"i have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith"

SUNDAY

case against goldman sachs by sec is right on time for dems, repubs had outplayed them, spinning finance bill as for wallstreet and repubs as defenders of people when opposite is the case - expect obama to flip the script, to bullypulpit the repubs - this gives him a hook

was reading this artcle by ghanian christian talking about his ambivalence about afrikania practice
what they calling afrikania is i call afrospiritual -

an attempt to modernize and illuminate african traditional religion

subtitle of the article asked if, as he has been taught, trad african religion was evil

in the commentary section one fundamentalist christian say even asking the question is evil incarnate and some idiot ask what did all this have to do with marijuana (because there was a picture of an herbalist accompanying article)

i couldnt help myself: i wrote: i dont generally get involved in religious dialogue, folk enter into it so blindly, but the two posts above were so foolish that i find myself compelled to make a point or two

i am an afrospiritual practitioner in the united states, i grew up southern black baptist and like many of my generation i grew up thinking afrospiritual practice was evil because thats what the christians taught

but they also taught that everything african was evil and as we begin to study africa in the 60s we realized this wasnt so, as part of our study of africa we also studied african religious practice and began to realize there is no only one way of god, that humans have many ways of approaching the divine and it can be good or bad within ways (islamic terrorism, catholic inquisition, hindu suttee) that well designed religions provide avenues of illumination but they can also provide avenues of degredation and that an illuminated buddhist is just as 'good' a person as an illuminated christian etc

once we begin to understand that religious exclusivity was not divinely ordained but imposed
by human and institutional forces w/various agendas we begin to look closer at african religion

quite a few africans in the west begin to study/practice voodoo, candomble, santeria, hoodoo, et al
most of them a fusion between catholicism and african traditions such as yoruba, fon and congo

what we have, some of us, come to understand is that african religions is not evil, problem is its often
archaic, it has not evolved as have so many of the other religious traditions of the world have done, 

part of the reason christanity and islam have been so successful at conquering africa and replacing african traditional reigions is because they are better religions, more evolved, more organized, their adherents live better lives - the true test of any religious practice

but instead of turning away from atr toward the aggressor, conquering religions of christanity and islam we need to devote ourselves to evolving african traditional religion, bringing it into the 21st century, making it compatible with the 21st century mind and sensibility, illuminate it

to do otherwise devalues us as a people, your indigenous tradition reflect your evolution as a people, and as it evolves it feeds and illuminates you and your culture, to turn from evolving our own tradition, based on our history, our culture, our destiny, just participates in our own devaluation, our own spiritual conquest, where we serve the purposes of those who have murdered and enslaved us historically and continue to do so

obviously this is a far more complex issue than i have time to fully eplore right now but i have devoted my adult life to evolving and illuminating afrospiritual practice around the world

if i can change their spiritual tradition i can change the people, i can change the generations, i can change the world - i have deduced this (and writing good books reflecting this) to be the strongest move i can make

during my short time on the planet

i have spoken out against practices like animal sacrfice and the ritual killings of humans for medicines, i have spoken out against archaic practices/attitudes in general and institutional practices that do not illuminate the human spirit

i have in fact gotten a lot of disrespect, disdain and dismissal in afrospiritual circles for my call to evolve, but such it is when you aspire to the prophetic

i am determined to make of afrospiritual practice an instrument of destinical redemption, development and evolution

i hope that all the sons and daughters of africa will join me in this guest

i will give you a mission greater than your adversity

i will give you a destiny

arthur rickydoc flowers
hoodoo lord of the delta

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

so anyway after my own little screed i googled afrikania and went to the website
afrikania mission - interesting effort, based on egyptian theology mostly, we in the

states went thru our egyptian phase already, where we assumed only really viable
african religion was an egyptian one, ie still not 'evil/raw' traditional african religion

also small religious groupings bother me, too much room for soul stealing and
cultlike behavior, part of the reason i never initiated w/traditional african religion

here is because i was uncomfortable with their hierarchical do what i say do because

it is divine writ and i am your spiritual leader bit, you know what the old rootdoctor think
about soul stealing, of which there is much in almost all religions, which is why i am

hoodoo, a magical/spiritual practitioner rather than a religious one, its a long story
dont have time to go into the nuances here, read my books, rest for the weary

and my holybook in progress, the hoodoo book of flowers: the great black book of generations

im out, i got to clock pages, it takes a couple days of work before clocking paragraphs

