first independent documentary Life Is A Saxophone on poet Kamau Daa’ood (1980) /It’s O.K. To Peek(1996) controversial women’s health video, produced with Arabella Chavers-Julien / Last film gestation is 10½ years for The Healing Passage/Voices From The Water (2004), on healing from the present-day residuals of the trans-Atlantic slave trade [View on The Documentary Channel] / a bunch of cultural arts docs for the City of Los Angeles’ CH35: Central Avenue Live!, Spirits of the Ancestors, L.A. to L.A., Fertile Ground: Stories From The Watts Towers Arts Center/ films get me to the Motherland 3x and Norway ”. . . Capture the Other’s form from sacred canon/ imbue with hue howl blood and drum/ jazz riff click dip in da hip . . .”

the 90’s: focus on artistic collaboration/right-brain-left-brain weddings with musicians, dancers, visual artists, photographers: /Mixed Media Poems(1991) on stage / Typing In The Dark (1991) in print / There’s A Brown Girl In The Ring, the essays of Beah Richards, written with Richards/ two poetry w/jazz CDs, On The Sharp Side(1995) and Higher Ground(2008) / Evolve essay with Jazz Antiqua Dance Ensemble (2010) “ My body’s in the Fall/ My mind still thinks I’m Spring. . .”

drop first name ‘cause it don’t sound good to the ear /claim the pearl / learning eldership / bringing Water From The Well with performances and workshops that merge the literary and healing arts./

God, this woulda been so much easier had I thought to strip her computer last time I saw her. But it is what it is. What I really need to know is who is her Literary Executor. If anybody on my Network knows please let me know. Please.

Ima get started on Faith. Ima also want to speak to anybody want to Testify, testimonials, works, everything. But what I really need is her Literary Executor. God, I wish I had thought to engage but by the time I got there she was just too weak.

Gotta count my Blessings. I was summoned to the last Days and Times of S. Pearl Sharpe. Summoned. I suspect S. Pearl was on Game. Her last thoughts were of her legacy, she know where mi power lie. She know Ima lay some good mythwork on her, throw a little Rickydocs Special Blend Gooberdust in her Path.

Subscribe now

(got a little cornbread on the altar now, straight up cornbread, no corn kernals, no pecans, honey and cinnamon like I like my cornbread, damn near a pastry, S. Pearl like her cornbread straight, oldschool)

When I do mythwork for the Babajohn I am spending some of my mojo in his Name, guess Ima have to call up some mojo for my girl, S. Pearl. Rest easy, mi Sister in the Line of O Killens. I got you, S. Pearl, you know I do.

Share

demoja demoja demoja
time to go, let it be so

When it first start manifesting itself in my work and performances, a certain cultural, even mythic authority, what I’ve come to call the Prophetic Voice, I repressed it. Or rather did not recognize it as the Prophetic.

As was generally the case it was my Work led me there, when my novel in progress, Rest for the Weary, became a meditation on prophecy. When Jubilation T. Conquer, an aging Hoodoo sorceror, is called to the Prophetic. He resist, of course. Otherwise, wouldn’t be no story. Boy a pretty good sorceror, a questionable prophet.

Researching my Text I’m studying the prophets of antiquity, or to be more specific, the Founders of Antiquity, the Buddhas, Jesuses, Laozis, Moseses and Muhammads. I note the dynamic between the person and the mythwork, I note the dynamic of the dialogue the Great Teachers establish with the generations. How to hook it up so that grows with Time, the prophet’s True Instrument.

So, all this Prophetic Impulse knowledge starts leaking through in the work, that tone of Prophetic Authority. Same same performance. A couple of times that point of communal transcendence that I’m always looking for when I’m doing ritual performance work leads to the prophetic moment. Specially back home in the Delta.

When I get to Exhorting.

It all come to a head the evening I was asked after a reading by a headtied sister during the Q and A. Do you consider yourself a prophet?

I have no idea what I said made her ask me that. I hemmed and hawed before saying well, yes, I guess I do. That same reading this brother was throwing shade. Well, who choose you to save the race, he said, repeatedly and dismissively - What on earth did I say?

I hemmed and hawed some more. Said I got the training, I got the skilz, I got the fire in the belly, I got the Game. Told him the same thing I’m telling you. I believe I can do this. So, I got to try. He kept pushing me. But who choose you. Finally, in exasperation, I told him ‘God did.’

