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By Bikbaye, on December 16th, 2009
Modern technology has become not only a fascination among humanity, but for the most part, on perception alone, it has become an addiction. As time goes, humanity is becoming more dependent upon technological development and less dependent on human development. This creates a sequence of events that is leading humanity into a future that will require less thinking, assessing and reasoning because the technology is there to relieve us of those mental functions… those basic, human mental functions.
In all fairness, modern technology has its usefulness, specifically in the field of communications. It’s an impressive feat to be able to contact someone who lives on the other side of the planet just by punching some numbers on a key pad. It’s equally as impressive to find the location and directions to any place just by typing the address of said place. But the true value in these two technological advances revolves around convenience and “saving” time. The concept of the latter, “saving” time, can easily segue towards that slippery path which leads to mental, spiritual and physical degeneration. Amazingly, we still somehow see a small victory in our perpetual battle against time when technology can be used to manipulate our perception of “saving” it.
Maybe the notion of time is much greater </spanProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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Ethan what we may perceive of it. Materially speaking, we are only capable of affecting only a minute portion of time. This exposes a huge contradiction within humans because we have been conditioned to experience our material life, which happens within a small fork of time, as if it will last forever. If this is our approach, then why are we inclined to attempt to “save” time under selective circumstances? I think maybe an even more relevant question would be; what does it mean when we speak of “saving” time? In the West, we observe “daylight savings time.” What does this mean and what is the logic behind this concept? Even if a very thorough scientific explanation can be given to this question, the logic will still fail to fit or express the concept itself.
Master Naba once said, “To be lost is to know the way”. Meaning, if you are trying to reach a destination and you find yourself lost, although it may take you much longer to orient the right path, you will know which roads not to take as you navigate your way towards your final destination. It then becomes a process of elimination of paths taken, which requires one to think, assess and memorize the paths and events that one experienced along the way. Without these processes of the brain taking place, one has a very minimal chance of making the best decision regarding which direction to take. Even our current perceptions and perspectives of the world and ourselves, are constantly being shaped and reshaped by our ability to memorize detailed aspects of what we have been exposed to before. What we observe as intelligence or smartness is really just an innate ability to easily recall sounds, sights, tastes, feelings and smells that one’s past has exposed him to.
Technology has succeeded in keeping many of us distracted from the ways of our ancestors. The irony lies in the fact that our ancestors were much more advanced in their knowledge and use of technology. The proof is evident within the enigma of how the pyramids in the Nile Valley were built. Well, it is safe to say that it was possible through the use of ancient technology. Even today, with all of the so-called technological advancements, modern science has failed to agree on a common formula and the physical process of transporting tons of heavy stones from great distances and building pyramids in the sand of the desert. Unfortunately, the power of utilizing the ancient technology that was used by our ancestors has been lying dormant within us, the descendants of those great ancestors, and has gone ignored and dishonored by the modern world. But it still exists.
The invention of the internet is probably the greatest advancement within the field of technology in modern times. The amount of information that is shared through this vehicle on a daily basis is staggering. So much so, that for many, it would be very difficult to imagine life without this type of access. This is a serious problem that is worth much consideration, because all implications lead to a crippled society if or when this form of technology fails to exist.
Humanity would then be forced to deal directly with each other and work together in order to survive, which creates another dilemma because we are not taught by this system what it takes to work together or survive.
At every moment, even right now, millions of people are spending hours reading or researching useless information on the internet. This pertains to information that cannot offer one anything that will help him to advance morally or spiritually. These aspects of our evolution will always evade us if we are not looking in the appropriate places for guidance. In actuality, it would be insulting to think modern technology can provide the tools a human being needs to develop spiritual qualities. This is why we have Masters or Sages. The guidance that is given by such individuals stretches far beyond the realm of what the architects of modern technology can ever imagine offering to humanity.
It has been prophesized by many indigenous systems that a day will soon come when electricity as we know it will no longer work. One can imagine the chaos that would ensue as the result of such an event. Humanity will be forced to become better acquainted with nature, which is something that many of us will reject by all means, even if it costs us our lives.
Just as modern technology lacks the ability to discern among human needs and issues, as a result of being pacified by modern technology, humanity is simultaneously losing its own ability to discern among the needs and issues of its own species.
