rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

showtime, clark university ATL

you will notice dear reader i did not really process this last post
i am so eager to finish the draft of the hoodoo way so i can
get to novel, which has started to percolate in my head

ima go wild this draft, in past i was hindered by determination
to show readers how a real hoodoo roll but since ive done
that in the memoir i can let my fantasmical flag fly, i am
going to trip out this draft and having to restrain myself

cause i got to finish the draft of THWay, always finish
the draft, if i abandon it halfway i got to start all over

when i start again and if i die tomorrow it joins the
uncompleted works pile, always finish the draft

i spent last week getting the stories together
so im behind schedule,, pg 29 of 97, i write single

space so thats really about 60 of 200,

so 60 pages to do, i think 10 a day is maybe too much but if i
can pull off 10 a day i wiull be thru by end of month or so

i like that, full court press rick, lets

separate the writers from the dilettantes

im feeling that new novel draft

really really feeling it

one more round, lord

'

ima take a quick stab at testifying why the clark univ performance went so well, 1^st it was georgene bess invited me, georgene and me was babys in the tradition back when we met and she is one of the few scholars on the planet who has given me some lit crit love, so that she invited me to a conference called black boy love I was already primed but then I get to campus and its gloriously black, earnest black students filled with a discernable pride of place, I get there and the old road warrior aint as resilient as he used to be, I pass on going to campus then changed my mind and caught a cab and was glad I did so cause I caught hd hunter, met him as he was going in and im thinking he mighty young and I catch a hint of gold grill and im like kinda dismissive but boy got on stage and showed up, I mean impressive and engaging, a damn wunderkind, with absolutely beautiful vibrations, and afterward im like a fanboy, my brother my brother, and there was this brother there with a hat so pretty I told him he need to be careful I don’t snatch it off his head, turned out he was the morning reader my day, datch, who know everybody I know, we come from the same line of struggle and he know a good brim is essential in public so by the time I took the stage I was in a downhome state of mind, like when I go home to the delta, I got diff masks for diff folk, reached in and it was the high hoodoo of memphis showed up, rickydoc waymaker, I got up there and commence to exhorting, which only happens when I do the delta, or one of the seven sisters of the south, memphis, atlanta, bham, new orleans et al, me and mi interviewer, brother rooks, was simpatico, mi girl adero was in the house, paul coates, I started feeding of the congregation they started feeding off me and mi new hand pan, with which I have established a mystical connection, just playing it is a true healing for mi, been doing what I call meditation blues on it, it was a good gig, we hit the zone - demoja

on living the hoodoo way

4/14/24   pg 10 of 97 pgs



hello all, finished mi memoir and happy with it
getting mi last feedback opinions and now
working on The Hoodoo Way

want to get it off mi plate cause
im eager to dig into mi novel

so this is the intro beat setting it up

going thru a crises, all mi students black, which
shows you where my head is, i still think of it as
the indigenous black spiritual system, still think
of myself as the tribal medicine worker

and all mi students, ie the next generation

serious about keep hoodoo exclusively black

whereas i have been trying to universalize the tradition

i would the hoodoo way be one
of the world's Great Ways

this text / the hoodoo way is trying to turn
the whole world onto hoodoo but i am
susceptible to keeping it black

what im thinking now is that you dont
actually have to be a hoodoo to live

the hoodoo way

this book will explore what it means

to live the Hoodoo Way

an African American Way

schedule is 10 pages
a day for ten days

two days off, so i wiill be done by
end of month, at which point i will
do novel, novel been bouncing round

in mi head, gon do it from scratch
this time -  see what shows up

so, everyday of the big push i will put
up an excerpt from that days work

-------------   

INVOCATION: let this work be a healing

in the beginning god created humanity
when humanity got too proud god created death
when death got too proud god created art



I am Flowers of the Delta Clan Flowers and the Line of O. Killens. This Text was
originally a 365 day Hoodoo Almanac structure designed to give guidance in your
Daily Grind. A year of transformation that represent a lifetime. But I was not happy
with the Product. It was Shallow and your boy don't do Shallow. Decided I would let
this be the one where I let it all hang out. I rarely say what I really feel for fear folk
will find it delusional. But I guess anytime you let your freak flag fly you delusional.