I was, at the time, a passionate student of comparative religions. With Hoodoo I became a Traveler. What kept me from truly embracing the traditions of the world, including ATR, was wanting to work an African American tradition. Homemade. Homecooking. I want to make my own tradition / culture a universal contender.

Wanna put my foot in it. I want to forge an African American Way,

Afroam culture has always been one of the world’s influential cultures. I recall in my lifetime when the struggles of oppressed peoples around the world were built on an Afroam model. I believe the question which will define the globalizing 21^st Century is which cultures will make the cosmic cut and shape the generations of the future, which will die out.

I want to forge an African American Way,

I want Afroam to be one of the world’s significant cultures. Means I have to make Afroam’s adhoc culture so strong, so illuminated, that others admire, emulate and adopt it. Refine it. I would the Hoodoo Way be an Illuminated Tradition. Guide and Guardian of humanity’s ever evolving quest to be greater than we are.

The Magical Negro wrote large. One of the World’s Great Ways.

I want to forge an African American Way,

Look up Hoodoo in Webster and it will say to hurt, to harm. Needless to say I reject that. In De Geas of Rickydoc to Hoodoo somebody mean to Bless and / or Heal.

By positioning Hoodoo as the Prophetic Tradition of the ATR world I accomplish two things: One, I ensure Hoodoo is always on the cutting edge of Illuminative Evolution.

Two, a power move, I preclude being placed under ATR authority.

I envy religion its graces, but I do not want a flock of stolen souls, I do not want to be a religious tradition, I wish to remain magical, mystical, mythical, just I want my magic to be High instead of Folk.

I also have a complicated relationship with the Afrofuturist folk. Wasn’t for Sheree I wouldn’t get no love in what should be my natural constituency. Because of my focus on shaping generations thru speculative works we walk much of the same ground.

Difference is what they do in Fantasy I do in the World, using metafiction as a bridge between dimensions. I call what I do Afroprophetic: working prophecy in the Text.

cast your vision, young hoodoo, as far as you
can see, determine the challenges the tribe will
face, prepare the tribal soul to meet them.

Premise being the wouldbe Visionary uses the prophetic vision to see as far into the future as possible and anticipate the changes, the crises and opportunities the tribe will have to overcome in its generations long struggle for survival and prosperity.

The aspiring Prophet / Change Agent then determines what social traits will be necessary to meet those challenges and tries to program them into the cultural soul through ageold techs of magical, prophetic, literary, ideological orchestration.

Making Real into the World that which was not.

Basing Authority to do so on the deceptively simple proclamation: God told me to.

Or, if you prefer - the Ancestors.

Thing is me and God the Great Mojo, we got a deal.

Often my efforts to conjure up a new kind of Blackfolk cost me. I have to be able Speak Truth to the People if I want to be the Great Hoodooman I see in my heart. I get the most resistance when I insist Blackfolk accept what appears to be a hard fact: that wherever in the world you got Blackfolk they at the bottom of their respective society. Everywhere. Can’t blame everywhere on nobody but ourselves.

Somehow someway we must transform into strength the weaknesses that have crippled us in global competition. Gotta transform Blackfolk souldeep. Everywhere.

When I get accused of blaming the victim I gotta shrug that off. My understanding of the Prophetic Impulse is that it is in my own tradition that I must be heard. It’s easy to call out the wrongs of others but my primary concern is the resiliency of Black Culture. Black Peoples.

Clearly I won’t be able to transform Blackfolk souldeep in the short time I got on the planet. Once read it takes at least three generations to Transform a Peoples. What we know in our heads, our children will know in their hearts, our grandchildren in their souls. An optimistic timeline at best. I have become comfortable with the glacial pace of social change, when Moving a People got to think in generations or go under.

Since I won’t be able to go the distance Ima have to forge a iteration of Hoodoo that will do it for me. Illuminated. Empowered. Retooled for a 21st Century sensibility.

Everything I do is a Hoodoo Manual trying to shape the Hoodoos of the future in my image. Longgame as taught by Babajohn Killens, the Great Griot Master of Brooklyn.

Shaping our Generations into the people we want most to be.

God I love the Arena.

