“BaNtu Waltz ~ Nya’s Archangel Story”

Book Cover Image

IMANI~Faith

“The Kingdom of Heaven is already within You; if you understand Your Self You will find It… Seek peacefully, You will find.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

KUUMBA~Creativity

“People need images. Lacking them they invent idols. Better then to found the images on realities that lead the True Seeker to the Source… Images are nearer reality than cold definitions.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

NIA~Purpose

“You must learn to increase your sense of responsibility and understanding of the truth that everything you do will have its consequences… You will free yourself when you learn to be neutral and follow the instructions of your heart without letting things perturb you. This is the way of Ma’at… Know.Thy.Self.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

UbuNtu ~ Black Lotus

SKIPPER’S LOG / ANCESTRAL ENTRY DATE: December 21, 2017 December 30, 2024 [Gregorian]

A Black Moon is rising tonight – December 30th, 2024 [Gregorian]. Showing up as the 2nd New Moon in a Gregorian calendar month or alternatively as the 4th New Moon in any 3-month season, the Black Moon is described as the opposite of a Blue Moon where the same criteria applies, but only in specific regard to the Full Moon. As Earth’s only natural satellite, the Moon in general is a key player in the trifecta relationship with the Sun that creates humanity’s organic rhythm and flow of light & dark, night & day, moon phases & eclipses, weather & seasons, gravitational pull on Earth’s oceans, and so on. As the feminine Yin energy in this celestial transaction, the Moon’s associations are with darkness, coolness, receptivity, & inward/spiritual (5D+) focus. This is particularly so in its Black Moon phase, which is occurring this year within the 2024-2025 season of Major Lunar Standstillsa once-in-every-18.6 years season. All this, of course, counterbalances the masculine Yang dynamic outward (3D) expressions of the Sun’s heat, light, & annual solstices/‘solar standstills’ which the Moon mirrors to varying degrees & effects in its ongoing cycles.

Black Moons, though rare (a once in a 33-month occurrence per estimates) are not a visible phenomenon. According to timeanddate, the astronomical designation itself was not well-known until recent years when Black Moon became a popular term through its usage by “social media, astrologers, followers of the Wiccan religion,” and Paganists “who believe certain actions become more potent when performed on the night of a Black Moon.” The reverent belief in a Divine who is spiritually present and consciously evolving in the cyclically ordered natural/celestial worlds through processes such as reincarnation is held by many. Some adherents argue that the official religious teaching about the Garden of Eden is bait-and-switch propaganda by Euro patriarchal biblical scribes, scholars & proselytes to popularize the narrative of Eve as Adam’s “wife/partner” rather than her more vexing predecessor, Lilith – humanity’s original Feminine ancestor who is associated with the Black Moon. Alternatively the Anglican name or term “Eve” means the day/period/evening before an important event… in this case, Human Genesis.

The name Adam is generally accepted in the west as an Anglicized version of the Hebrew word Adamahmeaning “Soil/Dust” of the Earth out of which a male Biblical God is said to have created original man in His own image. Lilith, Adam’s “first Eve,” was similarly said to have been created from dust by the same God. She lived in the Garden of Eden with Adam, until the point when Adam tried to sexually dominate if not rape her. Troubled by what she experienced as Adam’s toxic disregard of her as his co-equal, Lilith fled the Garden in her bid for independence… Never to return. Thereafter, Lilith – who remains a controversial figure in Jewish folklore – was characterized as “disobedient,” and rendered in various texts and artistic depictions as a “succubus” and a “demoness” rather than as the “first Eve. In their revised version, Euro-patriarchal Biblical scribes presented Eve as being fashioned from Adam’s rib out of their amended premise that primeval man ‘birthed/hatched’ Eve to be a lowly helpmate fit for him [Gen 2:18].     

Many see Lilith as the earliest independent woman who fled the oppression she experienced in the masculine-biased Biblical space of the Garden of Eden. The Europatriarchal version of Lilith became associated with a chaotic and demonic brand of dark feminine energy”… an insatiable envy which reportedly led her to target brides and young mothers as she seduced, harmed, and was simultaneously blamed for instilling fear in the hearts of otherwise “strong” men. The controversial narrative and misogynistic labeling and policing that Lilith was thus victimized by attest to what she endured in her journey, even beyond Eden as the serpent-beguiled “second Eve” was simultaneously being set up by Euro patriarchal Biblical scribes to be the scapegoat reason for the fall of ‘man‘ = Adam personified.