Since it does not appear to be commercially viable and I am running out of life might as
well do what I want to do. Speculate. So. Here we go. Meditations on the Hoodoo Way.

An interrogation of the Hoodoo Way designed to walk you thru a Transformative
Year that also reflect a Life as Pilgrimage. An attempt to refine your Daily Grind

in the Hoodoo Way. To define just what the Hoodoo Way is.

Folk hear hoodoo they generally thinking folkmagic hoodoo. Saverytime
hoodoo. 100 years out of date hoodoo. Spells, spirits, and black cat bones
hoodoo. Folk magic hoodoo back from when we was a folk peoples.

The Hoodoo Way is the indigenous African American spiritual tradition.
One of a family of Afrospiritual traditions in the Americas. Vodou, Lucumi,
Candomble, Obeah, et al. Mostly they religious traditions, fusions of
Catholicism and various African systems, Yoruba, Fon, Congo, Akan et al,

whereas hoodoo has traditionally been a folkmagic system. But the cutting
edge has long since moved into high magic. 21^st Century stylee.

Been a question in hoodoology on if hoodoo should remain tribal or go
universal, mi students, ie the next generation, vote tribal whereas I been
trying to universalize, thinking now maybe I can do both, work w/both hands

Working Premise: you don’t have to actually be a hoodoo to live the Hoodoo Way.

I would also like in this work to explore the concept of being a Contemporary Tribal
Healer. Mganga Maua. It is itself a Healing. Accordingly, this Text will also

serve as a meditation on Wisdom. It embarrass me how much I want
to be Wise. There are other aspirations. I want to be Spiritual. Illuminated.
A Healer. I want to be Sanctified. Artiste. But more than anything it appears,

I want to be Wise.

Accordingly, this aspires to be a Wisdom Text.

A Meditation on Wisdom.

A Griotic Guide to Empowerment. Designed to ground my teachings and enable
an iteration of hoodoo the whole world can sing. A global work of Tribal Healing by the
High Hoodoo of Memphis. So, let us begin. Let us stumble thru. The Hoodoo Way.

hello all, i just read an article that made my day
talking about bidens political style and how that
is what is causing folk to judge him old while
trump gets a pass bec he does not evolve / change

said biden 'late style' is more solemn
than the glad hander he was before


but it was this concept of 'late style'
that gives me hope, that often artist
take wild style swings as they age out
and often produce some of their best work

In criticism, to speak of a late style is to highlight the way certain artists,
at the end of their careers, enter a new and distinctive phase of creativity.
Sometimes they produce a succession of masterpieces that both fulfill and
transcend the promise of the earlier work: Richard Wagner’s final run of
operas; the three major novels Henry James published at the start of the
20th century; the movies Martin Scorsese is making now. In other cases,
an older artist will revisit familiar themes with a new sense of playfulness
and freedom, like Henri Matisse making cutouts, Shakespeare
bending the rules of genre in “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Tempest”
or Bob Dylan reshuffling the pages of his own songbook.

And then there are those artists who swerve in a more radical,
dissonant direction. “The maturity of the late works,” the German
theorist Theodor Adorno wrote of Ludwig van Beethoven, “does
not resemble the kind one finds in fruit. They are, for the most
part, not round, but furrowed, even ravaged.”

this comes to me just as i am trying one mo time
when this novel i been struggling w/for 30 years now

Well ellen, ive started another draft of rest
I m it seems unable to quit trying

this time I kept the 1^st para
the rest im rewriting from scratch

an old storyteller trying one last time
to make his story come to life

is the thread now

strictly fantasmigal, which was missing before

I wanted to depict a real conjuremans life
before but now that ive done that in the

memoir hopefully I can unleash
mi mythmaginations now

straight up speculative

and if not well all I know
to do is keep trying and if i

don’t win I will die surprised

 