My understanding is that the Wouldbe Prophet must often challenge the Powers that Be, or even the People, when trying to forge new responses to cultural crises. Often the very people you want to listen to you. If your Tradition of Prophecy is one respected by the Tribe (here come de conjureman) you are given the dispensation to break old rules and forge new ones. The fundamentalists I guess gon always be fundamentalists, but the cutting edge got to move on. We got Work to do.

No sense in me whining cause folk don’t see what I see. That’s what make a Vision a Vision. Most folk adjust themselves to reality. As a Hoodoo sorceror I demand reality adjust itself to me, and sometimes, quite often in fact, it does.

Conduct yourself as you aspire to be and
you are. This is the essence of Conjuration.

The High Hoodooo of Memphis is mi latest masking. A Delta Shapeshifter trying to position myself as a Returning Culture hero. Who returns whenever the Tribe in need.

As to if my efforts ever bear fruit, who knows, I will be long dead.

For most folks just trying to be a Hoodoo, much less a Hoodoo Prophet, would be considered Delusional. But it’s all good because I write about sorcerors, prophets and magicfolk in my work. You call it delusion, I call it research.

The Literary Life, what’s not to love.

I have forged a life that allows me to play Destiny Games and even if I fail in the world, which is very likely, I can still write about the prophetic mode with authority because I have Walked the Path. What good theories that have not been tempered in the Arena. The Universe has kept its side of the deal, Ima keep mine.

And what True Prophet don’t fail in they lifetime and failure makes for more interesting fiction does it not. Win, win. Fiction is already like a bridge between dimensions. Specially for us two headed folk, one foot in the realworld, other mythmagical. Deep in the Spiritworld. A metafictional Bridge readers cross everytime they open one of my Works.

Folk think prophecy is foretelling the future, au contrary, prophecy is correlating current behavior with Destinic Consequence, crying out in the Wilderness, over & over, tossing words of power into the wind:

Listen o ye 1stborn, listen to my word, I must be heard, continue to conduct yourselves in this manner and your generations will suffer, listen to me and they will thrive. God told me this.

# #

I am Flowers of the Delta Flowers and the line of O Killens. I am Hoodoo, I am Griot, I am a Man of Power, my words true words my story true story my lies true lies, I am Mganga Maua. A Hoodoo Lord of the Delta. The High Hoodoo of Memphis.

It is I, Rickydoc Trickmaster, come to call you 1stborn, you who walked 1st on 2 feet, Humanity’s Living Ancestors, and God‘s True Chosen. Should not the First be the Last. Listen 1stborn, to the Geas of Rickydoc and I will give you a Mission greater than your Adversity. I will give you a Destiny.

It is I, Rickydoc Trickmaster, come to call thru seared mouth harp lungs, to me o Mighty Race, for I’ve had Visions, I’ve seen the promised land, a culture, healthy wealthy and wise, respected thruout the Cosmos, Guide and Guardian of Humanity’s ongoing quest to evolve, to be greater than we are.

I ask only that you be the Great and Glorious People you were meant to be - the Illuminated Children of the Sun. I ask that you take responsibility, not only for your own Destiny but the Destiny of all people and all Jah creature great and small.

And when the Hard Times come, they always do, I want you to hold on, my Peoples, hold on, you must be strong, cause you fight the battles, friend, nobody else could win. And when you need me you call me I will come. I hope you leave here, this here crossroadal moment, renewed and refreshed in the struggle of life, confident in the victory of all that’s good. Ima tell you like Sister Beetle would, when you want to give up, wanna lay right down and die, that’s when you got to spread your wings, Childrens, spread your wings and fly.

And so it is we have gathered here in the name of Grace, and when my people gather together like this, in Peace and Love and Harmony, that place that gathering place, is Holyground.

Welcome, all you good people, welcome to the Holyground.

And when you come to the Crossroads, always take the High Road, always strive to be Greater than you are. May your days be full of Passion, may your lives be full of Grace, may your Works serve many Generations, may Gods Blessings be on us all

Subscribe now

Demoja Demoja Demoja
Gods Blessings on us all.

Share

See also ‘Afroprophetica and the Hoodoo Future’ in Introduction to Afrofuturism ed. DuEwa Frazier

It was Vietnam led me to John, it was John got me to Vietnam. I joined the army basically cause of And Then We Heard the Thunder. John’s novel about Black soldiers during WWII. I’m ashamed to confess I volunteered for the Army in the middle of a war. Did not cross my mind they would send me to Vietnam. I cannot tell you how many decisions I have made in life that I upon reflection find inexplicable.