The modern world has evaded the living ancestral knowledge of indigenous people for a very long time. If this planet and its inhabitants are to survive the destructive forces we all have contributed to, it will only be through the traditions and education of our ancestors. Sitting at the feet of a Master can never be replaced by an online course in Spirituality 101. It would be very difficult for one to make time to learn the traditional approaches to spirituality while trying to save it…at the same time! I can only guess that it is much safer for us to maintain a neutral (dishonest) moral position in life rather than standing firmly behind one or another value system as our ancestors represented, because to do so would require the type of educational process that has been promoted and perceived to be a thing of the past; a thing of folklore and superstition; a thing of evil.
Modern technology has become the new “drug” that the architects of these systems shooting through the veins of the society. Every new technological advance tells a story and has an agenda for the future of humanity. It is only when we are able to readily identify or recognize the convenience factor of technology, and keep it in its proper perspective, that we can we avoid becoming a victim of the most powerful brainwashing instrument the human mind has faced since the Bible and the Koran.
Master Naba never got tired of speaking or writing the phrase, “The arrow that will pierce your heart is the one you won’t see coming”. Hetep
By Nehez, on December 16th, 2009
America the beautiful, land of opportunity, home of the brave, land of the… free. America has never hid its ambitions of world domination. Instead, it has built its institutions and infrastructures in such a way that even when its methods are revealed, its citizens feel too powerless to contest. Over the past few decades, more and more citizens have surrendered to this system. More and more have traded their responsibility to the survival of this planet and human kind for their individual interests. As if to say, if we must watch this system destroy the Earth we will cash in and live comfortably for it.
Life for so many Americans has now been reduced to making a living or seeking the “wealth” that this system produces. Many even accept the belief (or justification) that the only real way to fight such a power hungry, dominant imperial system is to do so from within. These people fail to see the subtle effectiveness of colonial imperialism. Imperialism dominates and kills ancestral culture by distracting individuals, for whatever self-justification, into investing their time and energy into the colonial values and thoughts. It is these portions of society who, through their surrender, become fueling accomplices invested in a system set on Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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eir own destruction. They will fight to protect this system and their own interests which now depend on its success… perhaps they are the brave who, even facing their own destruction, do not lower their arms.
It is with this backdrop that we have been presented the United States Africa Command more commonly referred to as AFRICOM. AFRICOM is a United States Government military unit aimed at building and maintaining US military presence throughout the continent of Africa. It is the culmination of a ten year think-tank by the US Department of Defense on how to protect and ensure the success of American interests on the African continent. Its overall mission as defined in May 2008 reads,
“United States Africa Command, in concert with other U.S. government agencies and international partners, conducts sustained security engagement through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.”
The strategic objectives of Africa Command are designed to:
- support the achievement of the theater strategic end states, which are as follows:
1. African countries and organizations are able to provide for their own security and contribute to security on the continent.
2. African governments and regional security establishments have the capability to mitigate the threat from organizations committed to violent extremism.
3. African countries and organization maintain professional militaries that respond to civilian authorities, respect the rule of law and abide by international human rights norms.
- protect or advance US interests in Africa
- provide focus for the Command’s engagement activities.
The 2009 AFRICOM Posture Statement states,
“[This strategy] allows the command to provide support to efforts led by other US Government agencies responsible for development and diplomacy. It allows the United States AFRICOM to defend the homeland and secure United States interest(s) abroad.”
 Children born in Africa. They are born into the wealth of a resource rich continent which also is home to the oldest human culture of the planet. However this wealth keeps more primitive of us at the necks of these children’s survival. Today, one of America’s main interests is controlling oil resources. In 2007 the continent of Africa surpassed the Middle East as America’s number one source for oil. So, it is fairly easy to see through our politicians claims of “Helping Africa protect itself against outside agents who wish to exploit its coastal waters, and resources” or “Assisting Africa with its primary problems of hunger, sickness, etc. “. If there was any honesty in these claims, one would not see the U.S. sucking out Africa’s oil, nor would one see professional killers sent to help feed a nation. If feeding the continent was actually an American priority, one would think that America would start by ending the support of cash crops and discontinuing the instigation of “ethnic-cleansing” wars that displace tribes from their cultivated land. Not only does the continent of Merita have some of the world’s richest soil for food crops but history has shown us that any human society if left alone will sustain itself. The truth is, the U.S.A., in order to effectively protect its true interests: oil and power, must now use its perceived cure-all: its military force. The U.S. Imperial machine in its plight for world domination needs to contain the power and territory that China has been working to increase on the continent.
