I am black, I am a woman and I am a feminist. In private, I often refer to this trifecta as the holy trinity. My biological, social and chosen identities shape how I move, how I am perceived and how much space I am allowed to take up in a white-male-dominated world. In trying to put my feminism into practice, I do not always stand behind every so-called feminist issue that is mandated by mainstream white feminists. For example, feminists have made a big push to critique what is termed “slut-shaming” and to reclaim the word “slut.” They have organized nationwide marches and written hundreds of blog posts in an effort to take back the term and subvert it.

“Slut-shaming,” the act of negatively judging and policing women who take full control of their sexual agency, is an act deeply rooted in sexism and misogyny, all things feminists should be against. It seeks to demean women who carry their own condoms, who initiate conversations about sex, or who negotiate their sexual wants and desires openly. The mere act of seeing oneself as a sexual being and being proud of it makes you a target for being “slut-shamed.” All the things that society commends men for doing and measures their masculinity against, society also condemns in women.

I am all for marginalized groups reclaiming words that were once used to shame and dehumanize them. I stand firmly behind the reclaiming of the term “queer,” especially as a verb. Queering languages, queering spaces, and queering understanding is something that I am politically committed to doing in my life, but as a black woman I have no desire to reclaim the term “slut.” My act of resistance in not wanting to reclaim the word “slut” does not mean that I advocate for “slut-shaming.” I do not agree with the sexual policing of women no matter their race, class, gender presentation, body size or ability. But one of the major flaws of mainstream feminism is the propensity to generalize about the lives of women, treating women as though they all face the same threats, and therefore can only be liberated through a one-size-fits-all model.

Racism is ubiquitous and I am keenly aware of how race and class impact different women differently. If we are going to advocate against “slut-shaming,” and for owning the word “slut,” we cannot do so without paying attention to the facts. We must ask, who are the women being defended against “slut-shaming,” and who are the women being left to defend themselves? Only white women have the privilege of reclaiming the word “slut” without facing any real social penalty. Miley Cyrus, for instance, is being hailed as a woman who is in control and liberated, unlike her black counterpart Rihanna. Rihanna does not get worshiped for owning her sexuality or her agency. Rihanna gets pity, scathing criticism, and popular feminist magazines wanting to “save” her from exercising choices they do not agree with. Many mainstream feminists feel entitled to police Rihanna’s black female body; evenLena Dunham could not resist. However, if you look closely you can see that Miley has been feverishly studying and has been influenced by the Rihanna’s bad girl playbook.

White women may also be allowed to transcend their “sluttiness” when they feel the need to do so. Both Angelina Jolie and Madonna have been able to shed their past bad girl images seamlessly. Whiteness affords white women the ability to try on different identities while their racial privilege remains intact. Because in a society that values whiteness over all else, to be white is to be human and all non-white persons must audition for their humanity.

The bodies of black women are highly politicized and critiqued no matter who they belong to, from the first lady to “the help.” The physical movements and choices of black women are always viewed through a filter of suspicion. In order for me to claim my right to be a “slut,” I first must win the battle to be able to fully claim my humanity.

Black women have always been labeled as hypersexual beings unworthy of respect, love and justice. “Slut” is the default position of black women, so attempting to subvert the word or own it would only further root the false stereotype in place. “Slut-shaming” black women has not just been common practice — it’s been entrenched in public policy. Members of the Tea Party are still looking for the nefarious “welfare queen” that President Reagan created 30-plus years ago. Compulsory state sterilizations of black women, unequal incarceration rates and even the way we decide who receives welfare benefits are all rooted in “slut-shaming.”

The majority of white feminists who advocate for reclaiming the word “slut” also fail to defend all women against “slut-shaming.” When Rush Limbaugh “slut-shamed” Sandra Fluke swaths of white feminists came to her defense, and rightfully so. But I question whether the feminist infantry would have been so zealous if Sandra Fluke looked like Rachel Jeantel. Trans* women of color are frequently stopped and frisked and arrested for having a condom on their person. They are wrongly imprisoned for standing their ground and placed in prison with men, and murdered for daring to be seen in public. These injustices happen constantly, without any marches or much fanfare from the mainstream feminist establishment.

The social and political ramifications of policing black women cannot be solved by simply taking back the word “slut.” If there are no real policies put in place to protect and defend women of color and trans* women from compulsory “slut-shaming,” then once again I must ask: Who are mainstream feminists truly invested in protecting from “slut-shaming”? Policymakers and media must stop pathologizing the behaviors and relationships of black and trans* women of color. Trans* women must be given full rights and recognition on par with cisgendered women. White feminists who have large platforms and access to large platforms must make a real effort to include women of color and trans* women, and allow them to speak for themselves. As a black woman, I won’t be concerned with reclaiming my inner “slut” until white women show more interest in being in solidarity with me.