I don’t recall thinking deeply about anything. It embarrass me how little thought went into life choices I made as a youth. But it was Vietnam I got Blackinized. That’s what we called it. This ethos of Black Solidarity that was do or die. Brotherme, Brotherblood, Brotherblack. Me and you, Brother, against the world. A full grown reality, when you came incountry you just plugged into it.

Symbolized by the dap, this elaborate handshake that brothers greeted each other with. There was a basic dap that was countrywide. Keep it short - you would say, then there would be the more elaborate dap that was your unit’s dap. Much of my time in Vietnam I refused to dap, what can I say, I’m just contrary. Would snarl that it was just performing for the whiteman. But with my books, my beard, (dry shaved untill my face bumped out) my afro and my courtmartials I was considered the company militant and got a pass.

And if you catch me right I dap along with everybody else. Specially the dap line at the EM club. This line of brothers standing along the wall. When you come in you expected to go down the line dapping. Where you from in the world, BrotherBlood, Memphis Tennessee, BrotherMe, how bout you, BrotherBlack.

Till this day still trying to recover that solidarity we had in Nam, the solidarity of the 60s, when we thought we would never be weak again.

Now we got folk voting for Trump and BlackMen don’t give the Soul Nod no more, used to be everytime you pass another Brother you give the Nod. During Covid folk retreated to their own personal fortresses, but I still give the Nod, every Black Man I pass I wait for that fleeing eye contact. Me and you, brother, against the world.

Now you cant go thru the day searching out eye contact with Sisters, its a different vibe, the exception being older sisters of my generation, fellow refugees of the 60s. Elder sisters I often get the Nod and it tickle me to no end. Mi Fellow Travelers.

It was the Island of Lamu I got the Nod as often as I gave it. Lamu, down near Mombasa, had a measurable black population that obviously feels besieged. Everywhere I went there when they realize I was a Black American they waited for the Nod. You don’t generally get the Nod from Africans or Caribbeans, you give them the Nod they look at you like you trying to Trick them. You only get the Nod from Black populations that feel besieged.

Everywhere I went on Lamu the Blackfolk would call out as I passed them. Burning Spear Burning Spear. I figured it was the dreads. But finally, a vendor on the sea road explained, Here we are weak, he said, You are a Black American, you are strong. Black Americans fight for us all.

As you can imagine this moved me greatly. A scrum of Black vendors gathered around us. They concurred. I tried to explain that we aren’t what I would exactly call strong, but they weren’t having it, repeating over and over, Black Americans fight for us all. I believe my eyes were watering when I mumbled, again, we try.

Subscribe now

Me and you, my Peoples, against the world.

Share

de moja

I suspect folk aint gon appreciate what I got to say here. But what kinda wouldbe Prophet of the Hoodoo Way gon be scared to speak Truth to the Peoples. I could come up in here huffing and puffing and spewing outrage that will please the congregation but I need to be taken seriously by the True Playas.

So. Not sure why folk so mad at Dems for voting to reopen gov, that kinda surprised me cause it was inevitable, it was a bad hand, and you can be assured the 8 apostates were assigned to take that hit. I know folk don’t want to hear this but I think the Dems have played a bad hand bout well as it could have been played and the folk upset are playing like Kiddie Chess that only sees one move ahead,

Lets look at what was achieved here. One, Trump and the Repubs were not gon agree to the Obamacare demands, not with Trump, who sees this as more opportunity than problem, having to sign off on a deal, and the pain on real people was mounting. Trumps-go-to-move. Inflicting real pain. Let me repeat that, real pain real people. One more time. Real pain real people. Repubs don’t care, Dems do. They held, they folded. This arc was inevitable.

But lets look at what they achieved. One. They have hung the Obamacare increase on the Republican neck, they have made it ever more clear that Trump don’t care about people, that the MAGA default is cruelty as performance art. Imagine, Trump actually went to the Supreme Court rather than follow multiple court orders to feed the hungry. With Great Gatsby parties in his shambling wake no less. This will cost them, as it did in the recent election, so will all the bad news coming about folk aint got no food to be Thankful for.

