etherial... peaceful, vibrant cluster of divine dust beheld by the Almighty she wishes to share her wonder... she crosses up in the sky, you asking why... can she be grasped? passing through as a vapor leaving a permanent touch of soul warming love and lingering scent of egyptian musk and gardenia, her memory embraces you just as sweet leaving you fulfilled yet unsatiated. reaching for that star lifts you higher than ever clouding your mind to the imminent plumit to the earth she calls home so you pray she catches you. but she wants nothing more than to let you into her innermost still accepting the fact that her depth will remain elusive... your only comfort is that she watches over you still and the hope and desire for the chance to behold that celestial splendor just... once... more...
see the original post here: http://www.drytear.net/index.php?showtopic=24812&hl=
Friday, December 30, 2011
Vintage Prose: Glass Jar
lost and confused in a world of rejection, my song of myself has become a murmur of a dirge. the deafening screams of others, my own personality, my responsibilities, my intellect, my troubles, flesh, my desires, seem to parade about with blaring beats outside, barred by the bulletproof glass of my internal fortress for inside these walls i am safe. safe from myself and all others yet i have nothing but myself. inside, shrunken and minimized by all i try to keep out, i am curled up trying to reclaim that fresh innocence, that blindness, that readiness, that fearlessness. beside me sits my garden of blue roses to remind me of how i can be, reminding me to cultivate me, to water my mental flowers so that they may flourish into my full potential. but for no, just let me enjoy my sleep; this is my chosen solitude that keeps me alive... my smile is returning.
see the original post here: http://www.drytear.net/index.php?showtopic=24817&hl=
see the original post here: http://www.drytear.net/index.php?showtopic=24817&hl=
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Pieces of Me
I call this train of thought "pieces of me" because it has to do with my own self image. The thing is, I have a love for not only images of African women but of Himba women specifically, for some reason.
There was one such picture which is my favorite (that I can't seem to locate) of a young himba woman walking down a road smiling, with this very sharp arch in her back. It was posted on facebook and a huge uproarious debate ensued about what she needed and how she could better herself (tons of inconsequential mess) and then someone asked if that arch in her back was normal. Of course it's normal! ha! I'm normal! <3
Maybe it's the reddened (sp?) skin. Maybe it's the long red locks (my locks are long and red). But it's definitely their beautiful bodies... their breasts especially.
Actually it's for more than just some reason. It's because they're beautiful and when I see them, I see me. I mean this in a very intimate sense, not some fantasized kinship with other women of African descent. I can literally look at them and see features of my own body; a body that I have not always loved or been proud of or thought was beautiful. A body I thought was strange, according to images of women's bodies I'd seen on tv, in magazines, online, even in pornography. I saw these women and stopped feeling alone and odd.
There was one such picture which is my favorite (that I can't seem to locate) of a young himba woman walking down a road smiling, with this very sharp arch in her back. It was posted on facebook and a huge uproarious debate ensued about what she needed and how she could better herself (tons of inconsequential mess) and then someone asked if that arch in her back was normal. Of course it's normal! ha! I'm normal! <3
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Nakia Henry: Transition 3rd Cycle
Friday, December 16, 2011
What's really necessary
http://lizettedeklerk.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/is-that-really-necessary/
Warning: the image on that page is very graphic, very real and very depressing.
I just find it very interesting that as soon as I get out of taking a final exam on Africism, with special focus on the heterochthonal (non-native) religions in Africa for 2 whole hours, that a friend on facebook posts this. It's one of those articles you see every once in a while about the apparent "atrocities" against people, mostly little children, carried out by indigenous African religions. This time the focus is on South Africa. For many many reasons, I have problems with stories like this as well as the ways in which they're reported and the ways on which they are commented.
First of all, the woman expressing such urgency on this situation (although how much of it she's working or willing to impact remains to be seen) is white. That automatically in my mind presupposes a lot and unfortunately, after reading her commentary I was not wrong. I left a comment on my facebook friend's post to this affect:
yet... i wonder how many babies were abandoned pre-colonization. i wonder how many incidents of this there were pre-colonization. white ppl always wanna fuss about what they need to do to help african people, but no mention is ever made of the current state of the peoples of africa being a direct result of colonization. they never want to say anything like, uproot all white colonizers and colonial rule. white ppl wanting to "help" africans is how they got like this. they never want to say anything about all the european and american businesses and factories, oil refineries and mines over there. the peoples in south africa in particular are not in a state of ruin because they're backward people with backward traditions, as statements like hers suggest.... they're a people under colonial rule. period. point blank. the whites are still the majority of wealth and ruling class there. soweto still looks now as it did by most accounts, during apartheid. c'mon now wit dat.
My sentiment is simple. Although there are elements to Africism, its peoples, its traditions and rituals that we do not understand and may find absolutely revolting, AND there are some very old and unsavory elements such as female genital mutilation by some peoples, I make the case that it is very difficult, at this point to say what is truly indigenous and what has not been made an all new thing, yet called a tradition by ignorant white people, that may have stemmed from something indigenous but has now become something altogether different in light of the aftermath of the recent past. Granted, using abandoned babies for spare parts is horrific and shouldn't be done by anyone and upon revision, all peoples of the world can perhaps move into an understanding that such things should not happen. However, who are white people to ever judge? In terms of what to do with some children? Especially African children? Cut the patriarchal white man's burden crap out already. Africans don't need white people to "help" them do anything or be better at anything. They need white people to once and for all leave them the hell alone to clean up the mess they've left. They need their own resources in their own control. They need to somehow if at all possible, undo the political regimes that have been put in place by European rule or as a result of European colonial actions. I don't know if it's at all possible to have a "truth and reconciliation" of some sort that encompasses probably anywhere from 50 to 300+ years but I guess that's kind of what I'm getting at in terms of the peoples healing themselves, in that respect. If white folks can do anything, they can get their apartheid counterparts out of Africa completely. And they can take the likes of De beers, Johnson & Johnson, Firestone and Pfizer with them.