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EVERYONE knows that being the parent of an infant is hard. There’s the sleeplessness, the screaming fits to tend to, the loss of autonomy, the social isolation and the sheer monotony of it.

Everyone also knows that there is only one socially acceptable response to this predicament: a dogged insistence that the adoration you feel for your child makes all the sacrifices worthwhile. It’s “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” The only valid excuse for feeling sad or despondent is a postpartum hormonal crash. What other justification could there be for greeting your bundle of joy with despair?

This is the ideology of modern parenting, and it can lead to unnecessary feelings of guilt and shame, for it ignores an inconvenient truth: that many women and men experience significant psychological distress in response to becoming a parent and that much of this distress isn’t caused by a hormonal epiphenomenon of the birth process. It is driven instead in large measure by the objectively bleak circumstances new parents often face. That you love your child is not always sufficient to counteract this reality.

Fortunately, over the past few years, the ideology of parenting has been challenged by social scientists, who have repeatedly demonstrated a profound disconnect between parenting dogma and the actual experience of parenthood.

Although many parents happily take to their new role, millions every year respond with despair. According to a 2010 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, among new parents — three to six months postpartum — 42 percent of mothers and 26 percent of fathers exhibit signs of clinical depression. In a longitudinal study reported earlier this year in the journal Pediatrics, men on average experienced significant increases in depressive symptomatology across the first five years of fatherhood (if and only if they lived with their child). Indeed, in the years after becoming a parent, both men and women experience significant reductions in their overall level of satisfaction with their lives, according toa 2008 paper in The Economic Journal.

The story is similarly bleak when we look at people’s day-to-day experiences. In a study published in the journal Science, people reported their emotional experiences during each of 16 activities over the course of the previous day: working, commuting, exercising, watching TV, eating, socializing and so on. They experienced more negative emotion when parenting than during any activity other than working. And they experienced more fatigue when parenting than during almost any other activity.

Parenthood takes its toll on your relationships as well. A 2009 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the transition to parenthood is linked to reduced happiness in the marriage and more negative behavior during spousal conflict. Evidence also demonstrates that this transition is connected to substantial reductions in the size of a parent’s networks of family and friends.

This research, which doesn’t even touch on the staggering financial cost of raising a child, provides clear evidence that for many people becoming a parent is one part blessing, one part trauma.

Given the ideology of parenting, it’s not surprising that we typically blame biology for the experience of postpartum depression. But the circumstances parents face are often demonstrably miserable. The fact that postpartum depression rates are much higher among the poor than among the wealthy, who can purchase peace of mind through hired child care, supports the idea that the phenomenon is, in most cases, more circumstantial than biological.

As a recent parent myself, I urge you to consider this the next time someone you know greets the transition to parenthood with hopelessness or even despair. Pursue kindness over ideology. For a person whose suffering has been met with judgment, a sympathetic ear can make all the difference.

Looks around at all the tired over worked mentally spiritually emotionally depleted mommies. What is this complaint about black women and abortion? We arent having Enough of them. All these fuckin kids? Its hardly the result of too many abortions.

Black men need to be sterilized. Systematically sterilized until they come out of the beast posture they have adopted as "manhood"

Today the very definition of black manhood is:

Those are their rites of passage. Destruction of women and children. Breeding women for phallic ego lust Abandonment of women and children.

For all our concern about "white racism" we got a race full of intra-racist oreo men. Black on the outside filled with white supremacist hatred on the inside. This is the cause of all ills in the community; the racist and misogynist hatred of our Mother God.

you know what is funny to me?

the free shyt black folks feel entitled to from you. free encouragement free everything. free village too and that we don't have a village for the heram of baby mamas bm aid in creating means WE are wrong.

i don't know when the fuck sisterhood meant you stand in the gap while i make stupid ass choices. but i grew up with sisters. 5 to be exact. and my sisters ALL KNEW:

don't do dumb shyt in front of me. ya gonna hear my fuckin mouth about it. they would pay my FRIENDS to keep quiet even. cuz if I KNEW ABOUT IT? that was a WRAP. not that they could hide SHYT from their Seer Big sister.