And all the bad news coming about folk losing their health insurance and all the sick people stories. The Repubs gon be taking damage for months, shields degrading, while the Dems can claim We Fought for the People. And you might think it was not much of a fight but it contributed to Election day energy. Which was also a win,

Id like to think the Dems played it that strong, lets keep the base fired up at least till Election day but I suspect it just happened. We can expect the Repubs, under pressure now to show they care, to come up with some health care farce and dare the Dems to vote against it. I suspect it will be so bad the Dems will refuse. We will see, the Election shook the Repubs but not enuf.

Trump’s Response: block pardon all those who tried to subvert the 2020 election, message being I got your back if we have to do it again. If I don’t my boy JD do.

If you aint figured it out let me be the one to tell you the midterms aint gon be no fair fight. We cant afford no slack, Playas, no more Kiddie Chess, please.

We just can’t afford strategic analysis that only count one move ahead. The most obvious move is never the strong one. Everybody ready for the obvious moves. I need you to be more Game conscious, Black People, quit being driven by Emotion. Not in the Arena. If you aint 3, 4, 5 moves ahead, might as well stay in the Briar Patch, young Rabbit, you aint ready.

Subscribe now

When I was a baby writer new to NYC back in the 70s I sat in on John Henrik Clarks class one semester, Hunter College. Just up and went and he allowed it. Whole semester, maybe two. He was, as you can imagine, an immensely dignified fellow, and one day while lecturing there was a sudden thumping on the ceiling, he looked up and said in that dry droll way he had, If it’s dancing its poor dancing.

That’s the way I feel when Blackfolk get to jumping up and down over the latest outrage instead of dealing with it cool calm and collected. If it’s dancing its poor dancing.

Share

demoja - as i say it so shall it be
demoja - gods will be done
demoja - ancestral blessings on us all
demoja - so be it
demoja - blessings blessings more blessings
demoja - a deathbed blues to be sung in transition
etc etc - a sacred riff on ‘the mojo’ as divine affirmation

3:17:1: from experience comes knowledge, from knowledge comes wisdom - it is knowledge allows you to finesse life, we all of us start life ignorant, believing what we are told, but experience always questions received knowledge - the scientific method is your default knowledge acquisition mode, theory and experimentation, research and scholarship, with the ability to shift into the intuitive as necessary, a hoodoo education also trains the emotional and spiritual life, why educate the mind if you would neglect the soul, that just makes you dangerous,

3:17:2: the competent high hoodoo is most primarily a scholar, a mix of formal training / experience / common sense / and the spiritual knowledge that feeds them all, the high magician strives to stay contemporary with the inexorable march of knowledge, whatever other folk know you need to know, what they dont know is where you get to play, a hoodoo seeker of knowledge, always ready to revisit your understanding as new knowledge becomes available, mining every moment for lessons learned,

3:17:3: the hoodoo way is one of lifelong learning, sometime free, sometime at great cost, but always essential, lifelong learning makes everything a lesson / evolution, a formal education opens the mind and prepares you to be a functioning member of society but the true student of knowledge knows that a terminal degree just the 1st step, education is everywhere,

3:17:4: knowledge for knowledges sake is a waste of knowledge, what good are theories that have not been tested in the arena, understand the power of the word and you understand why it was against the law for slaves to read or write, 1st thing baba douglass did with his new knowledge was write himself a pass to freedom, the relentless education of our generations has been a fundament of struggle, in a merit society education is probably the most salient determinant for progress, yes yes I know, calling any society a merit society is questionable, societies are hierarchical, unfair by definition, always gon be haves and have nots, but if you understand the game and accept unearned penalty points you can always make progress, in de geas of rickydoc you can always make a way,

3:17:5: knowledge is the fundamental power that feeds all others, control informational flow and you control the perception of reality, that russian disinformation campaign designed to suppress the black vote and elect trump should have failed miserably, anytime anybody tell you not to vote just assume you being played, anytime you dont vote just assume that fannie lou if I fall I will fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom hamer is shamed of you,

3:17:6: when the germans captured kilwa and enforced school attendance, education had been a stronghold of islamic practice, masters of learning and book magic in an illiterate african world, but islamic elites, unwilling to commit their own children to a western education, sent the children of their black slaves instead, these exslaves became the educated class while the children of their masters were still herding sheep

- 3:17:7: when ansar dine and them overrun timbuktu and began destroying preislamic artifacts, abdel kader haidra, librarian of timbuktu, patron haint of books and manuscripts, had some 80 trunks of the ancient texts of timbuktu moved by donkey to safe houses around the city, when ansar dine was finally driven out they had destroyed only some 4000 of 400,000 manuscripts, whats with these folk keep trying to burn the libraries of timbuktu, what is it they fear,

