rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

the hoodoo boopk of flowers: 1st movement

fri mar 29 6:01am chaingmai thailand

hello all, as you know ive decided to just do the
hoodoo book of flowers myself, im tired of begging
i see all thhe pablum out here and i cant get the
time of day, ima put a tease up, plan is to have it
out there by this summer, 81 moovements, this
is the 1st one

1st movement
hoodoo initiation

open mine eyes, that I might see
open my heart that I might be

 

1:01:hoodoo consciousness

lord legba, open this gate, in the name of the conqueror let this work be done

1: welcome o traveler, let us begin with I am, consciousness - know thyself - the greatest struggle, the greatest  power - who am i? why am I here? what is the point? - a pilgrim once come upon the babajohn and said I seek the babajohn, the babajohn replied, so do I,

2: initiation of the soul is not a given, we, all of us, start life ignorant & asleep, as we mature our understanding of real increases, we conduct ourselves accordingly, our lives become more harmonious, we are initiated, the spiritual life doesnt just happen, it is an active choice, nurturance of the soul is the goal of this Work - open your eyes, young conjure, a step every soul must take, look deep and tell me, what do you see, what is consciousness & who knows, when the only thing certain is we are surely blind & wisdom must be won again and again and again,

3: in the beginning was the mojo, then bang there was the great mojo and all that is begin to be and the cosmos begin to manifest entity / eternity, desperately seeking Fa and spewing seeds of stellar dust that become one big great thing, planets, galaxies, suns, peoples, we is the universe, the universe is us – and the great mojo called it good,

4: then in the fullness of time here come humanity, leap frogging from the primal muck to stand upright, tools in hand, eyes on the stars, ever questing to be greater than we are - it is consciousness allows you to shape your life, only then can you master your own destiny instead of being tossed about by the winds of circumstance, subject to the whims of others,

5: 1^st let us call on mother lucy the monkey doctor, first of the monkey people to stand on two feet, I believe, she told them, if we stand on our hind legs that our tribe and all our generations will flourish, I believe we can be more than we are, like this, she say, and then she stand, and o my god, she say, if only you could see what I see, from here I can see forever, from here I can see the stars, at which point the monkey folk scoff, why on earth, they say, would we want to do that, what can we possibly do on 2 feet that we cannot do better on 4, why, o fool of a dreamer, would the great monkey god give us 4 feet if not to use them, but mambo lucy, she persist, listen, she say, many years I have birthed, taught and tended you, all for this one time I must be heard, Fa has come to us, a journey like nothing this world has seen, the long march of the firstborn has begun, and there, she point at the stars in the sky, is where it will end,

6: safer perhaps to begin w/lord legba, lord of the crossroads & keeper of the gates, opener of doors between this world and de spirit world, messenger of de gods and de random factors, he who must be petitioned at the beginning of any spiritwork, legba flourished in the Americas, in dahomey he is an outlaw, a trickster, a profane flouter of tradition, in dahomey he lacks moral fiber and makes his own rules, in dahomey he is mawu-lisa’s linguist, custodian of the crossroads and divine writ, when the realms of human custodianship were divided amongst the loa, legba, the youngest loa, found himself with nothing to do, and so he was given the space between realms, the keeper of the gates, now whenever you attempt spiritwork you must 1^st ask legba to open the gate,

7: for it is in the beginning of things that paths are laid, destinies shaped, most folk go thru life asleep, zombies walking, but this moment is a conscious one, another sleeper has awakened, a better you has been born, Fa awaits,

Fa is upon you, o traveler, embrace it
w/a hoodoo passion for life

this is the text
this is the way

demoja

 

da 5 bloods, brotherme brotherblood brotherblack

hello all, in thailand working as consultant on spike lee film,
da 5 bloods, im  supopssed to be telling them what it was
like being a black soldier in vietnam, ima just put my last
three facebook posts up in reverse sequence

 

fri mar 22

well, catching a freedom bird to thailand in the morning,
spike lee shooting a movie about black soldiers in vietnam,
da 5 bloods, because of de mojo blues, the trash of my youth,
I been asked to be a consultant, run the blackinization experience
down for them, brotherme, brotherblood, brotherblack,
school the actors on what it was really like – there it is