 

The 2024 Memphite Reading

excerpted from The 2024 Memphite Readings, delivered
by Rdocs Traveling Medicine Show at the Temple of Stax
Memphis Tennessee, Feb 27^th, 2024


 
-----------------

welcome all you good peoples to the traveling show,
whatever ails you we will cure it for sure down at the
traveling medicine show -

we have gathered here in the name of grace,
and when my people gather together like this,
in peace and love and harmony, that place
that gathering place, this place, is holyground

welcome to the inaugural memphite readings, an
annual divination for memphis and the world from

the high hoodoos of memphis tennessee, devotees
of queen mother memphis, queen mother soul

during the civil war memphis was called the city of
sanctuary, throughout the delta the slaves heard the
drum proclaim, get to memphis and you free - get to
memphis and you free,

so, settle down dear pilgrim, while we take you on
a journey of discovery, a delta pilgrimage,

settle yourself around the sacred fire, while we
provide the visions wo which the people will perish

come be with us while we enact a healing, a great and glorious
healing, a healing  like no healing has ever been healing

we about to do divinity up in here, we gon do a healing

the memphite readings are designed to assess the coming
year and provide guidance for maximizing its potential, so
what is it that you need to know in order to maximize your
potential this year, what is it you need to know to achieve Fa

we here to tell you this gon be a rough year, the most obvious factor in play
is political, its gon to be a mean political season, expect the right wing

ascendency to come down harder on blackfolk, anyfolk, in this the 2^nd
reconstruction, expect reverses in affirmative action, education, labor, et al.

and that’s if our side win, if the other side wins we anticipate maximum chaos,
whichever way it go storm winds will blow, need to hunker down this year,
make yourself & your family impregnable, prepare yourself for rough water,

these are the trying times, concentrate on the fundaments, pay down that
debt, or operationalize it, those tensions been tearing at the family, air

them out, resolve them, your foundation gon have to
be strong, this will be a year of reverses and you must
be prepared to finesse the hammer - again & again

health: again, there will be reverses this year, a couple
of scares, deal with them in a timely manner, don’t
indulge temptation to avoid the hammer, deal with it,

foundational work, once your foundation strong start building,
not for today, this year gon be defense building for tomorrow

bad habits: toss them, they got to go,
nothing but good strong mojo in

crossroads: our neighborhoods must made places of safety,
security and astounding grace, step by step, inch by inch,
house by house, block by block we must take our cities back -

you see something need doing do it, do not wait for credit or
recompense, do it, playa, you are the rock upon which we stand,
dancing in the eye of the storm – o my god, look at you dance

fortify yourself for the hard times to come - consider an ancestral altar,
a quiet corner, photos and a plant maybe, some family heirlooms and
every year a day when the family stories are told - have them take a
chair, the mothers and grandmothers, grandfathers and great grands,
those who made a way out of no way so you could be here today,

call on them everyday - blow your horn
baba handy, blow that redemption horn

look at the condition of the world today its hard not to despair but
humanity has always met the test, we’ve climbed some difficult
mountains you and I, it is when times are hardest darkest, and

there is no hope that humanity reaches for their greater selves,
that’s when humanity embraces the divinity that resides in us all

this gon be a good year, pilgrim, gon be hardcore but its hardcore
that force you to grow strong , that’s what we need from you this
year, need you to be stronger tomorrow than you were today and

when you feel like you can’t go on, want to lay right down and die,
call on queen mother memphis, call on queen mother soul