Africans do not need help as a backward people turning away from backwards ways, as that woman and many others have often suggested. I maintain that a people have the right to be indigenously what they are, although the ultimate problem is the inevitable impossibility of this being able to happen, due to the damage done by Europe, America (and to some extent Arab/Muslim) intrusion.
Warning: the image on that page is very graphic, very real and very depressing.
I just find it very interesting that as soon as I get out of taking a final exam on Africism, with special focus on the heterochthonal (non-native) religions in Africa for 2 whole hours, that a friend on facebook posts this. It's one of those articles you see every once in a while about the apparent "atrocities" against people, mostly little children, carried out by indigenous African religions. This time the focus is on South Africa. For many many reasons, I have problems with stories like this as well as the ways in which they're reported and the ways on which they are commented.
First of all, the woman expressing such urgency on this situation (although how much of it she's working or willing to impact remains to be seen) is white. That automatically in my mind presupposes a lot and unfortunately, after reading her commentary I was not wrong. I left a comment on my facebook friend's post to this affect:
yet... i wonder how many babies were abandoned pre-colonization. i wonder how many incidents of this there were pre-colonization. white ppl always wanna fuss about what they need to do to help african people, but no mention is ever made of the current state of the peoples of africa being a direct result of colonization. they never want to say anything like, uproot all white colonizers and colonial rule. white ppl wanting to "help" africans is how they got like this. they never want to say anything about all the european and american businesses and factories, oil refineries and mines over there. the peoples in south africa in particular are not in a state of ruin because they're backward people with backward traditions, as statements like hers suggest.... they're a people under colonial rule. period. point blank. the whites are still the majority of wealth and ruling class there. soweto still looks now as it did by most accounts, during apartheid. c'mon now wit dat.
My sentiment is simple. Although there are elements to Africism, its peoples, its traditions and rituals that we do not understand and may find absolutely revolting, AND there are some very old and unsavory elements such as female genital mutilation by some peoples, I make the case that it is very difficult, at this point to say what is truly indigenous and what has not been made an all new thing, yet called a tradition by ignorant white people, that may have stemmed from something indigenous but has now become something altogether different in light of the aftermath of the recent past. Granted, using abandoned babies for spare parts is horrific and shouldn't be done by anyone and upon revision, all peoples of the world can perhaps move into an understanding that such things should not happen. However, who are white people to ever judge? In terms of what to do with some children? Especially African children? Cut the patriarchal white man's burden crap out already. Africans don't need white people to "help" them do anything or be better at anything. They need white people to once and for all leave them the hell alone to clean up the mess they've left. They need their own resources in their own control. They need to somehow if at all possible, undo the political regimes that have been put in place by European rule or as a result of European colonial actions. I don't know if it's at all possible to have a "truth and reconciliation" of some sort that encompasses probably anywhere from 50 to 300+ years but I guess that's kind of what I'm getting at in terms of the peoples healing themselves, in that respect. If white folks can do anything, they can get their apartheid counterparts out of Africa completely. And they can take the likes of De beers, Johnson & Johnson, Firestone and Pfizer with them.
Africans do not need help as a backward people turning away from backwards ways, as that woman and many others have often suggested. I maintain that a people have the right to be indigenously what they are, although the ultimate problem is the inevitable impossibility of this being able to happen, due to the damage done by Europe, America (and to some extent Arab/Muslim) intrusion.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Omo Oshun Ewa: my craft
Omo Oshun Ewa
^^^ the official dotcom and home of all those wonderful creations I posted before... and then some. I made it allllll myself so it's my baby, in which I am well pleased! CHECK ME OUT :-D!
^^^ the official dotcom and home of all those wonderful creations I posted before... and then some. I made it allllll myself so it's my baby, in which I am well pleased! CHECK ME OUT :-D!
Back.. for the last time.
Hmmm. Blogging again. Sounds cool. Well! let's start with tonight's procrastinatory awesomeness:
The wonders of Apple Cider Vinegar
It discusses some of the many wonders of Apple Cider Vinegar. Some of my faves from this include:
The wonders of Apple Cider Vinegar
It discusses some of the many wonders of Apple Cider Vinegar. Some of my faves from this include:
Hair: It is widely known that apple cider vinegar can be used as a rinse for your hair after shampooing to add healthy body and shine. Recycle an old shampoo bottle and fill it with 1/2 a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a cup of cold water. Pour through your hair after shampooing several times a week.
Face: Did you know that apple cider vinegar can help regulate the pH of your skin? Dilute apple cider vinegar with two parts water, and spread the concoction over your face with a cotton ball as a toner. You can do this at night after washing, and in the morning before you apply your moisturizer. You can also dab apple cider vinegar directly onto age spots and leave them on overnight to lighten their color.
Apple Cider Vinegar is one of those wonder liquids that's a healthy astringent for like... everything. I've used it for various things myself. I also love lemon juice for the same reason.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)