Subscribe now

lifelong education a fundament of struggle
it is lifelong learning set the slave free

Share

demoja demoja demoja

2:13:1: transgression: the wild thing we chain and repress, transgression and desire, we have, all of us, done things for which we are ashamed, if we say we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, we are all capable of bowing to our particular demons, thats what make a demon a demon, a shape shifter hidden deep beneath unacceptable thoughts and inexplicable behavior, whispering songs of expediency, crawling along the low road when you could have gone high - wondering who is this person, surely that aint me,

2:13:2: dont judge yourself too harshly for transgressive thoughts, your thoughts are not you, the brain is hardwired to consider all the possibilities, thats what brains do, its you that decide which impulses are pertinent to the great soul you aspire to be - understand human weakness in yourself and others, young conjure, how you gon be a spiritdoctor if you lack generosity of spirit, no such thing as a perfect soul, generally folk not evil, they just weak, everybody struggling,

2:13:3: dont judge souls too harshly,
not others or your own, we here to grow
and learn, we meant to be flawed

2:13:4: avoid doing anything you do not want known, everything comes to light and your soul knows when it has been stained, be willing to admit mistakes, to apply correction and restitution - gon have to struggle with the demons of desire and transgression all the days of our lives, when you fall off the path, dust yourself off, get back on track, do better, there is always redemption if it is sincerely chosen while the fool falls into a hole and keeps falling and falling until they are never seen again,

2:13:5: testimony by dr. english, (hrc&w): I get off sometime, I gets a doing and dissipating and my power goes out on me,

2:13:6: transgression is sometimes transformative, the artist, the visionary, the guide, the activist, the protester willing to pay the cost, justice is a more flexible plane than law, judge any move by its value to the greater good, the ascensionist is not afraid of the disapproval of various audiences if the vision is clear, according to the griots code you should always be prepared to speak truth to the people, even and especially when they dont want to hear it,

2:13:7: to transgress once, maybe twice, is part of the human condition, you must know the demon before you can name it, to transgress repeatedly is to abandon the way, apply the withering death to unacceptable internal dialogue, do not fight it, to worry at transgression only empowers it, observe it, amused, watch it move on through - finessing demons is an art, once you name the demon it should no longer have power over you,

2:13:8: the struggle against evil, within and without, is forever, you must always be capable of peering into your own shadows, it is the nature of evil to hide in the presumption of grace, it is our imperfection that makes us human, whats fatal is to hide from error, the strong move is to face error, acknowledge it, incorporate the lessons of it - it is said of the babajohn he never committed the same error twice,

2:13:9: redemption is at hand, come stronger next time, rickydoc understands, rise up, children, shake the devil out your soul, and if that fail, just call on me, malignant forces cannot go past a bonded crossroads, when you cross over drop four coins and call on me - guaranteed - aint no condition I cant handle,

Subscribe now

demoja

Share

2:12:1: the hoodoo dance of fortune, the only thing certain is that fortune will change on you, the good turns bad, the bad turns good, fortune smiles, fortune frowns, all the power in the world still needs fortunes favor, no one is exempt, the saint / sinner / wise / fool / all must bow & bend to fortune and the random factor, want to accept the blessings got to take the hammer as the invitation to growth that it is, they a matching set,

2:12:2: fortune favors those who prepare for it, a free floating readiness that recognize fortune in its early stages, be attuned to the roots of things, when opportunity calls its too late to prepare for it, prudence anticipates adversity and positions itself accordingly, good luck or bad, be prepared to finesse them both, be prepared to endure,

2:12:3: fed by gold and the spears of mounted warriors, sunjata built mali on a bed of ghanas bones before it fell in its time to the songhay, it was the end of an era when the songhay capital of wagadu fell, shields and spears useless against the guns of the moroccans, the scribes of timbuktu will tell you their defeat was in the botched sacrifice of a goat, but rickydoc say be on the cutting edge or fall to them that is - the songhay were defeated, the wakauri eviscerated, ahmad baba al massuli al timbuktu exiled and lo and behold the moroccans tried to burn the books of timbuktu, what is it with folk trying to burn the books of timbuktu,