becomes clocking pages, apparently im in the zone, got to stay there, if anything got to
get stronger, get more focused - just going thru the motions at the schoolhouse now,

obligatories will be done this week, cattlekilling, some undergrad stories, couple
of grad stories and two backed up manuscripts and i will be a free man

okay, two more weeks, then its just me and that novel
three months of just me and that novel - thats what i call

the good life

step by step, inch by inch - slowly we turn

all my love

rdoc

SATURDAY

clocking pages again, or rather paragraphs, but there has been an interesting development
its like reading texaco has given me license to take more lyrical gambles, to stretch out

when i think about what rest for the weary does im thinking deeper now, when i think about what a passage does im thinking deeper

this is tripping me out, its like texaco came along just when i needed it

another 3 years and i will have this novel strong as texaco

just kidding, about the 3 years, more like 3 months

and ima have to let texaco be texaco, rest for the weary be rest for the weary

look like i just got over a hump, every step of the way when you want to be a writer
there are psychological humps that will throw you off your game if you let them

for me to consciously try to break down texaco, be intimidated by texaco to point of devaluing
my own lick would have been a distraction that could have cost me my draft

i see it happen to students all the time, i see it happen to peers, some psychological hump

that takes them off their game, i dont allow them, anything that keep me from writing is to be

rejected out of hand, part of hoodoo meditation is cultivating ability to step back and unattach yourself
to thoughts, to feelings, to perceptions - to step back within yourself and observe rather than attach

so that you establish control of them rather than them controlling you

so when you find yourself letting something throw you off you game
you immediately step back and consider it as something separate from your i consciousness

and judge it, is this something i should allow, or refine, or do i go with it - where is the power here

im getting a little esoteric on you, i try to avoid esoterics but you got to remember that i am

basically a mystic, mind, soul and consciousness stuff is probably my forte

thats what high magicians do

but this not something i generally ponder publicly, folk already think im a pretentious spaceranger

at least i do - i dont have time to really work/clarify this right now, im clocking paragraphs again

im reaching for pages

all my love

rdoc

FRIDAY

"i have fought the good fight, i have kept the faith"        ben hoooks

my homeboy died recently, the old guard of memphis,

him and francis, maxine and vasco, miriam decosta et al, my mother and father,

racemen and racewomen, who passed the sense of responsibility on to me

southern black bougie, racial custodianship is a family tradition

hopefully when its time for me to pass the baton on the next generation i will be able to say

i fought the good fight, i kept the faith

rest easy baba hooks, the faith will be kept

finally got back to the novel, last 3 days i been just watching tv, discouraged by
texaco - rest for the weary just does not strike me as on the same literary level

but what can i do, except buck up rick, get back to work, whatever i got is what i got

a luta continua

rdoc

Comments

[Alicia Van-Weed]

a fight is always worth it if it was a good fight..and it's mostly what gives us going - the fight

[Karen Simpson]

Every time I come and read your posts. I learn more and more about how to be a good writer, how to approach the writing life as an African American writer. The part about about not letting another work take you off your own game is right on time for me as I struggle to write my next novel

And your whole Sunday post about the Afrospritual is powerful food for thought as writer of speculative fiction. Thank you so much for putting your thoughts down, for letting me see the struggle as you do your own work of "clocking pages. Can't wait until I can read your new novel.

Karen

[BuffaloSoldier]

BUFFALOSOLDIER,BEEN A LONG,LONG TIME BuffaloSoldier salutes RachelRobinson/DorothyHeight. (What a wonderful surname.) Well, the other shoe has finally dropped. Torii Hunter, echoing sentiments I heard in barbershops I've frequented in four states, prior to the election of the LionKing, in decrying the disappearance of FlackAmericans from America's past time, called "darkskinned LatinAmerican" baseball players "impostors" He says it gives the impression there are more BlackAmericans in the game than there really are. He says it's a major topic of conversation among BlackAmerican players. CCabathia said it's a "crisis" Whew! Hunter, if the latins are not Black but merely darkskinned Latins, why am I not just a darkskinned english speaking American? And how do you fit the LionKing in all of this? One point you made is that they're not what Jackie Robinson had in mind when he broke the color barrier. They don't have our "history" here, he said. Neither does the LionKing. He has no BlackFamily here. But %96 of voting BlackAmerica went for him. Mostly because they didn't think of him as a darkskinned white American. Rachel Robinson came to Newark, where I currently reside, and addressed schoolchildren. She talked about her husband to the Black and Latin children at her feet. Not once did she call the latin kids darkskinned impostors. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message.