& the next time you find yourself in struggle want you to remember
what the old root doctors said, every good by it aint gone, cause
you sick don’t mean you dead and trouble don’t last always

may your days be full of passion,
may your lives be full of grace,

may your work serve many generations,,
may gods blessings be on us all

my own wisdom tale #2

JAN 5 2024 the cuse

big ocean blues AI word by rdoc

im so proud of mmyself

so got this idea to do a wisdom tale for each
of my 52 segments in the hoodoo way
mmost of then retellings of tales from
global repertoirebut i really really want
to do my own in an attempt to found an
afrospiritual wisdom tale tradition

so was working on aug 23, service
and was trying to think of one of the
many wisdom tales of the workd i could
twist into an afroamm in the manner of
thw sufi tales built aound historical wise
folk and long story short i been frustrated
but this morning i twisted a memory
into a wisdom tale usinng two of mi

historical colleagues, louise merriwether
and bj ashanti, i am so proud of mmyself

this is the story for the Service segment
where i advocate for a Life of Service

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

me and the great poet bj ashanti was once walking down
harlem's 125th street with queen mother merrweather when
we passed a nasty drunk sprawled on the sidewalk halfass
in the street, we stepped around him as did all the other
pedestrians when the queen mother chastise us severely,
how you gon call yourselves of the elect when you
capable of leaving a fellow human lying in the gutter

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

me figuring out i can use actual memories and
other folks wisdom moments is a big deal
and it facilitates me mythworking mi colleagues

life is good, god
i love the arena

 

the hoodoo way: jan1: invocation

midnight on beale: AI word by rdoc

THE HOODOO WAY: JAN1:  invocation

I am doing a Work, The Hoodoo Way: Pilgrimage and Transformation.
Gon be meditations on the hoodoo way. I call it mi Codex. It was originally a
Hoodoo Almanac but I didn’t like the Product. Decided I would let this Text
be the one where I would let my freak flag fly. Ima speculate all over the
page on this one. I would also like in this work to explore the concept of
being a Contemporary Tribal Healer. The High Hoodoo of Memphis.
Forge a Text that is in itself a Healing. This Text will also serve as a
meditation on Wisdom. It embarrasses me how much I want to be Wise.
This comes in part from mi griotic pursuits. One of my goals as a griot /
storyteller is to found a Wisdom Tales tradition in Afrospiritual Literature.
Accordingly, this aspires to be a Wisdom Text. I want to make the pursuit of
wisdom an integral component of the Hoodoo Way - and African American culture.

So. Let this work of Tribal Healing be an Ancestral Offering, a 52 beat weekly
structure representing a Year / Life as Pilgrimage. Plan is to drop a weekly
excerpt on social media. Promotion. Feedback. Working the Board. So, let us
begin. A Pilgrimage Year. Eh. Let us stumble thru. The Hoodoo Way:

in the beginning god created humanity
when humanity got too proud god created death
when death got too proud god created art

amatuers borrow, professionals steal

hello world, sent this out to mi crew


beale street sally  AI word by rdoc

Amateurs Borrow, Professionals Steal

Hello everybody, a quick word about plagiarism
cause im looking at the long knives coming for Gay

got to use this as a Teaching Moment

they always do and you cant leave any vulnerabilities
in your work for them to discredit you

every writer ‘plagiarizes’, its how you become the
latest word on a subject, you suck up everything

from the folk who have grappled with this subject
before and you try to be the next step

in literary myth Hemmingway told Faulkner

(actually lennon stole from TS Elliot who said
"amatuer poets borrow, mature poets steal"
lennon plagiarized him and lennons version stuck

amateurs borrow professional steal
referring to act of research digestion

got to digest it and spit it out transformed

you can kinda tell when a writer has
not fully digested their research

plagiarism happens when you did not fully chew it up

but sometimes you got those undigested research
passages and you vaguely think this is not my voice

but by that time you’ve lost track of what is and what isn’t,

if you get that little twinge, play with it some more
the easiest kill is changing the narrative format

now you can get away with it at this stage

your profile is not high enuf for the Long Knives
to come after you, but if you do become the

Cultural Forces you training to be

its likely the Long Knives will come after you
and try to discredit your work, in your Lifetime
or after you are Gone

So always write defensively

As artists and mystics we have more room
to roam than academics but still

Fort Pillow plays a large part in my novel where
Nathan Forrestt killed black soldiers during Civil War

