The Younger Women are my Sisters and my Daughters. The barriers of race, religion, ethnicity, all fall before the face of Love. The Veil has been lifted and we all Rise as one. Daughters and Sisters My Purpose is to uplift you. Truly My Heart belongs and stands with the Sisters of Zion. The daughters of Tamar shall be desolate no longer. A Mother over Israel has come to Redeem them back to the fold. Under Her Wings she shall find peace and rest for her weary soul. For I hear the Great Archangel Gabrielle blowing her trumpet calling forth the exiled women summoning them back to Eden.
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.
Deborah – A Judge over Israel
Judges 4:4-5
New King James Version (NKJV)
4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.5 And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Judges 5:7
New King James Version (NKJV)
7 Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel,
Until I, Deborah, arose,
Arose a mother in Israel.
The museum Thanksgiving Day 2012 –
the museum is populated by a wonderful yet mysterious quiet & peace undisturbed by the frenetic masses. Silences punctuated only by flowing water, the endless hum and shifting of building machinery.
Even normal noises can be unsettling. Especially those associated with people. The building has become a living breathing organism Uttering creaks moans sighs groans from over 140 years of footfalls, voices, radios, songs, cantatas, the chiming of clocks, exclamations of awe & wonder. Whispers from a Victorian century long past to digital diversity.
Oh what secrets lie transfixed within these silent walls yearning for release.
The immortality of brick, mortar & steel record the march of ethnicities & nations who roam free these hallowed halls.
Sometimes the sudden interruption of footfalls becomes ominous, invading the sanctity of the Holy Sanctuary. Even the sound of my own steps is somewhat menacing. What spirits accompany me on perambulations among the saints and sinners?
The feeble burbling of the fountain stream’s half-hearted attempts to empty its essence, struggling to pollinate magnificent coins.
The day is at end, the light has faded. Now the night crew enters to continue the evening melody.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
Three years ago I experienced the thrill of turning 50. For me any birthday with a zero behind it was a special occasion. Each new decade signaled a new chapter in my life, a new beginning of sorts. I remembered when I turned 40 my Aunt Helen lovingly expressing to me the old adage, “Life begins at 40!” For me it really did. My 40s were a decade of singular accomplishments. I earned my B.A. at age 43; I reached a high level on the earning ladder at my then workplace; I was at my physical and sexual peak as a woman; and I had a new sassiness and vibe that enabled me to reach new heights on that climb to success.
My 50th birthday was exciting with friends taking me out to dinner, a beautiful birthday cake, balloons, flowers; but after the celebration was over a certain uneasiness set in. “Wow. I’ve lived over half my life.” The career I had carefully developed had hit a brick wall. In fact I seemed to hit a plateau in terms of career success. Then came “The Change”. I was not prepared. For puberty my mother and I had “The Talk”. However as I entered menopause my mother was long since gone on to her Heavenly reward and during this frightening period of my life my last link to the past, my beloved Aunt Helen passed away. I missed my Mom and my aunts terribly. Then horrible things were happening to my body that I did not understand. I sought explanations and some assistance from various GYNs. Their answers usually involved some sort of hormonal treatments which I instantly rejected since both my parents died from cancer. I decided I would just endure the deluge of sweat that engulfed my body day and night, drenching my clothes and making sleep impossible.
Of course I tried all types of holistic treatments. I do believe I’ve been through every herb and natural juices offered in the health food store. Nothing. No effect at all. I’ve decided it’s best to stay near the A.C., turn the fan on at night and keep bottled water with me at all times.
Menopause is an evil creature. She brought along her friends high blood pressure and arthritis to add to my daily pain and discomfort. Yes, this certainly was a ‘Change of Life’. Everything changed in my life, my diet, my ability to go up and down stairs without stopping for breath, the increased popping and cracking in my joints. I kind of felt like a human Rice Krispies, “Snap, Crackle, & Pop.” My mind was just as sharp and creative as it was at age 25 but I could not get my body in agreement with my mental desires.
But I told myself that I still had my good looks. Thanks to a fantastic gene pool and being a dark skinned African American Woman the saying, “Black don’t crack” is really true. Mind you this proverb only works if you took care of yourself when you were in your 20s, 30s and early 40s. I never smoked, did not do drugs, and only drank socially. I also exercised albeit moderately which kept me in fairly good physical condition. I’m also lucky that most of my family tend to be small people so I’ll never gain an extreme amount of weight.
However specific physical changes cannot be avoided. By the time I was 52 all my hair had turned white, seemingly overnight. Finally one day when I overheard a co-worker described me as the African-American lady with the white hair I knew I had to do something. The bubble burst. Reality set in. Oh My God! I look old! This would never do.