In the Garden of Eden where Human Genesis actually occurred (according to archaeological evidence), the word “Binadamu” in Swahili – meaning “Human” in the collective sense – derives from the word Damumeaning “Blood.” Not only is this supported phonetically by the Anglicized Biblical version, but it also centers the true “first Eve as a co-creative Goddess presence with monthly [damu/blood] Moon cycles from her womb which, along with the masculine seed of Adam, is crucial for the perpetuation of “Binadamu”the Human race. As the organ that pumps blood throughout the body & processes emotions, the Heart is likewise centered in their co-creative “Binadamu” journey & narrative. The astrological symbol for Black Moon Lilith simultaneously evokes the primal melanin energy of humanity’s First/Original Couple as well as resembling a harvesting tool, all of which is echoed in the Biblical Song of Songs (a more cohesive Eden/Genesis ⇔ Revelation account for me), beginning with the Shulamite’s call: “I am Black and Comely O Ye Daughters of Jerusalem…” [SoS1:5]

In astronomical terms, Black Moon Lilithis the position in the Moon’s orbit when it’s furthest from Earth. Experts &/or readers of Astrology will analyze the hidden, taboo, or shadow parts of a client’s personality from the Black Moon Lilith point in their birth chart – the self-confessional booth where one’s true desires have been kept secret to avoid judgment, criticism, rejection, &/or ouster by patriarchal authors and enforcers of their egoic eden” dogmas. For Africans and others, Earth as we know it was pirated by a self-serving elite which hijacked organic space-time to promote, implement & police its self-serving industrial matrix programs [slavery, colonialism, apartheid/“apart-hate” etc…] and predatory 3D agendas during the receding Age of Pisces with its Biblical prescriptions & justifications. So, like Black Moon Lilith, perhaps humanity is heeding the call to it’s own independence by purging the parasitic neo-colonial remnants of divisive progams that were designed to systemically lower our co-creative frequency. By reclaiming ubuNtu – the unity-consciousness energy that is the Divine Order of a holistic Eden – Binadamu empowers itself to ascend out of its collective matrix-weary trauma and resurrect Heaven-on-Earth’s true sovereignty and promise of the budding golden era some call the Age of Aquarius.

Rare and enigmatic, the Black Lotus AKA Black Lily is the flower most used to represent Lilith due to its mystery, creative power, and beauty… a blossom that arises from primordial waters as evidence of its inner (5D+) evolution. The darkness of the Black Lotus suggests the duality and complexity of Lilith’s independent and potentially dangerous nature. In contrast to the purity and innocence a standard Lily would represent, the Black Lotus is seen as a plant that blooms in the darkness, further reinforcing her association with defiance against an established order, such as the synthetic matrix imposed on humanity’s organic space-time coordinates during the receding Age of Faith/Pisces which Africa in particular experienced as slavery [1619-], (neo)colonialism [1884-], apartheid [1948-], etc… Humanity’s organic womb was unilaterally renamed after Grandmother of Europe, Victoria, who presided over the rape, pillage, and gerrymandering of what God Djehuti referred to as The Temple of the World. At this Temple, the sacred bond called Sema Tawy was established in the Early Dynastic Period [c3150-2613 BCE] to unify Khmt’s South & North kingdoms and to hold as sacrosanct organic Divine Order/Ma’at. This constitutionalized union was symbolized as a human trachea arising from the lungs (Heart-chakra) entwined with the papyrus (north) & lotus (south).

Sema Tawy was clearly not the guiding principle of a hierarchal industrializing global “north” towards the global “south” where, according to proselytizing missionaries and their Gutenberg-Pressed narratives, their God of Genesis [1:26-28] had mandated the aggressive exploitation of organic Eden’s spiritual, human, natural, & cultural resources. However, recent events in African space-time provide fascinating high-profile revelations of a fully engaged Black Lotus/”south”: (1) Elizabeth II [r.1952-2022] – great-great grand-daughter to the colonizing Grandmother of Europe, Victoria [r.1837-1901] – was monarch during Britain’s 2020 tempest in a teacup dubbed “Megxit,” stirred in the social realm by The Firm’s systemic inflexibility in the face of Binadamu’s evolved 21st-century sensibilities. The 2021 naming of the California-born 7th in line to the British throne as Lilibet in honor of Elizabeth II, triggered further hypocritical tantrums from those whose very historical identity, laundered through the Church of England, involved the renaming of people and stolen resources, including the primal waters of true Eden, after the Victorian ‘god’ of Africa’s colonial Genesis. So, little surprise perhaps that the Nov. 2024 resignation of this same Church’s Archbishop would morph into a racist hue & cry against Meghan, Lilibet’s mother, whose 2018 marriage to 5th in line Prince Harry was presided over by Abp. Welby who later presided over the funeral of QE2 [2022] and ensuing coronation of KC3 [2023]. (2) Meanwhile, across the pond it was the hope of many that a Herstoric new day would dawn out of the 2024 #47 POTUS election. And I, for one, am instead left in the aftermath [“2nd Coming”?!] having to ponder over the ironic yet profound significance of the Sanskrit name Kamala – ΑΚΑ “Lotus”…?!