I knew the day folks lost virginities, i knew which ones would get bit by the penis bug. you know the penis bug "baby i love u, imma be thre for u" till ur all stretch out and fuckin tired after birthing his ol wata head babies. then he after the next thing in a skirt.

and i gave it to them raw too. when my lil sister popped up PREGNANT by a no account nigga 6 weeks out of high school, i took her ass to task too! i told her SHE MADE THIS DECISION as she cried about how she didn't have a choice. UNLESS HE RAPED U YOU HAD A FUCKIN CHOICE there is no excuse for what you have ALLOWED to happen to your life.

and i LOVE my niece. but i told her mama this

WHO DA FUK IS U? u ain't none of my blood or family. WHY do you feel ENTITLED to my complicit head nods as you fuck your way into obscurity TAKING MY IMAGE WITH YOU. like you don't know that we are ALL judged as a monolith.

no you are NOT my damn sister. i kicked my own to the curb after she LET that sorry piece of dick ruin her life. YES I DID. not before BUYIN PAMPERS, WATCHING BABIES, PAYING FOR MILK AND FURNITURE AND CLOTHES AND LAWYER FEES.

after all that it STILL wasnt enough or APPRECIATED. because BABY MAMA WOMEN don't appreciate SHYT. they feel ENTITLED to what you have to offer. "i sport fucked my life into nothingness, help me" is how they feel. and you should help.. you have no children, you just took a trip to the bahamas u mean u don't got money? you just got a loan for your business what u mean you don't got money.

THIS is the shit we gotta fuckin contend with in dealing with these black female baby mama brigade celebratory resource parasites presently being modeled as the epitome of black womanhood.

I ALWAYS WANTED BETTER FOR ME. while my friends were sport fuckin and having ORGASMIC BLISS i was in the fuckin library developing BUSINESS PLANS that i am PUTTING INTO PLACE TODAY while the baby mama brigade sits with hands outstretched talkin some "help me"

This is why I have no patience with it. IF A SACRIFICE HAD TO BE MADE i rather SACRIFICE so called sexual pleasure (most of you are LYIN u ain't enjoyin dat dack.... nu uh its jus the only one available) than SACRIFICE MY VERY FUTURE because of it.

miss me with the bullshit about sisterhood. when you were on ya back GETTING SCREWED you weren't worried about no SISTAHOOD. don't come to me NOW that you been SCREWED OVER, lookin for it.

The wonderful thing about life?

Is its always changing. Do you enjoy the changes and revelations? Yea they are constant and they suck ass. Lol but do ya find the enjoyment in knowing? In understanding why a thing is taking place?

Ignorance is far worse... Fear too.

But facing a thing head on? Calling it as it is? Even while enjoying your life? That's Wisdom. And takes Courage in the land of phony joys and "happy" if you wish to accomplish it. To truly KNOW YOU LOVE YOUR LIFE; even though you also see the hell going on within the world around you...

That is real joy. Ignoring what is going on is not joy and peace. And peace is not the absence of "problems" but to remain steadfast in who YOU ARE throughout the situation. Come what may. Enlightenment really should be called endarkenment. Because then, only, will we really grasp what this means.

Accordingly: fuck ascension phallacies. Can we talk truth? Ya gotta DESCEND FIRST!!! That means ALLLLLLLL DA SHYT YOU DONT LIKE has to be faced, addressed, conquered and healed. You cannot go "up" heavy and weighted and faking. That is just laughable. Lol

“Light is shallow; darkness is infinitely deep. Light is always bounded, it has boundaries. Darkness has no boundaries, it is unbounded. Light comes and goes; darkness always is. When there is light you cannot see it. When light is not there you can see it. But it is always there; you cannot cause it. Light has a cause. You burn the fire, you put on wood. When the wood is finished the light will be gone. It is caused, hence it is an effect. But darkness is not caused by anything, it is not an effect. It is uncaused eternity.”

Osho

The Dark, the Evil, the Nasty, the Rude, the Assertive, the Aggressive, the Haughty, the arrogant shall inherit the Dark Gems, Wisdom and Knowledge/Understanding/Reasoning.

"I maybe bad, but I'm perfectly good at it"

Opposites attract. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Is not bad the opposite of good? ;)

(We are all laughing at you...)

Embrace your SHADOW! I made a commitment to always be myself however i can be in any given moment. No matter which Me Presents. Thats Mastery. Suppression is self enslavement.... The opposite of Self Mastery.

Our mothers give us what they have and what they can. It is no excuse, however, for the lack. Women must do BETTER by the Dawta! Period. Black women, especially, we must do better by our dawta! As a freshman in college i did a ton of outreach work while also holding down a full time job. 