I had written this scene of overrunning the fort
like it was the Alamo, or Fort Apache

then thought I need to Walk the Ground

(always Walk the Ground  if you can
I once used gooogle world to walk the
streets of Timbucktu, just in case . .;)

they have rebuilt Pillow outside memphis as a southern shrine,
so I went, it’s a dirt berm with canons,, if I had published

my alamo version in my attempt to discredit forrests myth
the southern apologists woulda laughed me off the Board

“old colored boy don’t know what he talking about
Gen forrest smoked him like he did them others

one more point I studied w/ the babajohn for 16 years
and folk often ask what did you study for 16 years

Well 1st he taught us how to write 

Then he taught us to be writers
how to live by the Code

Then how to get published 

Then distribution and promotion 

Then how to be Cultural Forces

Taught us to be Visionaries 

Taught us to be Playas

My job is helping you navigate all the moves, all of them

And point out the ambushes so you see them before they see you

be safe be productuve

the hole in the wall

dec11 8:18 pm:  the cuse

hello world


questing :  word ai by rdoc

i dropped my phone, it hit an edge
and now there is a green light hicky
minimal little thing on my screen and
images now and its kind distracting
i assume i can get used to it

even now i mostly dont notice until
every once in awhile im conscious of it

its such a little thing im trying to just
live with it and i started thinking of it
as a hole in the wall to get right w/it

cause its kinda interesting, no matter what -
news, movies, photos, apps, games, etc

there is that little green light hickey shining
thru like its a hole in the universe

like it doesnt follow the basic rules of physics
its unchanging no matter what

and its like a spot between dimensions,
or rather a wormhole (?) between
dimensions and i speculate

i can get access to these dimensions thru
this hole in the wall / hole in the universe

okay this is me just riffing speculative
if a thought pops in mind write it down

decided i was gon let my freak flag fly this
draft and go deep, but trying to go deep

crippled me into writers block, but once i
decided what i had wasnt as bad as the

industry says it is i just revised
as always and im moving finally

not as deep and speculative as i want it to be
but whatever it is im writing it - and i got a dec 31
deadline - and i cant afford no fucking writers block

ima just do what i do,

but when speculative thoughts intrude
make note, come here and speculate

seeds to be nurtured when i get a moment
i want to take this text off the deep end

be safe be productive

 

 

 

ON SPECULATION

i should do a bit on speculaltion
what do i meannw hen i say ima speculate ob this one
i mean that i am going to take conceptual leaps that will
be short on causal logic, ima go deep meditative and
start channeling the great mojo or asomething

okay, interesting, when i started talking
about 'channeling the great nojo that was
an example of what im calling speculative

but when i added - or something
that was my logical intellectual self
qualifying the speculative leap
seems im willing to go specualtive
bt only with the training wheels on


okay what happening here, im free associating
annd geeralling roughly speculative beats

whhst i got to do is lean into this
go forward doing my pedestrian spiritual advice
but venture into the speculative as much
as possinle genearting these little seeds thaT
hopefully will bear fruit

this is what i did yesterday
chatoic, still early draft

but its the content im not happy with
still feels like little basic almanac advice
i want to operate on a higher deeper plane

what i assume is the more i work on it
the more the speculative will come to the fore

i want to start easy and wind them up
introduce them gradually to where i am

okay this is an example of old draft
not bad but not breathtaking

i want breathtaking

i got 12 months to do in 12 days
this is the week of jan 29


11 months to go, 12 days, thats like a
month a day, god help mme, i dont have
a chnce in hell of making that cut
but that wont stop me from trying

want to be a writer you got to be capable
of feats that would defy a normal person

im gon do this, i have never failed to do this
im going to drive myself into a wall that will
threaten my health and well being but ima
do this, and at the end of this process

ima have a draft

thats what i live for

drafts

what will happen (ive done this before)
i will be a week or so behind deadline sch
1st week in january soemwhere, the last

two weeks i will be desperate and fiending on the
page and this is the key to making it happen:

my standards will fall, by the end i will be accepting
work i would not accept as done now, a trashy draft
perhaps but it wll be a draft

it will take an act of god to cause
me to actually miss a deadline

i got to go

i am underwater

be safe be productive

all my love

 

JAN29:   LIFE LICKS & PATTERNS

come, let us build on solid ground

Good Game require a good foundation and healthy lifestyle patterns.