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” [Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.]… “Look not upon me because I’m Black, because the sun hath looked upon me…” [Song of Songs 1:6]… Binadamu wanafungua ukurasa Humanity is turning the page Blessed Be  

“In every vital activity, it is the Path/Free-quency that matters… A house has the character of the Man who lives in it… If you search for the laws of Harmony [UbuNtu/Ma’at], you will find Knowledge… The best and shortest road toward knowledge of Truth is NatureThe Kingdom of Heaven is already within you; if you understand yourself you will find it… The body is the house of the God/dess. That is why it is said, ‘Wo/Man Know Thy Self’… By knowing one reaches belief. By doing one gains conviction. When you know, dare… You will free yourself when you learn to be neutral and Follow the Instructions of Your Heart without letting things perturb you. This is the way of Ma’at [UbuNtu]…”~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

UJAMAA~Cooperative Economics

“When the governing class isn’t chosen for quality it is chosen for material wealth: this always means decadence, the lowest stage a society can reach… Envious greed must govern to possess and ambition must possess to govern.” ~Proverbs from Ipet Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

UJIMA~Collective Work & Responsibility

“Organization is impossible unless those who know the laws of harmony lay the foundation… Social good is what brings peace to family and society.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

KUJICHAGULIA~Self-Determination

“The body is the House of God/dess. That is why it is said, ‘Man/Woman Know.Thy.Self’… All is within your Self. Know your most inward Self and look for what corresponds with it in Nature.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut

❤ ❤ ❤❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

UMOJA~Unity

“All organs work together in the functioning of the whole… If you search for the laws of harmony, you will find knowledge.” ~Proverbs from Ipet-Resyt [“Southern Sanctuary”] of God Amun & Goddess Mut 

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

KWANZAA

Read More

Embers of 5D

SKIPPER’S LOG / ANCESTRAL ENTRY DATE: December 13, 2017 December 22, 2024 [Gregorian]

❄️Happy Solstice!❄️

It’s that moment when the Sun (Latin: “sol”) stands still (Latin: “sistere”) in The Eternal Dance with Mother Earth before reversing direction on Her Dancefloor. At this (December 22nd, 2023) point in the choreography of these literal Life Partners, the Sun has reached its annual southern limit over Earth‘s Tropic of Capricorn, marking a shift in Earth’s seasons which registers in the Northern Hemisphere as the shortest day and longest night of the year. This Winter Solstice event is a death-of-sorts, signaling the start of a 3-day transitional mourning period which ends on Dec 25th when it then becomes for some a time to celebrate the “Resurrection or Birth of the Sun.” According to scholars, Christianity personified this solar activity by creating a Euro-patriarchal Savior-figure with a formal “Christmas” birth-date that corresponds to the climax of this natural annual event [see “Caesar’s Messiah…” link @43:00]. Read More

Nakumbuka Day [Guest Post]

NAKUMBUKA DAY ~ Mwalimu Baye-Kes-Ba-Me-Ra

One aspect of African liberation is finding a way to bring some psychological, emotional and spiritual closure to the trauma we have experienced in the last five hundred years also known as the MAAFA (African Slave Holocaust).  The Maafa has been the least discussed human tragedy in the past five hundred years by African people among themselves, yet this segment of African human time has crippled a continent, its people and its children of the Diaspora.  What has probably made this tragedy even more horrific has been the inability of its victims to talk about it freely, openly and express their grief without shame or embarrassment.

Yet enough has never been written about the affects and effects of this holocaust on the social, economic and cultural evolution of the African continent and the children that it lost due to the genocidal nature of an emerging European Capitalism seeking free labor to build its cultural empire.  The European aggression against African people reached a hundred year apex of violence and brutality as one hundred years of the trade in human beings destroyed and erased the existence of whole villages, peoples, traditions, rituals, ceremonies, histories and languages. At the apex of this barbarity it has been estimated that 60 to 90 million African lives were lost in the Middle Passage, not to mention the huge toll of African human life lost on plantations in the Caribbean, North America, Central America, South America and Europe. Read More