I had 2 girl scout troops and one was a troop of homeless girls. I had to shut down my troop for the homeless because of their mothers. It was a shelter for battered women and children... they permitted the mothers a "free day" where they could leave the shelter to spend time with family. Again, i say with their FAMILY!  These broads, bitched and moaned about having to stay in the shelter for 3 hours tops for their daughters activities and community. "I wanna go see my man u gonna have to come on Wednesday mornings or don't come back" was yelled at me followed by high fives and support. Needless to say, given that MY educational studies were more important to me and I wasn't even seeing MY boyfriend but every few weeks/months; i choose to take the latter part of her directive and put it into action. I only had Saturdays free for myself and it went back to being that way. 

One of my FAVORITE shows is Dance Moms. I love that show because I see those women go to BAT for their daughters. Its far from perfect, and if ya watch ya know what I mean, but I see so much in those women. Some are in it so their daughters have EVERYTHING they never did... some just support their daughters dreams. One woman in particular, Christi, I feel doesn't realize that she isn't empowering her daughter enough emotionally. She keeps poor Chloe in such a "its not fair" state of mind that the child isn't aware of her BRILLIANCE! I watch her dance and the only thing I see missing is her SOUL connection to the art. She lacks PASSION, her technique is friggin dynamyte lol.  It makes me wonder if she is trying to protect her from the pain of "failure" by constantly focusing on what "isn't fair."

By and large, some mothers secretly don't want their daughters to do and be better. They don't really see the GREAT potential their dawta holds. They aren't connected to the God in their Dawta because they are disconnected to the GOD in themselves. A lot of this is patriarchal culture which has decided to denigrate the female and feminine for the dominance of the male and hyper-masculine. Some women PURPOSELY prohibit their daughters from enjoying and experiencing life. They hold their daughters back in envious jealousy of the daughter's needs coming first or interests being central over her own. It shocked the hell out of me... To go from a group of mothers fighting to give their daughters EVERYTHING (troop 1 we can call them) to a group who doesn't care at all about what happens to their daughters (troop 2). 

Both troops were black/brown girls with 1-2 white girls. The homeless troop drained me the greatest. I would leave there energetically zapped and barely hanging on. I knew it was the energy vybration of their beings doing it. It was so sad too... Them lil girls looked forward all week to girl scouts. It was easily identifiable for me because gs saved me from "reality" too. And i was happy to repeat that for them. 

But not at my expense. Their mothers ruined it for them. This is a generational curse.. it is high time the curse be broken!

The children lack on account of their mothers. There is no lack! Its an illusion some sign on for. Abundance walks into our lives all the time. And as a result we are blessed. But when we dishonor abundance we lose access to it. 

People know the price of everything n the value of nothing.

Its summertime! The guys are all getting their "Thor" on. How's ya ponytail hangin? ;)

If you've chosen to take the path less traveled, you know what a roller coaster ride it is. The ups, the downs, the twists and the wild turns that you never saw coming.

Creating an authentic life based on your intuition and desires is never an easy thing to do, especially in the beginning. Following your heart and living life on your own terms means being able to ride the wave. Always being able to roll with the punches and to deal with surprises becomes the name of the game. One day things are smooth sailing and the next, you're ready to throw in the towel and give up.

Keep these 14 things in mind to stay inspired, hopeful and committed to this path no matter how much you feel the urge to give up.

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The Shamanic View of Mental Illness

In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé.  Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.

What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.”  The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. 

“Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé.  These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness.  When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.

“I was so shocked.  That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.”  What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop.  This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation.  As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture.  What a loss!  What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”

Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world.  In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated.  When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening.  The result can be terrifying.  Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane.  Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.

On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of “beings” hanging around the patients, “entities” that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see.  “They were causing the crisis in these people,” he says.  It appeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients’ pain in the process.  “The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people.  They were really fierce about that.  The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling,” he said.  He couldn’t stay in that environment and had to leave.

In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds–”the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community.”  That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need.  Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer.  “The other world’s relationship with our world is one of sponsorship,” Dr. Somé explains.  “More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world.”

The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world.  The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings’ attempts to merge were thwarted.  The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.

“The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer,” states Dr. Somé.  “Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody’s attention.  They have to try harder.”  The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized.  “The sensitivity is pretty much read as an invitation to come in,” he notes.

Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity.  Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive.  In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé.  The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.

Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy

With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé.  “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”

What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura.  With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.

Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer.  The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems.  “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes.  “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person.  It’s like a short-circuit.  Fuses are blowing.  This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people.  Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket.  That’s a sad image.”  Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.

It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person’s energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing.  There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura.  In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies

Alex:  Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa

To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village.  “I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world,” says Dr. Somé.

Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14.  He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression.  He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping.  “The parents had done everything–unsuccessfully,” says Dr. Somé.  “They didn’t know what else to do.”

With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa.  “After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports.  He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients . . . . He spent about four years in my village.”  Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing.  He felt, “much safer in the village than in America.”

To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people.  “He wasn’t born in the village, so something else applied.  But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same,” explains Dr. Somé.  The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal.

After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world.  Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn’t speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point).  The whole experience led, however, to Alex’s going to college to study psychology.  He returned to the United States after four years because “he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life.”

The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard.  No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.

Dr. Somé sums up what Alex’s mental illness was all about:  “He was reaching out.  It was an emergency call.  His job and his purpose was to be a healer.  He said no one was paying attention to that.”

After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa.  “Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer.  There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.

Longing for Spiritual Connection

A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in “mental” disorders in the West is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.”  His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is.  In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.

In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.”  What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.”  Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.

Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because “most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past.  You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.”  The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting.  “It’s not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants,” he says.  “The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that.”

That call, which we don’t even know we are making, reflects “a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension.  Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn’t make any difference.”  They respond to either.

As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the “mountain energy” are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them.

They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them.  “The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person,” notes Dr. Somé.  “They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it’s like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life.”

When it is the “river energy,” those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.

“People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this,” he says.  That’s not usually the case.  Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.

A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness

One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking.  “The abandonment of ritual can be devastating.  From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live,” Dr. Somé writes in Ritual:  Power, Healing, and Community. “To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement.  We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it.”

Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture.  Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.

One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are “called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work.”  Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.

Another ritual need relates to initiation.  In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age.  The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé.  He urges communities to bring together “the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis.”

Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains.  “If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling.”

The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process “trigger enlightenment” in participants.  These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors.  Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be “ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren’t able to do while in their physical body.”

“Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues,” he says.  “The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors.  If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them.”  The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past.  Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.

Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected–and indeed the community at large–the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to “a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present,” states. Dr. Somé.

Source Here

A team of researchers based at Tulane University School of Medicine has found that exposure to violence or other traumatic events within the family during childhood can leave lasting marks on stretches of DNA called telomeres. This study adds to the growing body of evidence that stressful home environments can permanently affect chromosomes. The work has been published in the journal Pediatrics.

Telomeres are repetitive sequences of DNA found at the end of chromosomes that act as protective caps, preventing chromosomes from sticking together or being degraded, both of which can lead to cell death. Telomeres can be thought of as a kind of cellular timer as they shorten a little bit every time a cell replicates until they reach a certain limit; after this the cell will no longer replicate. Telomere length has been linked to a variety of diseases and shorter telomeres have been associated with higher risks for heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline and mental illness, to name a few.

In order to further our knowledge of how adverse events during childhood may negatively impact health, Tulane University researchers investigated the links between exposure to disruptive or violent events and telomere length in youth.

80 children between the ages of 5-15 were recruited in New Orleans and data was gathered on family environment and exposure to traumatic events by interviewing the parents. The team then took samples from the children and analysed telomere length. After controlling for other sociodemographic factors, the team found an association between exposure to family violence or family disruption and telomere length. More specifically, they found that telomere length was significantly shorter in children that were exposed to adverse events within the family such as domestic violence, suicide or incarceration when compared with children in more stable households.

Furthermore, the researchers found differences between girls and boys. In particular, they discovered that these traumatic events were more likely to affect telomere length in girls. They also discovered that there was a protective effect for boys if the mother was well-educated as there was a positive association between telomere length and education of the mother, but this was only apparent in boys under the age of 10.

“Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children,” lead author Dr. Stacy Drury said in a news-release. “The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were- and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child’s age.”

This is the second study published this year which demonstrates that stressful home environments and telomere length are linked. Back in April, a report in PNAS found that children growing up in poor and unstable homes had shorter telomeres than children raised in nurturing families.

According to Drury, this study highlights the fact that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the lasting biological impacts of childhood adversity.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/exposure-stress-child-can-permanently-affect-your-dna#82OChSkXwwabP97G.99

Listen... I won't write a friggin dissertation like some. Promise!

This is no different than the Zoe Saldana bs as Nina Simone. And as long as we, Black Wombn, dont own our image? They will continue to use mixed race women as the sole representation of blackness. Light skinned women are privileged over dark or even brown women. Always have been. Always will be so long as those women are allowed to don the faces of True Black Wombn.

I sing. And i record it. So i can remember the Complicated Melody that is my Life.