AFRICOM is the head of an agenda that has a long history of American Command Units created to build and support US imperialism. This plan was initiated back at the end of World War II. It was the result of the Navy’s dissatisfaction with the divided command in the Pacific ocean during the war. Shortly after the war, the United States began seven Unified Command Units to help them maintain their military authority throughout the globe: Far East Command, Pacific Command, Alaskan Command, Northeast Command, Atlantic Command, Carribean Command and European Command.
Today, those command units have evolved into six units which provide and maintain military presence, surveillance and intimidation throughout the entire globe: USNORTHCOM (Covering North America including Canada, Mexico, & Northern Carribean), USSOUTHCOM (Covering Central America, South America & Southern Carribean), USEUCOM (Covering Greenland, All of Europe, & Russia), USCENTCOM (Covering the Middle East and South Asia), USPACOM (Covering Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands) and the newest AFRICOM (focusing on the continent of Africa). Today, fifty years after World War II, America is the only nation that has cut the globe up with the agenda of control. However, it is not the first time.
America is the face of the same colonial system that cut up the Kemetic continent in the early 1800s in the Berlin Conference with the agenda to enslave its resources and people. We do not need to look to hard to find out where this madness for power came from. The American system and all colonial powers have a common cultural root. Just as all the colonial languages (Romantic Languages) derive from Latin, their governmental philosophy and political greed derive from Ancient Greece and Rome. It is there that we find the Greek philosophers misleading the people with stories of Greek God families in which the children of God plotted with their mother to kill their own father. After succeeding, these menacing God children then split up the Earth and each took a portion to control. Throughout human history stories of Gods were supposed to inspire humanity towards certain behavior. They provide humans with a model to emulate. This system is following this model of these fabricated Gods exactly. Only the complete annihilation of our ancestral (Kemetic/indigenous) roots will suffice.
It is not hard for any of us to observe that this system has never done anything in good nature. There has not been any substantial shift in policies, any honest attempt at rehabilitation or turn around by the leaders of this system to correct or even admit to the depth of their own guilt. Yet in still, Black Americans after generations and generations of protesting, fighting and protecting themselves from this system now seek a leading role within in it. They now gauge their success in how well they can work toward the expansion of this system whether it is through its media outlets, business ventures, educational facilities or other institutions.
This demonstrates this system’s capability to misdirect the focus of Blacks in the diaspora. If at one point we were focusing on protecting our survival from a system that was seeking to employ our blood and sweat, today we have been sold the idea that the sweat we have waged in this battle is our investment into this system. We now believe that the work we have invested into our survival, in spite of this system, makes this system partially our own, and therefore its maintenance partially in our interest. Is it this reason that so many feel they have won something with Obama’s election? If we slow down and look at our situation we can see that now the only real thing we have gained with this new belief is the blood that America spills across the globe now also covers our hands. We have joined this system in destroying ourselves and our fellow humans. Our success within a system that has showed itself to be one of the most evil and ruthless that this planet has seen must be feared if we are not to totally destroy our image, our integrity and our planet.
As America once again turns towards humanity’s ancestral home with the same addiction to power that led to the exploitation and destruction of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, one wonders when Kemetic (African) descendents will invest into our self-preservation. The American imperialist system has become very successful in selling to its victims reasons why their own destruction is an honorable cause. Today, the system employs the victims of the infamous Atlantic slave trade for the job of “commanding” their brothers and sisters back on the African continent, those who were left behind. Former U.S. President George Bush chose General William Ward to lead Africom. After Bush’s presidency, President Barack Obama was elected into office. These two “African-Americans” will be the face that brings American imperialism to the home of their ancestors. It is these two new faces that the capitalistic monster will hide behind as it sinks its teeth deeper in the Kemetic continent. It is these two faces that will lead too many more away from the model of the Gods provided by our Kemetic ancestors and into the hands of our oppressors.
By Nehez, on December 10th, 2009
 During the holiday season, we celebrate these symbols of colonial culture. What is the meaning and history of these symbols and what are they doing for the advancement of humanity. Since the beginning of human civilization, holidays or days of observance have been cherished as special occasions amongst families and larger communities. The original holidays of humanity are extremely important, and they started as holy days observing very specific spiritual and/or astronomic events. Presently, the “holiday season” still brings joy and comfort to all in colonial territories.