2:12:4: but the gods refuse to let the glory of the songhay leave this world bereft and every morning the eternal city of gao floats into the clouds, every morning the bullets of the moroccans fall short and gao the eternal escapes unscathed, to rise again the next morning and the next unto eternity, that glow you see in the middle of the sun, gao the eternal, do not gaze upon her long, the sun will blind you,

2:12:5: empires rise and empires fall, it has always been this way, witness the march of the bantu, a mfcenic whirlwind change everything in its path, wiping out whole peoples and forging new ones, empires rise and empires fall, it has always been this way but when the ansar dine tried to smash the shrine of sidi yahia all they destroyed was the building, if we, the sons and daughters of slaves, cannot free slaves what good are we, the bella and the hal-pulaar await the conch horns call, fortune favors the committed, I believe here I will reprise here a previous post on el Fasher, which is no more, destroyed by Blacks who call themselves Arabs, and now only death stalks its streets:

The Fall of El Fashar - Little while back I wrote I didn’t have bandwidth for African Conflict Zones but I decided what I need to do is choose one to devote myself to and I choose Darfur, mostly cause I got genocide on my mind and the Janjaweed, now called the RSD, been genociding Darfuri for about 25 years now. A process recently escalated as one by one Black villages and towns been captured and laid waste to, until only one stronghold remains. El Fashar, the capital of North Darfur State, swollen with displaced refugees, been under siege for months now. Everything you seeing in Gaza happening in Darfur and now the RSD has built an earthen wall around El Fashar in order to starve it into submission, daily mortar bombardment, nothing going in nothing coming out. I am working on a Darfuri Strategic Analysis and trying to identify avenues of engagement - NGOs on the ground, the UN, countries (UAE, et al) supporting the RSD, etc. I am once again frustrated by the negligibility of mi instruments but a Playa got to do what a Playa got to do. I will get stronger in the doing. My fear is that El Fashar will fall before I get my ducks in order. Just as likely to fall even after I got my ducks in order, but Ima do what I do, as I hope will you. And if you just aint got the bandwidth for yet another crises please pray for the desperate Defenders of El Fashar – demoja demoja demoja

2:12:6: back in the day brer rabbit had 5 feet, the 5th foot mammy bammy big money, the witch rabbit, the only woman of agency in the brer rabbit corpus, before I Sista Rabbited the best stories, gave him, he attribute his success in life to that foot and when he lost it he braced for the bad luck that wasnt long in coming, before you know it he cant keep love or money and anything that could go wrong went wrong, so by and by he got himself to mammy bammy big moneys place out there in dismal swamp, lost that lucky foot you gave me, he told the witch rabbit, need me a replacement, mammy bammy look about and see brer rattler sunning himself on a rock, you bring me brer snake there all tied up, she say, and we will see about that lucky foot, so brer rabbit he ponder a moment before getting a rope and a stick and he go over to brer snake and say, excuse me, brer snake, but mammy bammy claim you not but 3 feet long and I say no, he at least 4, do you mind stretching out along this here measuring stick so I can tell, not at all, brer rabbit, say the snake, personally I believe I am at least 5 or more, but soon as he stretch out brer rabbit rope him to that stick and bring him over, apologizing most profusely, mammy bammy release brer snake and mollify him with the offer of free consultation every time he shed his skin, which is of course why they do it - after he slither off a satisfied customer, mammy bammy say that took you all of 5 minutes, brer rabbit, if you had luck and smarts too, you would be a danger to all the other animals, you get to keep one, you choose,

2:12:7: Im told a poor and lonely man once decide to walk to heaven and ask for redress, along the way he meet a wolf and a good woman, both of whom have a question for god, the wolf ask why life got to be so hard, Im starving, the good woman tell him to ask god whenever will she find a good man, he agree to do so, next day he rest at the foot of a riverbank bottletree that is parched and stripped of leaves, tree tell him to ask god why cant I draw moisture from my own river, so when dude get to paradise he ask god for answers, god give him replies to the wolf, the woman, and the tree and say you will find your own fortune at the end of your journey, so he return home the way he came, to the tree he says god told me there is a pot of gold under your roots, that is why you cannot get nourishment, but when the tree begs him to dig up the gold, he says that he does not have time, my fortune awaits, to the good woman he says a good man will be sent to you soon but when she asks him if he will stay for lunch he tells her no, I must be about my fortune, to the wolf he says a fool will come along directly, a silly man who has passed up both wealth and love just to feed your hunger,