The Beautyful Ones…

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Ayi Kwei Armah’s debut novel (published in 1968), owes its title to the misspelled inscription on a bus in Ghana where the story is set. It opens during the final months in 1965 of President Kwame Nkrumah’s rule as Ghana’s first post-colonial president, and closes with the coup that ousted him on February 24th, 1966. This period in Ghana’s history is filled with rampant poverty; overdependence on foreign capital and goods; corruption & bribery as the order of business; and other ills that have plagued Africa’s countries which followed Ghana into independence – all without the needed systemic changes that would mitigate the stagnation and disillusionment of Africans who’d only become inevitably ensnared in parasitic neo-colonial arrangements. Immersing his characters in putrid filth, rottenness, dirt, and scatological imagery as he airs out Ghana’s post-independence laundry through story, Armah leads the reader to the judgment on the novel’s final page – the misspelled bus inscription that becomes its title.

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born was widely praised but also criticized, most notably by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, who writes: Armah is clearly an alienated writer complete with all the symptoms. Unfortunately, Ghana is not a modern existentialist country. It is just a Western African state struggling to become a nation. So there is enormous distance between Armah and Ghana.… A man is never more defeated than when he is running away from himself. 

AUSAR [Osiris] ~ The ‘Beautyful’ One

In his preface to a new edition of the novel published by Per Ankh, Ayi Kwei Armah himself makes note of the criticism his novel received: “Much of it focused on [my] perceived artistry. There was a tendency …to contrast this supposed authorial virtuosity with the novel’s subject matter, rather inaccurately summed up as the pervasive negativity of the human condition in Africa. This bias didn’t surprise me, and I assumed it would take little time for some careful scholar to balance it by zooming in on the conceptual content of the title, which I think expresses the meaning of the text as accurately as any title can. It is a matter of some bafflement to me, therefore, that to date, as far as I know, no critical assessment has actually gone to that thematic core: the provenance of the concept and image of the beautyful ones. The phrase ‘The Beautiful One’ is ancient, at least 5,000 years old. To professional Egyptologists, it is a praise name for a central figure in Ancient Egyptian culture, the dismembered and remembered Osiris, a sorrowful reminder of our human vulnerability to division, fragmentation and degeneration, and at the same time a symbol of our equally human capacity for unity, cooperative action, and creative regeneration…

By the time I wrote the novel my impressions of Osiris, though still relatively disorganized, had evolved to the point where I was ready to recognize the image as a powerful artistic icon. Here, in mythic form, was the essence of active, innovative human intelligence acting as a prime motive force for social management. I have yet to come across an earlier, or more attractive image for the urge to positive social change.”

NEFERTITI ~ The Beautiful Woman Has Come’

For conceptual context, Armah could well have used another renowned ancient Egyptian figure whose name means the beautiful woman has come.” Queen Nefertiti, alongside her husband Pharaoh Akhenaten, established the monotheistic cult of Aten-worship – a ‘new world order’ in 14th century BCE which Akhenaten led from his worship center of Amarna. Egyptian artwork during Aten’s Amarna Period was also radically different from its predecessors. The imposed reforms of traditional culture and spirituality resulted in Aten’s legacy becoming that of Egypt’s despised ‘heretic king.’ Aten’s son and eventual successor, Tut’Ankh’Amun (formerly Tut’Ankh’Aten – meaning “the living image of Aten”) restored ancient Egypt’s cultural traditions around Amun and returned its worship center to Uaset (Gr. ‘Thebes’) during his reign. Hence his name change to Tut’Ankh’Amun.

The Nefertiti Bust – believed to have been crafted in 1345 BCE by Thutmose because it was found in his workshop in Amarna by German Ludwig Borchardt’s archaeological team in 1912 – has become one of the most copied works and iconic symbols of feminine beauty, which most associate with Egypt. Kept at various German locations since its “discovery,” the Nefertiti Bust is currently on display at the original  pre-WW2 display site of Neues Museum in Berlin. Germany, like most former colonial powers which have profited greatly off their stolen African artefacts, continues to resist Egyptian demands (since 1924) for the repatriation of Egypt’s Mona Lisa, as it were – the bust of Egypt’s ‘beautiful woman…’ Nefertiti.

In relation to Armah’s musings on Osiris/Ausar‘s symbolic relevance to Africa-writ-large, in ancient Egypt a true Queen [Auset] was said to be “She who sees Set and Heru.” Set – god of foreign oppression, chaos, violence, perversion, illness… – who usurped Egypt’s Heaven-on-Earth throne through murdering and dismembering Ausar, and then scattering his pieces [African diaspora] is evident from the predatory Eurocentric divide-&-conquer playbook which creates the parasitic matrix systems humanity experiences as slavery, (neo)colonialism, apartheid… through misappropriation & predatory control of Africa’s sovereign resources. Heru – Ausar & Auset’s posthumously-conceived son who avenges his father by defeating Set & restoring Heaven-on-Earth – is apparent in the post-Amarna role of regeneration Tut’Ankh’Amun played out of his allegiance to Amun, not Aten… #Sankofa.