For years the origins of the colonial holidays have been exposed by honest researchers. Those origins have showed a very terrifying history of colonial barbarism, genocide and deceit. It is this deceit that seems to trap even those families who are aware of the origins of the holidays to continue – “with the spirit of the holidays.” It is this deceit that also keeps the origins of these celebrations hidden. Perhaps a look into humanity’s original holidays will supply us with holidays which we can substitute for these testaments to our own enslavement and hypnosis. Maybe if we return to our ancestral holidays, we can break out of the cycle of perpetuating evil which we are inappropriately passing on to our children as holidays.
It is ironic that the “Holiday Season” falls at the end of the Gregorian Year in the months of November and December. The names of these months will serve as our starting point for unearthing the dishonesty that is infecting our lives. The word November originates from the Indo-European words: novem meaning nine and mensis meaning month. The word December originates from decem meaning ten and mensis meaning month. Why would human cultures all around the world which call themselves developed allow themselves to refer to the eleventh month of the year as the ninth month and the twelfth month as the tenth month? This craziness is not hidden from our eyes. It is found in any reference book showing the origins of these words. The names of these months follow the names that were given to the months in the Roman Calendar. In the Roman Calendar, the name November was used for the ninth month, but today we confuse ourselves and our children by using the word for the eleventh month. This starting place is important because Roman culture in its political pursuits may have had a more reasonable reason for calling this month by the name November. History tells us this decision was made for no more reason than their pursuit to enslave the world under the Roman authority. Today, as we claim to be evolving into new heights of human genius, we must honestly admit that we are continuing this without any other logical reason than perhaps to show reverence and solidarity with our Roman predecessors. Is this why you use the names November and December?
The world around us is full of deceptions. Politicians and those seeking power can tell us anything with the intention of misleading or taking advantage of us. The one tool that we always have at our disposal is our method of investigation. No matter what intentions one claims to have, or who one claims to be, we can always investigate the path which they have taken to cross our own. Their history will tell us much more than their mouth ever could. The problem is that this tool has been silenced in the average citizen of the colonial territories. The backwards traditions that we have adopted during the colonization process seem to hook us so well with the vices of fun, comfort and convenience that our motivation to expose their true face atrophies and dies.
The Eleventh Gregorian Month brings in one of the colonial holidays that seems most dear to the average colonial family — Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving serves as a time for families to break away from their stressful, isolated, independent lives to come together in order to commune with their loved ones and teach their children the importance of gratitude and sharing. The origins of Thanksgiving amongst the English colonists on Maanu (the Americas) go back to the early 1600s. The events at the origin of this holiday raise the question whether we should really celebrate gratitude on such a day. According to James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, “More than any other holiday, more even than such overtly patriotic holidays as Independence Day and Memorial Day, Thanksgiving celebrates our ethnocentrism.”
There are two speculations as to the origin of the reason for the celebration. One is found in a document which was supposedly lost until the late 1950s and which was written by a man named William Bradford. William Bradford was a resident of Plymouth
Plantation, which was a settlement of the English puritans (religious radicals) who arrived in “The New World” after having been exiled from England. William Bradford served as an assistant to the Governor of Plymouth Plantation. Many historians have concluded from Mr. Bradford’s writings that the true reason for this initial Thanksgiving was the increase in personal harvest for certain farmers because of the Governor’s recent decision to shift away from a system of communal farming toward a system of private farming. No longer were the Plymouth farmers forced to share their crops amongst the Plantation communally, but now they could grow what they needed individually, and this increased the yields each farmer kept. A celebration was held in honor of the Governor’s decision, and people showed their gratitude for the chance to keep their yields to themselves.
The second and more wide-spread understanding of the initial celebration of Thanksgiving amongst the Plymouth Plantation was due in large part to the lone survivor of the Pawtuxet ethnic group, a man named Squanto. Squanto’s lifestory is fascinating
European slavery had taken him away from his home on this continent and across the Atlantic into the European continent. His will to survive and return home brought him back only to find that his beloved Pawtuxet had been wiped out by the smallpox epidemic. At which point Squanto lived as a slave of the puritans on the Plymouth Plantation. His strong will and intelligence served them tremendously, he taught them agriculture and fishing. He worked out a treaty between the Plantation and the neighbouring Wampanoag Indian Nation. At the end of the first year of the treaty, a feast was held at Plymouth Plantation. Crop yields were high due to Squanto’s traditional expertise, and members of the allied Wampanoag Nation also came bearing contributions to the feast. There were three days of celebration.