Being Two in One is difficult in a world of "oneness." False hope, false loyalties, fraudulent support, selfish gain. I dont knock it, i just speak what is true. It is what it is. Evil is anything anti you being Live. Live and Evil are the inverse of one another for a reason. The only true evil is that which compromises your LIFE! Your LIVING! That is the very crux of "evil" those who impede your life.

We have lost the understanding of that, over time. Now "evil" is some red devil man in "hell." While we Live Evil on Earth daily, seemingly without concern. Preparedness for the evils of life means the Prosperity of Life, inherently. Always be 10 steps ahead of the Evils by reconciling with the Devil. Your enemy is your inner me.

No one can truly hurt us unless we let them in. When we do not know that we have been trained, since birth, to be our own enemy, we are open to repeated disappointment, pain and heartbreak. There are 7 Key Ways that we allow the outer-me's to become the enemy; starting with the Inner-me being our enemy.

Below I will offer 3 of the Key Ways the Inner-Me is trained to be the Enemy to you. We go over this and more in my Priestess of In-Formation sessions. Sign up if interested.

By Mariann Martland

My heart began bleeding out onto your blank page by your invitation. I did not use grand words.

They were not pretty words. But what I spoke was real. It was true. The most real thing I had ever said to that day. I had reached into my soul under the brightest moon. That moonlit night shone beauty and inspiration.

The content might not have been beautiful on reflection, it may have been black and dark and painful, but there was beauty in its expression.

I thought you would understand. I thought you would grab my words and breathe them in as if they were the only air left to breathe in the world.

I thought you would hear my cry for help: for someone to say something so I knew I was not alone, for someone to reach out in a way that felt equally poetic to nurture my failing spirit, to hold my quivering hand.

And when you did not give me comfort, when you brushed aside my life as though it was nothing, I excused you.

I told myself, “She is busy, she has troubles of her own, she did hear me but just doesn’t know how to express it.”

I told myself this over and over and I did so to protect you; to keep your brilliance shining as brightly in my world as it had before this day.

You were the first person I chose to bare my soul to. You knew this. You asked for it. I had responded to your call for me to share my truth, my life.

So that in that moment when all I could do was this, I spoke out every part of my world as I knew it then to create a map so you could begin to walk with me. A map of my history, of my life, with all its color and shade, just like you had asked me to do.

Whilst you did not flinch or deny my words, you did not nurture my soul. You did not do what you promised. You did not stay.

You left. You left me alone. Naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.

But I excused you.

I told myself, “She is busy, she has troubles of her own, she did hear me but just didn’t know how to express it.”

I told myself this over and over. Though it was not just to protect you. It was also to protect myself and my world.

I needed to tell myself that you had not run away at the first sign of my ugly parts. I needed to tell myself that you really did hear my call but you had more than enough to listen to elsewhere, so it wasn’t personal to me that you silenced my voice.

I needed to tell myself that you were still the beacon of strength and hope that had once lit my path into healing and that you would continue to be. I needed to do all this so I could keep myself safe; so I could keep my truths safe.

And then tonight I heard another speak to you with less feeling, with less detail, with less pain in her eyes and colour to her picture than I had done all those days before. You responded with such heart. You took her in your arms, comforted her and validated her hurt, her life, her truth.

It was so right you did this for her. Part of me loved you more for doing so. But in that moment, I saw our moonlit night more clearly than ever before. My revelation: you may not have physically run from my dirty secrets, but you made me feel like you did.

You made me feel like I should not have spoken, like I should have kept my secrets hidden. You made me feel dirty. Like my truth was not good enough for you or it was not the truth you wanted to hear.

You made me feel more unsafe than I had when my secrets were secret, when my truths were made up of lies.

Your beauty still shines. It always will. But never quite as brightly now. And I will not rely on it as much as I once did. You took that from me.

But you did teach me what is not acceptable to me. You taught me that there are others who can hold me in my realness, in my rawness, with much greater ease and with much more love and acceptance than I ever felt from you. And I have felt this since.

Between that moonlit night and my revelation I have felt this from another. Since my revelation I now know I will never accept the dismissal of my truths again, particularly when you, the dismisser, coax me into the telling.

So I thank you. I thank you for allowing me to begin to unravel. And I thank you for allowing me to see what it means to speak my truth.

My words may not be pretty enough for you, but they are true and they are mine.

Source Here

Women are toooo damn emotional. This annoys me. All these feelings about Divine Truth. No matter how you explain it they gonna be emotional sheeple. Regardless. I have broke this down so many ways, yet still mothers of sons and women who man-love are immature and emotional. Its all about their needs to be validated for choosing to breed more oppressors. Smh or adhere to the oppressors way of thinking.