 

 

 

mon mar 23

first thing spike tries to talk sports, I have to tell him
I don’t even know what season it is, today I’m supposed to
explain to chat . . how do you spell his name, the black panther -
how to run his kingdom, well, at least how to be a child of the 60s
soldiering on the black hand side, brotherme brotherblood brotherblack

 

 

tues mar 26

https://timeline.com/the-militarys-war-against-free-speech-4a639e72d0d6?fbclid=IwAR22gflAa_gD8OtiSWb3nopVGs1dKSTDGo0nskon2KdUtS3CgWRjj5hXejg

had a meeting today w/spike and cast principals so moving
it made a believer of me, i have had a certain reserve in this
process cause i don't really do the celebrity thing, i agree
w/nietzsche, why should i be in awe of other folk if they not
in awe of me, but everybody been really cool, real folk, and
my presentation today on black exp in nam i rollercoastered
them from teary eyed grace to chest pounding solidarity and
back again talking about how conscious we were of being a
colonial levy and the redemption we called blackinization, a
culture of defiance that shapes me to this day, 3 times i got
courtmartialed, 3 times they told me cut your afro, 3 times i
told them kiss my axe, what you gon do, send me to vietnam -
it got so emotional and cathartic up in there today i feel like
we actually was on the battleground together, me and my
brothers in struggle, all for one, one for all, i pride myself on
my cynicism but today they made a believer of me

 

 

hanging in there spring 2019

TUES 3/12 2:26pm

done deal, ima crash out for a minute then start
reading thru novel, im both elated and afraid, ive
glanced at it a couple of times, appears to still be
reading smooth, we will see what a close read says

 

 

TUES 3/12 5:50am

hello all

i been off the grid, schoolhouse got me humping
and i been pouring all my discretionary time into
latest revision of the hoodoo book of flowers

thought it would be a read thru, turned out to be
a real revision and im like is this thing eternally
gon be lacking, have contracted w/adero to edit
it in april, i figure two more read thrus and ima
let it be, i could otherwise do this forever, doing
poetry drafts now and could spend like a week
on each para if i allowed it, now that ive decided
to do it myself i got to make sure its as
professional as humanly possible

and as much as its got me grindhousing &
as discouraged as i am, thinking how ive
invested decades of hard grind work and
the industry ignores me, the literary world
(my readers) have shrugged it and im here
still plugging away, spending my life up on
it because no matter what i believe in it

it is designed to Work the african american soul
and by god and all thats holy its designed well

doiing poetry draft where you have to be
real precise with your wordage and there is an
elation i cannot convey when the absolute right
word comes to me, reeking of power, and i am
once again infused with the power of the word

and a project i believe will actually change things
i got no beefs, im just glad im still here to crunch it, that
i have once again made it a better more precise text

sometimes when my text grows like this im glad the
industry did not take earlier versions, same same rest
i dont really mind the obscurity any more

ive gotten used to it and it has facilitated production
cause it piss me off and its like i will show you all

and i have gotten back into daily practice w/my mbira
was crunched with schoolhouse and gigs last months
and every discretionary musical mnoment was in studio
and had to revise manuscript repeatedly for studio but that
mean i been crunching it and the text has grown exponentially

and i listened to the 9 fucking hours of tape
and its not bad, not what i want yet but i got
the raw material, and if im still functional i will
do it again next year, every year i will record

or re-record a text and when im gone surely one
will be viable, speaking of gone im out of here

im on the 7th movement now, will be done w/this
draft today, then start reading rest to start programming
that revision in my head, do kimberlys text, do taxes,
then start VT text and i will have had a productive
spring break woodshed, im gone

picked up stephanie rose birds 365 days of hoodoo
have interacted w/her in past, she was respectful

i acknowledge her to real thing, need to give her
some play in HBOF, and i saw she had the hoodoo
calendar/almanac idea too, instead of having to
do it again each year though she did it generic
maximal impact, minimal maintenance

also i note how traditional it is
she modernizes the folk magic
but im in radically new territory
w/the high magic focus, i like
what im doing, i will have to
make it happen on them, 70
years old and have to go guerilla
on them, i believe i got one more
good campaign in me, lets do this

all my love
rdoc