Difficult to evolve if you haven’t mastered the basics of life - shelter, finances, relationships, etc – agency. And what about your daily grind? Does it take care of your needs and responsibilities. If not address this w/the quickness. grounding yourself is a critical 1^st step. Establishing a functional life pattern addressing the issues in your life. Identifying life patterns that are not really working for you and tweaking as necessary.

Lifestyle patterns are a mix of behaviors habituated into patterns. Your customary ways of dealing with the challenges of life. Often these instinctive patterns are outdated remnants of earlier coping strategies that are no longer effective - or at least no longer optimal. Isolate and assess -  is this a pattern, is it an effective pattern, how did it evolve, when did I adopt this pattern, to address what need, is that need still operative, is this pattern still viable - or is it costing me?

Okay we have pondered the imponderable. We have committed to a spiritual approach to life. Okay, lets get out in the arena. Let’s implement new protocols.

Life – messy exuberant heartbreaking life. Let’s start w/love. A primal force. o love come bless me, again and again.

There is no force quite like love, Love enhances everything it touches. Love of self, love of mate, family and friends. Love of all humanity and all things. Love of love. Consider love in our lives - how can it be enhanced. There are many variants of love, family love, friend love, stranger love but the love folk struggle with is romantic love. The fusion of two souls as one is not without its challenges. There are few human endeavors as prone to failure as love & happiness. A good mate is the very definition of grace.

In particular those with whom you share a home. Ain’t no   blessing quite like domestic tranquility. Addressing issues in their infancy, bringing them out into the open, resolving it / them one way or the other. If left alone and unseen it will fester and the offending limb removed.

Long term love is knowing and accepting those irritating imperfections of your mate while consistently calling on their very best. The very conscious decision – I can deal w/this - someone you willing to court for all your days.

Romantic love is good for getting folk together but it take Transformative Love to keep them together, adjustments made, lives coordinated, natures accepted - logic be damned.

Recalls me the time Wisdom and Love was in courtship of Grace. To test them she let it be known that she had died. When they hear she dead Wisdom decided no need to rush while Love set out right away.

Ponder love in your life. Is it healthy love. How can it be healthier. Express it in new and illuminating ways. Be creative on / with / in love. Not just for your mate / family / friends but all god creature great and small - fill your life w/love.

Healthy families are in a constant state of adaptation, maintaining ongoing communication about the difficult things, managing inevitable family tensions, making time for family so when you in need family makes time for you. Be a font of harmony in family matters, calm troubled waters, be willing to make the 1st move, generosity of spirit an absolute must.

On parenting: is it ever done. Your job is to provide a healthy environment conducive to their growth as enlightened citizens of the world. Stability / achievement in whatever life they so choose, encouraging their efforts to find their own way, protecting and defending till they old enuf to protect and defend you.

And you, chillen:  enjoy your youthful days on your parent’s dime. Once you have crossed the threshold of maturity you will find the responsibilities reversed, your own children as inexplicable as you once were. Enjoy your days of youth but reach for maturity quick as you can. The future is your responsibility.

And ye grands:  positioning yourself as familial resources, repositories of family history and wisdom - honored elders worth your keep. In each generation there will be a keeper of the line, the responsible one, the conscious one, I fear that’s you, Dear Traveler, yeah you, the one w/this book in your hand, ready to walk on higher ground, the one person in each generation that takes on the responsibility of maintaining the family bonds, o ye keepers of the line – we salute you, with all my heart & soul; I salute you

The capacity for Hard Work is perhaps the single most significant indicator of success in life. Without the capacity for hardwork no vision becomes reality. Good work habits are a critical rite of passage.