To say we need no man, not wo-man not no man, is still not understood. Not because its confusing, but because people are willfully obtuse. Aka stupid.

My mere mention that (Wombn's) identification with "men" (as their mothers and lovers) makes us ENEMIES to Wombn's freedom growth and sovereignty... This makes women angry.

Not rape

Not abuse

Not men neglecting babies

Not that men wanna turn their sons out into beasts

Nope.

Just me saying that we are our own fukkn enemy. That is the "crime." Grow up, you mothers of male children, because you are the primary group of bleating sheep who are pissy about the facts. Truth is darlin. I dont like it either. but how do we grow when we always run from what we don't like?

In preparation for every birthday, I write down a list of things I learned over the past year, one lesson for each year I’ve been alive.

Insights about people, thoughts about life, opinions about how the world works — they’re all included in my Legacy List.

This gradual gathering of personal reflections has gone on for several years now and, consequently, I am slowly creating a numbered narrative detailing my own personal evolution.

It’s hard to figure out how I’ve changed, but it’s also interesting to look back at the person I was five years ago, to review what he had to say about the world, and to note how quickly things evolve, what it means, and why.

I think it will make for a fascinating read when I’m older, a collection of thoughts written by an ever-evolving me. That’s a project for another day but for now, here are the 12 most important lessons I learned this year.

1. Fuck the past: If it was meant to be, it would have been. Get over it. Move on. Don’t let what has happened determine what will happen. Don’t let donations to your past steal investments from your future. Don’t let history impede possibility.

2. Love is a dogfight: Just as nobody wins in war, nobody loses in love. Sharp tongues may tear like claws and scathing words may bite like fangs, but the fight itself is all that matters.

Being involved in the action, seeing what you’re made of, and pushing yourself to the point of destruction and beyond — that is what counts. The scars are merely proof that you fought hard enough to earn them. They are silent stories waiting to be told, memories for the future.

3. Be graceful in defeat: Failure happens to everyone. Things go wrong, setbacks are normal, and stumbling blocks are great detectives — they will find your best hiding place. Failing every day is the only way to discover what you are capable of achieving.

Fail forward, fail onward, and fail upward, but don’t focus on the failure. Focus on getting yourself back to success. However, if you are successful and still feel like a failure, it’s time to ask bigger questions.

4. Every moment is a battle: Sharpen your blade and show up for the fight. Sometimes life is tough, but always you are tougher.

5. Live before you die: Be bold. Take risks. Go out and make some fucking memories.

6. Do the work: Work so hard that your heroes become your rivals. Work so hard that you don’t need to be introduced to people. Work so hard that you fall asleep content and wake up on fire, burning with purpose and yearning to get going again.

Recognize that experts are beginners who never gave up, bosses are interns who stuck with it, and professionals are amateurs who refused to be defeated by life, critics, or confidence. Keep grinding.

7. Your life is yours alone: You create the power, you have the choice, and you make the decisions. Pay no attention to the doubters, the naysayers, and the pessimists always lurking, waiting, haunting. Just do what makes you happy. Do what makes you explode inside.

Do what tattoos a smile on your heart. Do what fills you with hope. Do what drives you. Do what you do best, and do what you love, and then do that for the rest of your life. You don’t have to do it like everyone else, but you do have to live your best life and become your best you. Do it now. Do it today.

8. Shortcuts are rarely scenic drives: They come at a cost. Take them at your peril.

9. We are one: Everybody is more alike than we realize, nothing more than suffering stardust surviving on starlight. We are all, each of us, a living, breathing miracle. There is strength in our collective togetherness. We all fell from the same family tree.

10. Time is irreplaceable: Be careful how you spend yours. Do not waste energy on discussions that don’t matter, people who are unkind, and communication disguised as connection. Do not give your time to a cause, conversation or confidant to abuse and ignore.

Do not donate your life to energy vampires, false friends, and random assholes who contaminate your heart with their pain.

Rather, allow people to show you what counts, let them lead you to what matters, and encourage them to thrust you towards something that intrigues you, excites you, and challenges you. Your time is precious and so are you. Use your time; don’t let it use you.

11. Push yourself: Regularly redefine expectations. Go out and give your limits a slap in the face. Shatter your glass ceiling, crash through your barriers, and stumble blindly beyond your boundaries.

The difference between success and failure is directly proportional to the distance between interested and committed. Get there.

12. Take the initiative: There is nothing more important than immediate action. Grab life by the balls and squeeze, twist, and pull. Punch your fears in the face. Kick tomorrow in the teeth. Get shit done, do good shit, and make shit happen. Go out and make a fucking difference in the world.