The harmony amongst the Plymouth Plantation and their Indigenous neighbors was short lived. More English migrants came to the New World, and the Plymouth Plantation moved inland, forcing themselves onto other territories. The Pequot Wars soon followed. The Pequot was a very strong Indian Nation who did not give an inch to the Plymouth Plantation or any other European migrant group. In 1641, the Dutch governor of Manhattan offered the first scalp bounty (a common practice in many European countries). This together with the Puritans’ bounty for Natives to be sold into slavery increased the aggression towards the Natives. The Dutch and the Puritans joined barbaric forces to defeat the Pequot. In what is now Stanford, Connecticut the churches of Manhattan announced a Thanksgiving for the war successes. A big feast was held. During the feast, heads of decapitated Pequot Indians were kicked through the street like soccer balls. Similar days of Thanksgiving were held after every subsequent massacre in each respective town. George Washington, American Hero and first president of the colonies, brought some organization and schedule to these celebrations and restricted the celebrations to one day that could celebrate the success of the migrants’ barbarism around the nation.
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln decreed the day to be a national holiday. Lincoln’s decree came on exactly the same day he ordered troops to march against the Sioux in Minnesota – perhaps his way of taking part in the celebration and its true legacy.
Such is the true face of the Thanksgiving holiday. It was initialized with a celebration for either a turn away from cooperative living or a celebration for the success of the genocide of the Native tribes found by the Puritans upon their arrival in the New World. Either way, the most fundamental and long-lasting parts of the celebration are the gratitude for the genocide and massacre of the indigenous populations of this continent.
But let’s not only shine a light on the direct line of the origins of our national holiday. The Wompoanoag held six thanksgiving feasts per year, and one of these feasts may easily have influenced the first of its kind amongst the puritans of the Plymouth Plantation. These were held for different cultural reasons, one being the yields of the yearly Cranberry harvest. This is not unusual, indigenous people all around the world hold celebrations to show their gratitude to the Gods and supernatural forces of existence that provide the harmony and the conditions for their survival and the survival of their crops. These indigenous holidays more than likely grew out of the Kemetic holidays which preceded them with the exception of those which were coined for new situations and environments that each indigenous group faced in their own location and particular experience.
In the original Kemetic calendar in the month of Ateeri which begins around November 9th of the Gregorian calendar, there is a very important spiritual holiday known as The Death of Wsr. The Death of Wsr is the anniversary of the death of the God Wsr or Ouziry, known by the Greek territories as Osiris and by differing names around the world. The God Wsr is the first God of the Second Trinity of Gods presented in the Original Kemetic Cosmogony or creation story. The Second Trinity of Gods is also known as humanity’s Ancestral Gods because through their decisions and experiences, humanity was given a chance to exist. The God Wsr was the first God to die. The God Wsr chose to live out his immortality — one of the basic qualities of every God — through the path of transcendence. This meant that he would die but his essence would transcend through his children and through them he would be given a resurrection. It was with Wsr that all of the religious stories of reincarnation and resurrection were inspired. It was the dichotomy between Wsr’s heir and son Heru and his brother Seth that would inspire the dichotomies found in all cultures around the world, such as the most well-known philosophical concept of the same nature: the Yin and Yang of Eastern philosophies.
Wsr was not only special to humanity because his choices are at the origin of our existence, but also because Wsr played perhaps the biggest role in the enlightenment of humans. As a God, Wsr took the responsibility for the progression of humanity into his own hands and, in doing so, taught humanity spiritual refinement, medicine, agriculture, astronomy and time division. Wsr’s death has been observed since the beginning of human civilization as a day of mourning and lamentation. On this original holiday, we mourn the death of Wsr. Though his choice for death allowed room in existence for our existence, his death still is of great sadness to us. We see the death of Wsr throughout the Earth at this time, for it is in this time that, due to the Earth’s distance from the Sun, many plants are dying, only to be resurrected in the cycle of life, a cycle that we owe to the decision of the God Wsr. It is because of this that Wsr is known as a vegetal God. It is because of this that Wsr is also known as a lunar God, as the cycle of the moon also serves to represent his death. In death, Wsr was cut into fourteen pieces, just as the waning of the moon is portioned into fourteen phases until it begins to replenish those fourteen phases towards its resurrection on the night of the full moon.