Most any effort of worth require good work habits, getting a good job and holding it, achievement of any sort. Accept no excuses for not getting your work done. Conditions are never perfect, never right. Get your work done and conditions are perfect  - by definition.

Most any serious project will take years to develop / implement / maintain - be ruthless, be strategic, constantly refining your production / discipline / getting more bang for your buck, mastering time management principles, living by the clock - sometimes you feel good about it, sometimes you don’t, what, pray tell, does how you feel have to do with getting your work done.

Constantly retool your skills to stay on the cutting edge so you are not left behind in the constant scruff of change. Abhor marginalization in any shape, form or fashion, be indispensable, twice as good as anybody else, so good you cannot be denied.

I notice that I attach suffix work to almost everything - godwork, soulwork, codework - saying something about effort, I guess. Anything worth having you have to work for it. The fruit of planning / execution / perseverance. Work hard, work smart, then maybe, just maybe, maybe you got a chance.

Always be willing to do a little bit more than anybody else would.

The importance of relationships in your life, on understanding people you dealing with in order to achieve desirable outcomes. The importance of family relationships, your 1^st and last line of defense. The importance of family / friends / associates / teammates / neighbors / strangers / all tings. What I call concentric circles of care

I need my money. Everybody need they money, everybody need to be financially astute. Hard to get your head right if you can’t pay your bills. Pay down your debt / or operationalize it, depending on your level of play. And always be prepared for financial reverses, always be prepared to take the hammer, always have a cushion in reserve. Once you have mastered the basics apply yourself to advanced financial literacy, capital formation, institution building estate planning, etc etc. Work it, Playa. But do recall money don’t drive you. Making a difference is what drive you. Don’t squander your life / resources on fronting and blinging. Spending your money wisely is more important than how you make it - get your game on, Playa. So when the conch horn call you got resources to bring to the table.

It's a calling. The one thing you do better than anybody else could, the one thing speak truth to your soul. Determine what it will take to excel in your chosen field, determine if you willing to invest the commitment, the discipline, the years, the training, the positioning. Then again sometimes work just a grind, something you must endure, at this too I will excel, such is life – shalabongo.

Learn how to make a good living in your society, master a skill valued in it, a skill that you enjoy, one that gives you and yours the possibility of a secure future. Try many things till you find the one that fit you, something you like doing, something that utilize your particular skillset, that feed your particular passions and contributes social value. Let that thing become your lifes work and spend your days getting paid to do what you would gladly do for free.

of making many books

hello world

i am working on an afroam holybook
the hoodoo book of flowers
there is an earlier draft on amazon

got the idea traveling cross country on
a greyhound, strungout and brokedown
looking to resurrect myself when I

read a watchtower pamphlet about what
a new spiritual tradition would have to do to
be competitive, said a new trad had to:

be a true advance in human understanding and empowerment / had to promote truly universal fellowship instead of just that of the believer / had to provide a realistic 21st century alternative to established traditions / one closer to the truth of things / had to enable a moral, ethical life, one of wisdom and understanding / had to be a tolerant, loving way / asking the very best of its adherents / had to be an evolved understanding wrapped up in an appealing mythology / said the true test of a good, healthy spiritual tradition is that its adherents lead good, healthy lives / brimming with strength & meaning, beauty & grace / that they build strong, healthy communities / asked do its believers benefit / does it provide a coherent all-encompassing worldview / is it a cosmology by which its believers can understand and manifest the meaning and purpose of life / asked what laws does it set forth to regulate human life and living / are these laws of life as consistent and fundamental as gravity, / does it inspire its believers in the struggle and challenges of life / does it provide in times of need / does it comfort in times of despair / does it renew the weary and guide the strong / does it nourish the spirit / does it celebrate life / are its believers healthy, wealthy and wise, strong and enlightened, productive and respected / do they live lives rich in contentment, achievement and significance / does it give its believers power in the world / power in the spirit / the power to master the flesh and the baser nature / the power to triumph over evil, within and without / does it give them the power to tap their fullest human potential / to make them godlike / does it deliver unto its believers a miracle working power / are they a beautiful people / are they blessed / is it an open gate, o traveler, a point of contact with the divine / the supreme power of the universe / the great mojo in its many names and infinite manifestations -