Begin immediately.

So that’s part of this year’s list. What about you? What did you learn this year?

*****

Source

Every single act of male violence against women; is Male Sexual Terrorism in motion. 

They inflict terror via their penis, hands, words, religious faiths, doctrines, laws, entitlements to female sexual services, rebuke of honoring female domestic and familial services (i.e. Birthing) 

For CENTURIES we have heard men, and their phallus sucking cheerleaders, center the "good men" and "not all men" tripe; whenever we have attempted a discourse that identifies and names appropriately the issue and solution. We have endured this hell long enough. 

Now?

It is time to say:

All men
And all women who have sons

You are the problem. Because of you, because of your choices to breed male; women and girls endure horrible rapes and murders and acid attacks and more. Because of your choice to en-culture a male bodied human within a functioning and thriving system of female oppression, abuse, rape and colonization; we with wombs endure and survive hell. 

This is the battle cry of the weary! We who believe in FREEDOM cannot rest until it comes. 

Until the raping and murders of black girls
Black mothers daughters
Is as important as the murderous rapist existence of black men
Black mothers sons. 

Make no mistake about it, that Isla killer is NO DIFFERENT from the conscious cousins. These "right knowledge" "supreme wisdom" "hotep" fucks are no different or better. These "black woman is god" psychic vampires and spiritual rapists are the exact same. These pimps of ancient wisdom, animal ass "shaman" rapists and more. The mothers of these beasts of burden are our greatest threat to Black Female Upward Mobility. They give birth to the problem. They give birth to the new crop of rapists, abusers, men entitled to pussy, men who prey on pussy, men who view women ONLY as pussy. These people are the single greatest threat to all women. These mothers of sons, of all races! Our sensitivity to this truth doesnt diminish its great power and responsibility. Women, it is we who birth the men. Thus it is we who birth the rapists. Its very popular right now to talk about rape and healing from rape. But the women who are "doing the womb healing" have sons. Have injured raped women have caused women to come into contact with rapists and discarded them. I know, it happened to me too! I speak what i know, and i KNOW that women with sons are a threat to the Survival of the Womb.

These are the demons we war against. And we war against the willful creation of more of them, by ignorant (black) women who claim "GODHOOD" without an iota of responsibility. 

We who believe in freedom
Cannot rest until it comes.

This page, this movement, it isnt for the "women over 30." Its already too late for most of you. You have already been carved up by patriarchy and your loyalties divided. It isnt for women who have children either. Doesnt mean you cannot be present or helpful, but this isnt for you nor toward you.

If it isnt already abundantly clear, because adults are simply over grown children, this message is not for the bleating sheep of patriarchy! No one is trying to wake you fools up! I want you asleep, ignorant and out the way. If the Patriarchy has its loyal Cows it will not chase us all down and Lock us up in baby factories. No need when the breeder class is eager to exist in perpetual poverty of mind, body and spirit. (SARK)

No!

This message is for the women under 30. Those of us who still have a shot at this life without struggle and having to mammy. We who are tired of the typical black-tholic religified ways of trapping black women. We are over being the broodmares for nothing ass (black) men! We are over the expectation that we hold ourselves "chaste" and pure for men who are worth less than chewed up bubble gum!

This is for the daughters. And truth be told, given the way this world is: all of you over 30 are the anti-black-daughter. You, like the men, would be perfectly happy to watch us all go down. Then ever be the aid in some women escaping the hell you exist in, and attempt to privilege as normal or "god-like". Struggle aint cute, being a black mans baby mama aint cute, letting some nothing ass man pump your belly full of his genetic waste material aint cute.

Every generation of women before Ours has failed us all. They have failed to stop womanhood from being mere cattle of patriarchy and in patriarchy. Each generation of women married or were mothers for free. No black woman has told you:

• Charge these men for babies before he hits the skins
• Marriage is nothing more than a business, make a good deal
• If the highest "rite of passage" for women is to be purchased by a man (marriage) branded by him (name change) then become his broodmare and domestic slave (mother of his children) there is no value to being a woman.

No one except me the Angry Deva. Most of these women over 30 and more often those closer to 40 have been in this trap so long, we who believe in freedom sound crazy. Be ware of these older black women they have an invested interest in keeping you in the trap with a dick between ya lips. Especially a black woman with a son. She isnt really thinking about you or about helping you. Her interest?

Is in shaping the cows her son will stud, milk and breed later in life. Dont be his cash cow!

Do not fall for the okie doke.

And if ur over 30 and take issue: you are the problem. Thank you for exposing yourself.