Celebrations around the world in this time show a connection to the concepts highlighted on this original holy day, many of which have become simplified to a show of gratitude for the agricultural cycle, a cycle that is heavily associated with the God Wsr. In Ghana, there is a festival that is held in the Upper Eastern regions by the Paga culture known as the Fao festival. This festival is a harvest festival that honors the Gods for the abundance of the harvest. In the Phillipines there are two festivals, the Kalimidan Festival (Nov 21st) and the Sandurot Festival (Nov 22nd) where the people of the Mindanao region and Dumaguete (respectively) unite with other ethnic groups to celebrate unity and cultural sharing.
However, some festivals are even more revealing. In Thailand there is a festival named Ooc-Om-Bok in which offerings and ceremonies are held to the Vietnamese lunar God. Another Ghanaian festival held by the Essumeja in the Bekwai District at the end of “November” is a festival known as Nkyidwo. This festival is held in the Asantemanso forest, known to be the ancestral site of the Asante. This festival celebrates the ancestral heritage of the Asante. Another Ghanaian festival in November is the Kwafie festival, a purification ceremony which uses fire. There is also a Nigerian Festival known as the Mmanwu Festival which also celebrates the ancestral heritage of the Igbo people.
These global festivals show humanity’s honest attempt at gratitude and evolution towards higher levels of development. If the citizens of the colonial territories of the world have any interest in the preservation of the integrity of humanity and the preservation of logical human customs, perhaps it is time we re-awakened to the true power of the holy-day. Perhaps the disregard for honest spiritual and intellectual pursuits in the legacy of our ancestors is a testament in itself to the loss that humanity suffered when the God Wsr died on Earth. However, the festivals that continue in his legacy of preserving and perpetuating life and seeking new levels of human purity and evolution attest to his power of resurrection.
The God Wsr has taught us many things. One of the most important things that his life as described in the Kemetic Holy Drama (lecture available at The Earth Center schools) has taught us is that every decision the human being faces is a decision between destruction and construction, to stop life or to preserve life. We must put aside the destructive lies that have been perpetuated on the world via the colonial territories and bring our families together this year to return to our ancestral holy-days. This year, The Death of Wsr falls on the Gregorian Date of November 26th. The Death of Wsr is observed with a fast from sunrise to sunset. During the fast, no one is to eat, drink, smoke, curse or procreate. Throughout the day, time is given towards prayer, lamentation, and mourning. At sunset, the fast is broken with the ablution and zemzem (Original Kemetic Spiritual Purification and Prayer, instructional DVD available at The Earth Center schools) and a feast may follow amongst friends and family.
By Marrwho, on December 9th, 2009
Guess what my friend… Believe it or not, I think that we’ve met. Perhaps our meeting wasn’t face to face, but I am sure that I’ve dealt with you before. Better yet, let’s say that at the least, I have dealt with an aspect of you, no matter how big or small. To understand how this is possible, first, we must look at what you and I are both made of. Simply put, we are the products of our exposure. At the beginning stages of the M’TAM initiations within The Earth Center schools, initiates are taught that the human brain does not harness the ability to invent. The basic function of the mind is to copy or imitate, so this makes you and I the result of what our brains have been inspired by.
All the events that we’ve gone through in our lives have added to us, making us who we are in this present moment. For example, even with this paragraph, as you read it, on some level it’s joining with you, changing you from the person you were before you picked up this newspaper. Another example that may help is to equate a single snowflake to a single life experience, can you see the similarity between what makes a snowman and what makes a human being? In other words, when you read this article, you are dealing with me, but who am I…? Dealing with me means that you are also dealing with all that has impacted my life. So, as you read these lines, you are being exposed to aspects of my mother, my father, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends, acquaintances, etc. And each of them are the product of the individuals that influenced their lives, and so on and and so on.