and i thought wouldnt it be nice to
do a text does all that and boom

i had my mojo back

wrote down the notes of what it said a trad
should do then, this excerpt come out of my memoir
but its too much their words, too little mine

i got to fiddle with it more, hemmingway said
amateurs borrow, professionals steal

and this has not been fully digested yet

ima play with it

 

ADDENDUM

THIS IS WHAT I ENDED UP WEANING ALLL
THAT WORDAGE DOWN TO, MADE IT MINE:


All traditions must periodically reform themselves.
If the African Way is to survive the inroads oof those
hunting African souls as they once hunted bodies,
it will have to be a Better Way. An enlightened and
empowered Way. A true advance in spiritual
understanding and evolution in an appealing
mythology of universal value - one closer to the
truth of things, finessing them all with strategic
grace, with hoodoo blessings, forging a globalized
culture to strong / illuminated / powerful / beautiful that
everybody in the world want to claim the African Way.

My understanding is the true test of a good, healthy
spiritual tradition is that its adherents lead good,
healthy lives, brimming with strength & meaning,
beauty & grace. That they build strong, healthy
communities. An open gate, o traveler. A door to the
divine, the supreme power of the universe, the Great
Mojo in its many names and infinite manifestations.

ancestral positionings:  ai word by rdoc

hello world

i am working on an afroam holybook
the hoodoo book of flowers
there is an earlier draft on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Hoodoo-Book-Flowers-Great-Generations/dp/1734101911/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YR5ZKNWOHEKW&keywords=the+hoodoo+book+of+flowers&qid=1701961510&sprefix=the+hoodoo%2Caps%2C141&sr=8-1

got the idea traveling cross country on
a greyhound, strungout and brokedown
looking to resurrect myself when i

read a watchtower pamphlet about what
a new spiritual tradition would have to do to
be competitive, said a new trad had to:

be a true advance in human understanding and empowerment / had to promote truly universal fellowship instead of just that of the believer / had to provide a realistic 21st century alternative to established traditions / one closer to the truth of things / had to enable a moral, ethical life, one of wisdom and understanding / had to be a tolerant, loving way / asking the very best of its adherents / had to be an evolved understanding wrapped up in an appealing mythology / said the true test of a good, healthy spiritual tradition is that its adherents lead good, healthy lives / brimming with strength & meaning, beauty & grace / that they build strong, healthy communities / asked do its believers benefit / does it provide a coherent all-encompassing worldview / is it a cosmology by which its believers can understand and manifest the meaning and purpose of life / asked what laws does it set forth to regulate human life and living / are these laws of life as consistent and fundamental as gravity, / does it inspire its believers in the struggle and challenges of life / does it provide in times of need / does it comfort in times of despair / does it renew the weary and guide the strong / does it nourish the spirit / does it celebrate life / are its believers healthy, wealthy and wise, strong and enlightened, productive and respected / do they live lives rich in contentment, achievement and significance / does it give its believers power in the world / power in the spirit / the power to master the flesh and the baser nature / the power to triumph over evil, within and without / does it give them the power to tap their fullest human potential / to make them godlike / does it deliver unto its believers a miracle working power / are they a beautiful people / are they blessed / is it an open gate, o traveler, a point of contact with the divine / the supreme power of the universe / the great mojo in its many names and infinite manifestations -

and i thought wouldnt it be nice to
do a text does all that and boom

i had my mojo back

wrote down the notes of what it said a trad
should do then, this excerpt come out of my memoir
but its too much their words, too little mine

i got to fiddle with it more, hemmingway said
amatuers borrow, professionals steal

and this has not been fully digested yet

ima play with it