2:12:8: always got to be prepared to take the hammer. long as you stay on game you good, remount the board, stronger, more informed, this resilience is what transforms misfortune into fortune, for fortunes favor we will call on la nunez, legba can turn on you but la nunez de obeah queen, never will, to call down nunez a book that mean something to you, and mangoes, nunez like mango, who dont like juicy sweet mango, and moko jumbie, a good stiltwalker make any day holy,

2:12:9: my luck is no greater than any other, I am just more prepared to see / finesse opportunity than most, more prepared, perhaps, to take advantage of the swings of fortune, a freefloating awareness in constant adaptation to evolving circumstances, when moments of opportunity and / or challenge strike, finesse them in total mastery of the cosmic wave,

Subscribe now

fortune smiles
in all my love

Share

demoja

2:11:1: agency, the fine art of making things happen, anything worth having you have to work for it, the fruit of planning / execution / perseverance, always have a clear plan of action with doable steps to be sustained with minimum maintenance, to be adjusted and recalibrated as necessary, every move mission critical - living out your dreams will cost you, but coasting will cost you, too - talk less, do more,

2:11:2: action is the final component of wisdom, knowledge that aint actionable just a bunch of facts, a good decision prioritizes reality over illusion, a good decision considers alternatives / capabilities / available resources, a good decision anticipates consequences - once a good decision been made, be decisive, do not hesitate, do not wait for conditions to be perfect, they never are, if the timing is not right use the delay for preparation and positioning, thus when the moment is ready so are you,

2:11:3: understand the rules of achievement and apply yourself to their mastery, be force in the world, a race of doers, practitioner adepts of making things happen - play on playa, step up - like the evening confederate guards in charleston harbor received the right signs and countersigns from a confederate steamer, the planter, its owner waving as always under his distinctive white hat, so distinctive in the gathering dusk the guards did not note that it was actually trusted slave pilot robert smalls, having convinced the black crew to run for it, smalls picked up his family and 8 other runaways before selling the planter to the union, along with confederate navy codes, signs and countersigns - with his share of the prize money he bought the plantation of his slaveowning father, who had pampered him so that his mother sent him into the fields so he would never forget that he was a slave, not a son, (one can only hope he paid living wages with benefits.)

2:11:4: as a hoodoo adept climbing ladders of power, you will sometimes find yourself out of your league, intimidated, ignorant of the rules of play, remind yourself, I am high hoodoo, I am the power here, no longer intimidated by folk who are, beneath the props, no greater than I - each rung you must learn the rituals of your new circumstance, start slowly, be steady, the observer, maintaining a low profile until you know who the players are, how the game flow, read the books, decipher the codes, attend to the rituals, get bloodied in the arena, this is a skill that comes only with the doing

2:11:5: to move an organization be willing to serve it, position yourself as a significant / indispensable factor through the quality of your work and your commitment, always be mission critical, an institutional resource, sometimes you a chief, sometimes you a spear carrier, do them both well, the team is depending on you,

2:11:6: some victories not really victories, victory changes things, false victory only changes the illusion of things, victory aint victory till adero dance - the cargo cults of melanesia formed companies that marched back & forth with sticks and thought it would cause airplanes to parachute in mana / cargo from heaven, cargo cults like the marching rule of the solomons evolved into acculturated instruments of empowerment, whereas cults like the taro movement were primarily magical, marching around in formation with sticks on their shoulders & calling it power - stay in the briar patch, brer rabbit, you aint ready,

2:11:7: in the days of slavery far more folk chose accommodation over resistance, they forged lives, raised families, built institutions, made a way out of no way, who to say who showed the most courage, good game will satisfy folk like you and me but most folk just want to live the good life with their families, who can deny them this, is this not the essence of struggle, to forge a people capable of finessing increasingly complex societies, capable of successfully manipulating their society, making it work for them, illuminating it, making it serve the greater good, buncha working / middle class achievers - rest of us are warriors in the struggle that will never be won, the alleviation of misery / hunger / poverty / conflict / war / inequity / these things are part of the human condition and will always be with us, alleviated only by sturdy champions of the social contract, spreading hoodoo blessings whensomever you can, win or lose humanity at its best, shalabongo

Subscribe now

the best victory is over your own nature,

only by mastering yourself can you

master the world, be the mojo

Share

demoja