 An elderly Kemetic woman giving a warm greeting. The depth and emphasis put on the Kemetic greeting is a clue into our ancestor’s understanding of the ties that bind all living entities together. Now, there still remains the question of how we’ve met. Like I said at the beginning, perhaps our meeting wasn’t face to face, but I am sure that I’ve dealt with you before. Let’s try an experiment. First, I want you to imagine a person that you are close to. Let’s say that you spoke to that person a couple days ago. Perhaps, in that exchange you shared a humorous joke or a funny story, leaving them with laughter and happiness. Now, imagine your friend getting off the phone with you, but still carrying that aspect of you with them into the day, that happiness that they received from that joke. Imagine your friend going through their day, sharing that humorous story with anyone who would listen, affecting each of them on different levels, but all in positive ways. Imagine that at the end of your friend’s day, before going to bed, they end up having a phone conversation with their cousin. Before they end their conversation, your friend decides to tell your hilarious joke one last time. Both your friend and their relative laugh until tears role down their faces, and after they settle down, they say good night, hang up their phones and go to bed.
The next morning, your friend’s cousin wakes up and goes about their day, all the while giggling to them self about the joke that was shared with them the night before, still carrying your positive energy with them. They have the ability to continue to pass that energy onto others, who will then pass it onto others, and so on and so on. That aspect of you has been transferred from one person, to another person, to another, etc. That happiness that you placed upon your friend has now affected all those who heard the joke and all the people that they will share it with. Now, let’s say days later I speak to a friend of mine, and they ask me: “Hey Marrwho, you wanna hear a joke I heard today…?” As I’m entertained by your story, it becomes part of me, no matter how large or small the effects are, it has played a part in my life. Can you see how we’ve met? Can you see how I have dealt with an aspect of you? Now think, at the initial stage, what if you would’ve transferred negative energy onto your friend, the results could have been different.
I say all this because we as humans must begin expanding our awareness of how we impact ourselves and others around
us with our actions, our speech, and even our thoughts. It is important that we understand that our daily behaviors affect others, not only in our households and work places, but that they have the potential to change people in our neighborhoods, our cities, states, countries, and even the world. No longer can we afford to perform acts while remaining oblivious of their effects on our surroundings.
My spiritual teacher, the late Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig once stated that every thought and action echoes out into the Universe. When I think of an echo, I think of an emission traveling outward on a journey and eventually coming back to be received by the same entity that originally expressed itself. But that entity that expressed itself is not the only thing that is affected by that echo. If I am with a group of friends hiking in the hills, and I yell out, “HELLO!”, that echo from the hills will be heard by me, but also by everyone in the group that I am hiking with, even people camping miles away can receive that greeting and I would never know.
This example of an echo is really a life principle, perhaps this is what our parents meant when they told us the old cliche saying, “what goes around, comes around”. I must say that in the past whenever I heard people make this statement, I would always accept it, but I never truly understood what it meant. I couldn’t grasp the notion of how what leaves me, goes around, to eventually come back to me again. Like a package that has been sent out, arriving back at my doorstep with a stamp saying “RETURN TO SENDER”. Only this time, at every step of the way it has been opened by people who have added something to it before sending it back. If I knew that every package that I sent out would always return back to me, for me to open and deal with, I would always make sure that the contents of those packages were of quality. How about you…? This example of a package returning reminds me of another old saying, a saying that I’m sure has become a part of you too, how does it go…? “Treat others in the manner in which you wish to be treated”. As I gain more experience over the years, and as I continue within the M’TAM education, the understanding of the link between me and my surroundings is becoming more and more clear.
When I look at the example of how Master Naba lived his life Master Naba’s life, I can see that he was just one man, yet he made such an impact on the lives of so many. Those who carry him in their hearts and minds transfer him and his message to others on a daily basis. His exposure was a result of being raised in a very old culture, the message that he brought had been transferred from generation to generation for thousands of years, similar to the example of the joke being passed from person to person. This is why I hold a special place in myself for the influence that he has brought to my life.
Today, I am passing a piece of him onto you, so that even if you have never met Master Naba, through me and this article you have. You have now been exposed to an aspect of him, as well as all those that influenced his life. Keep this in mind as you go throughout your day. Remember, all that you send out will affect so many, men, women, children, elders, etc. before inevitably coming back to you. We must be aware of such an influence because with it comes a huge responsibility. Just as a brother must protect a brother, we must protect the entire universe by taking care in what we enclose in the packages we send out daily. Well friend, until that day we may meet face to face, remember that we can act as friends with all of those we have yet to see, but already touch… May good things be placed in your path.
By Baashu, on December 9th, 2009
A Producer’s Mentality
Beginning a garden is a healthy way to survive the day to day turmoil that we are subject to. To achieve this goal all we need is the motivation. Your garden will provide many things that will help you to keep your vigor. The most obvious being the fresh produce, but this produce is not the first benefit we receive from our garden.
