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Kem Life V8.4
By Pershara, on February 14th, 2010
My childhood was spent in a community where talk of preparing for the future by accumulating material things was non-existent. When I came to the US, I found opposing priorities to the ones back home. Back home no one ever discussed going to college or validating ourselves with the accolades and titles handed out by the system. We lived one day at a time, because we had what we needed for survival. When I realized how things are done here, I felt deprived because I did not fit in. School was presented as a possible equalizer but I did not even have an idea of what I would be going to school for.
 In colonial society, planning for the future means planning how we will make and spend our money. We even plan our families based on how much money we make. Ironically, our possessions do not come with us when we die but the actions we take to obtain them do. I remember someone who came from the US to visit my community and was very surprised at how simply we lived. He said he had never seen people living without worrying about money or doing anything that pertained to saving things for the future. Our future was the continuation of our survival by teaching the children what we knew. Nevertheless, I left home because I was searching for something that I thought I had found when I came to America. All of the lessons of my childhood started to fade as I got more and more caught up into catching up to the way things are done here. It wasn’t until I came to the Earth Center that I realized that all my planning for the future (going to college, insurance plans, jobs, and so on), as I came to perceive it, was only a set-up that was making me dependent on this system while distracting me from living in reality or coming to know what I came to Earth for.
Continue reading Fallacy of the Future
Kem Life V8.4
By Kasabez, on February 14th, 2010
It is not a secret that human civilization finds its origins in Kemet. The builders of the Pyramids, writers of the Medu, keepers of the Temples, and followers of the Pharaohs, with their faces turned towards the Gods have provided the inspiration for all mankind to follow. We have yet to attain the heights reached by this great civilization. The capabilities of the culture that preserved the world for over 100,000 years has been the mystery that power hungry usurpers have been trying to solve since their first encounters with the kemmioo (People of Kemet). The inspiration that led humanity to its heights is humanity’s ancestral Neter (God) WSR.
 A monument constructed for WSR, the ancestral God of humanity. The end of fall and the beginning of winter are marked by religious and social observances. This is what we know in America as the “Holiday Season”. The two most commonly celebrated holidays in the US are Thanksgiving and Christmas, with Hanukkah and Kwanzaa also celebrated by many during this time. It’s interesting that this same time period also encompasses Kemetic Holy Days of major significance. The concepts presented with these Holy Days and their acknowledgment by the kemmioo provide inspiration for much of what we do today.
Continue reading Observing Our Origins: The Kemetic Fasting Period
Survivor's Notebook V8.4
By Kasabez, on February 14th, 2010
According to the Kemetic education, the human body is designed to live for at least 150 years. With this in mind, it was not surprising when, during a recent pilgrimage to Merita (Traditional Africa), our tour guide in one village was a 122 year old man. He was riding a bicycle.
 In traditional societies, elders are valued for their wisdom and experience. Traditional elders maintain their health and clarity of mind so they can focus on their spiritual growth during their later years. In addition to knowledge about medicinal plants and spirituality, the longevity of this elder and many others like him can be credited to their diets and their relationship with their food. In traditional cultures, food is considered sacred, as is any part of our lives that we depend upon for our survival. We pray to our ancestors for the abundance of the harvest because without it, we suffer. Our very survival depends on it.
With more information being revealed about the health hazards presented by certain foods, more people are searching for healthy ways of eating. However, the variety of perspectives on what it means to be healthy and what defines a healthy diet is staggering. The amount of information available makes it very difficult to come to any conclusions about what a healthy diet is. The problem is that the modern culture simply has not had enough time to develop a dietary system based on long term results.
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel. To see an example of a proper diet, we only have to look at most traditional, ethnic cuisines. In traditional diets worldwide, thousands of years of knowledge has been accumulated to produce diets using the best food available to support the long life and good health of those who eat it. Humanity’s original culture, Kemet has had over 100,000 years to develop a diet that is successful in preserving life.
Continue reading Survivor’s Notebook – The Kemetic Diet
Feature V8.4
By Baheru, on February 14th, 2010
 Traditional cultures have an age old history of producing high quality individuals, strong families and tight-knit communities as shown in these photos. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of traditional people are being drawn to the glamour of modern culture at the cost of the values that define them
Through extensive investigation and analysis, history has revealed that most native people of any land, regardless of location, were able to survive for centuries because they had a system set in place that worked. Protecting which is of value, such as culture and tradition, entails a level of responsibility and commitment in order to maintain harmony. Whether it was in relation to the spiritual (non-material) or practical (material) world, they were able to adapt to their environment, regardless of its internal or external conditions. Despite their struggles, they were successful at preserving their values while living in harmony with the existence. If we assess these once stable and powerful cultures today, we will find that most no longer exist.
The conditioning that we have may immediately lead us to “believe” that traditional lifestyle is backwards, for savages, and that it is more comfortable to live life in the way the modern system has constructed it. These are some of the stereotypes that those who are trying to preserve traditional culture are faced with. We have to understand that in order for any culture that has ever existed to go from great splendor to squalor and ruins, it must have been influenced by either internal or external forces.In M’TAM, (the oldest initiatic education known to mankind), we are taught that a structure is only as strong as the people who uphold it. A society of highly developed individuals is necessary for achieving the goal of having a stable structure. For tens of thousands of years, the Kemetic structure (commonly known as Egyptian by the modern world) has given the world a model to follow for all aspects of life. The cultures that followed the Kemetic spiritual model were able to maintain themselves.
Highly developed people with the same collective goals are what make a harmonious society. The Kemetic structure is very demanding and requires those that follow it to be morally upright. From the Pharaoh to the commoner, everyone was expected to exemplify the Kemetic structure, because they all had the same objectives, which were to constantly improve their human qualities with the goal of building a world that resembled the divine world. This wasn’t just some notion, it was a reality.
Continue reading Preserving Traditional Culture
Feature V8.4
By Imy, on February 14th, 2010
I think of Kwanzaa and I think of the great things it represents for our community, and then I think of our ancestors and the greatest of the communities of ancient times. These communities have not been rivaled in their splendor or compassion in the modern era.
 Monuments such as this obelisk and the pyramids (below) are still a mystery to our modern culture. The meanings behind them and the methods used to construct them are still topics of debate, but the secrets behind them may only be revealed to those who honestly return to their culture.
The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa are linked to our past and are stepping stones to reclaiming not just our dignity but also our greatness. For the first time in literally thousands of years, we have a chance to conquer our pride and take back our cultural values that were once shared by everyone in the world that were known to be good or “on the side of Ra.”
Dr. Maulana Karenga has earned his place in history as one of the individuals responsible for our survival of the holocaust of slavery. His name is mentioned along with those of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. We thank our heroes for helping us to survive, now it’s time for us to take up the struggle to thrive.
Continue reading Kujichagulia: Self-Determination in the Colonial World
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The Sidereal Calendar
Year 409
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Philosphy Podium
Volume 1:
A Dogon Perspective
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