FATHIA HALIM RITZK NKRUMAH ~ A ‘Beautyful’ First Lady of Ghana

The links between Egypt and Ghana go further than a background concept in Ayi Kwei Armah’s mythologically-based authorial imaginings. Fathia Halim Ritzk – a Coptic Egyptian who’d taught French prior to taking a job at a bank in Cairo – became First Lady of a newly independent Ghana when she married Kwame Nkrumah on New Year’s Eve 1957-58. According to published reports, Nkrumah – who succeeded Queen Elizabeth II on March 7, 1957 as ruler of Ghana – had set out to find himself a Christian wife from Egypt through his friend, Alhaji Saleh Said Sinare – one of the first Ghanaians to study in Egypt. Fathia was chosen out of five finalists. Despite her mother’s refusal to bless their union, Fathia’s marriage to Nkrumah took place at Christianborg Castle upon her arrival in Accra, Ghana. Unmoved by Nkrumah’s pan-African vision & bona-fides, Fathia’s mother – whose son had left Egypt with an English wife – had been reluctant to see another of her five children marrying a foreigner and leaving the country. Fathia returned to Cairo with their 3 children after the western-sponsored coup d’état that ousted Nkrumah on February 24, 1966. Nkrumah died in 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. Fathia died in Cairo in 2007. Both husband and wife lie buried side by side at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Ghana.

BRANFORD MARSALIS ~ The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born’

Titled after Ayi Kwei Armah’s book, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is also a 1991 jazz album by Branford Marsalis (tenor and soprano sax player) who leads a trio with Jeff “Tain” Watts and Robert Hurst. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the 2nd track on the album which peaked at #3 on the Top Jazz Albums chart. Wynton Marsalis, Branford’s trumpet-playing brother, makes a guest appearance on the album’s 4th track, Cain and Abel. Hailing from New Orleans Louisiana, the Marsalis brothers are world-renowned members of their multi-generational ‘First Family of Jazz.’ Wynton is often quoted as saying: “The bloodlines of all important modern American music can be traced to Congo Square.” 

Congo Square in New Orleans is a cultural and spiritual intersection which, like nearby Angola… was named after countries of origin of Louisiana’s predominant enslaved African population. Custodians of BaNtu oral-aesthetic traditions navigated this foreign space in ways that generated musical conversations (jazz, rhythm-&-blues, etc.). Guided by UbuNtuthe unity-conscious cultural philosophy which says “I am, because we are…” – African oral-aesthetic traditions became one of the greatest civilizing forces in America. BaNtu aesthetic quality or beauty – called KuNtu – is judged by how well cultural expression meets its art-for-life’s-sake cultural mandate towards the collective. In contrast to Manifest Destiny &/or Western Exceptionalism which were used to justify the enterprises of slavery, (neo)colonialism, apartheid, etc. – the so-called “white man’s burden” – UbuNtu has endured as a counteractive Africa-centered guiding & humanizing force.

PRINCE ~ The Beautiful Ones’

In a scene from his 1984 movie, Purple Rain, Prince delivered an unforgettable performance of a song titled The Beautiful Ones. Apparently the artist had already settled on the same as a title for his biography which he’d begun working on with writer and lifelong fan, Dan Piepenbring. Through the telling of Prince’s story, it seems the greater vision was for the co-written project to inspire and help cultivate a society of beautiful ones… be a “handbook for the brilliant community”… a how-to guide for black -musicians, -creatives, -collective ownership, -freedom… an authentic voice against racism, elitism, etc. & for positive social reform. An ancient proverb from Ipet-Resyt (the “southern sanctuary” and temple of Amun~Mut) says: When the governing class isn’t chosen for quality it is chosen for material wealth: this always means decadence, the lowest stage a society can reach. A fragmented version of Prince’s The Beautiful Ones was posthumously published and released exactly 5 years ago – on October 29th, 2019. So much has evolved on the community’s global streets since then…

Perhaps, as Ayi Kwei Armah suggests, a resurrected Ausar is rising out of the Babylonian ashes of a false ‘elite’ matrix through the Collective Ascension of a fragmented/degenerated Human Consciousness – and, like the proverbial Phoenix of old… The Beautyful Ones Are Now Being Reborn… Sankofa UbuNtu