Initially, we have to motivate ourselves to do some work without pay. This is a difficult situation for many people raised in a society where cash is king. Once we motivate ourselves out of the slave labor mentality and into the mind set of a producer, we can realize that we have already accomplished something.
The next task is also mental but of a different sort. We must think about how we are going to successfully produce something. Again, the modern person may struggle to overcome the slave labor conditioning of always being handed a task. We must become the thinker we are capable of being. By taking it upon ourselves to build a garden we will have to make some decisions about how we are going to achieve this goal. Where will this garden be located? Without a yard, balcony or rooftop one will have to grow indoors or go further out into the community. A neighborhood vacant lot may be an option or a garden can be located on top of a concrete driveway.
The fundamentals of gardening are the same no matter where you are growing. Your garden needs to grow in something. That will be soil or a soil medium and the size of your challenge will depend on the size of your garden. Regardless of where the garden is located, you will need clean materials to construct your containers and growing medium (soil, etc.). Be sure to investigate the sources of the materials you plan to use. For example, if you are purchasing compost, you should inquire about the source of the compost. If it is produced from landscaping waste like sod and grass clippings, think about how people treat their lawns nowadays. The most common lawn care products contain artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides, along with genetically engineered seeds. One will have to use their mind to avoid falling prey to the businesses trying to sell you waste packaged as good product.
After building your growing beds, adopting a crop rotation plan and acquiring good seed are the next steps. It will take planning your crops a year in advance, recording what worked and what did not work each season, finding a good seed company and establishing a relationship with an existing gardener to have a solid plan. It helps to balance the mental work with the physical labor of building the growing beds by switching from one to the other so as to not burn out on one. As long as you apply mulch to suppress weed growth, by the time you put your seeds or plants in the ground, most of the work is done. To go along with your fresh produce, the health benefits of which are well known, you will have accomplished something greater. The challenge we all face, especially those trapped in the “modern” world, is to change from consumer to producer – the kind of producer that benefits our planet. The only true obstacle to this change is within our own minds. We must give up the ease, comfort and laziness to accept the challenge of living a life in harmony with our world.
Products of Genocide
There is a history to everything. The things that surround us all have untold stories about how they came to be where they are today. For us in the consumer culture we only know the very last chapter of these stories, the chapter in which we purchased it and brought it home. This may give one the feeling of being a stranger in an environment.
It is a marked contrast from living in a village, farm or even a town where one knows the history of all, or most of the things that surround them. One will know where the food comes from, the building materials, the clothes, who makes these things and so on. In these settings, one has a better understanding of where they come from by knowing the history of their own family. But within the consumer culture the products we purchase from the cashier with a smiling face are not as wholesome as it had been on the farm or in the village.
Take a box of rubber bands for example. Rubber has a history that has caused multiple genocides. The interesting thing about genocide is that most people say that they did not know it was happening until it was too late, until it was over, or that it was a part of history that is not happening any more. There have been conflicts in Mexico, Brazil, Congo, Liberia, Vietnam, Philippines and others countries that have resulted in mass casualties, mass suffering and environmental destruction in order to establish rubber plantations. A second interesting thing is that every genocide differs. This means that if we consider the details of a previous atrocity and compare it with current events, there will be differences. That does not mean that the outcome will be different, there are many ways to tear down a house. Current events show us that rubber is being produced in greater amounts than ever before.
So what is the consumers’ impression of how the rubber is being produced? If one reads the N.Y. Times, they might come across an article in which the author is interviewing the president of a rubber company. A picture of the plantation will be painted to show a place where on a Southern Style plantation, 80,000 people will live close to the trees with housing, churches, schools, medical facilities, wages, rice and electricity provided. Another article may tell of the child labor, human rights abuses, poisoning of waterways with toxic chemicals and other atrocities. A consumer’s impression of how rubber is produced will ultimately depend on an individual’s understanding that the history of a person, in this case an organization, is the most accurate indication of the current and future behavior of that organization. The consumers’ decision to affect the situation will depend on their intelligence and discipline to not indulge their desires for things with histories they prefer not to know.
 U.S. Military presence on a rubber plantation in Liberia.
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The Sidereal Calendar
Year 410
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Philosphy Podium
Volume 1:
A Dogon Perspective
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