After conferencing with several women co-workers I decided upon L’Oreal Feria. First I started out brown because I had read that going back to my original color of black would just make me look hard and emphasize any lines my face might have. Finally I went red, no not Kool-Aid red like some of the pop stars but a spicy Fire Engine Red that matched my fiery personality. This was the time of my life to really experiment. After 40 more of the free spirit in me came out. I got tattoos on a yearly basis. Sometime after I turned fifty I had my belly button pierced but then my belly played a trick on me and I developed that menopausal belly bulge that comes to nearly all 50+ women.
Was this a chase after lost youth? No because I’ve always been a non-conformist. My parents were Free-Thinkers and they brought me up to be my own person. I remember when I decided to spike my hair back when I was in my 20s. My Dad thought I looked so wonderful that he took pictures of me and had them blown up to poster size. My parents support and encouragement fostered in me a self confidence that has enabled me to survive a multitude of challenges. It has given me a sustaining power. My mother and father always encouraged my creativity and insisted that I think for myself not just follow the script handed to us by society in general.
For me the next 50 years will be a celebration of maturity and individuality with lots of creativity and a little bit of insanity thrown in for good measure.
Donations and Freewill offerings can be made directly to my PayPal account deborah.palmer280@gmail.com
Please sow into this psychological socially effective ministry
“Oh, why have your people forced on me the name of Pauline Johnson? Was not my Indian name good enough? Do you think you help us by bidding us forget our blood? By teaching us to cast off all memory of our high ideals and our glorious past? I am an Indian. My pen and my life I devote to the memory of my own people. Forget that I was Pauline Johnson, but remember always that I was Tekahionwake, the Mohawk that humbly aspired to be the saga singer of her people, the bard of the noblest folk the world has ever seen, the sad historian of her own heroic race.”
Nobody knows my name or the real me except Jesus and him alone. Some ancestors unwillingly pulled from the breast of Mother Africa the others walked the “Trail of Tears”. Both had forced upon them the indoctrination of Euro-centric Christianity to the detriment of each noble culture.
A few months ago I traced my maternal ancestry back to Mozambique. When I made that discovery something in my spirit clicked and I knew that one day I had to return to the birthplace of my Great, great, great, great, great Grandmother, her birth name lost to time and eternity. Other ancestors born in this great land have yet to be revealed. Many times I wonder, “What was my African and/or Native American name.” The names of Finney, Halstead, Gordon, Palmer were all given by some distant slave-owner. Who were they and who were they 500 years ago?
Like Tekahionwake I live my dichotomy every day even in my spiritual life wondering about the respective faiths of my African and Native American ancestors. Thinking about how their own unique worship was torn asunder only to be replaced by a Euro-centric “Christian” god who relegated them to a lesser status, below that of their European captors.
Children of an accursed Ham? (Genesis 9:20–27) I think not for the descendents of the great Realm of Ethiopia have risen again to the rightful place in the Diaspora.
Matthew 12:42
New King James Version (NKJV)
42 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.
The cries of my people would not be extinguished. The voices of my Native American ancestors called to me for redemption. Through an experiment called Carlisle Indian Industrial School History, really internment in re-culturalization concentration camps Richard Henry Pratt sought to erase the cultural identity of Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes through forcing children into complete immersion in Eurocentric culture and identity, effectively erasing their own. Take away a person’s language and belief systems, telling them that how God created them was wrong and had to be fixed only serves to create indwelling images of self-hatred within those lost children. If eradicating my indigenous and African American culture, traditions, ethnicity and exchanging them for dominant white culture will I be closer to God? Will Jesus accept me in this new form?
As I gaze in the mirror as many Native Americans did 150 years ago neither my face nor my features as God made them can be erased. The efforts on the part of European conquerors failed. Nor were the colonizers able to erase the connection to the Great Spirit as he was known long before the white man touched our shores.
White man you tell me that only your version of Jesus can save my soul and deliver me from sin. And just what is my sin? Being born with a brown face, high cheek bones, full lips, long flowing Jet Black hair or locs that rise to kiss the sun. Does my sin lie in the dances my people perform to honor my ancestors and Mother Earth who gives us all sustenance? Am I or my ways at fault because we revere Nature as opposed to destroying the land, fouling the waters, polluting the environment in a never ending obsession to conquer, convert and control? Now who is the savage? Who is the so-called heathen?
Oh European who comes bearing the sign of the cross who is this God of yours that lifts up your customs and traditions but disparages mine? He is not the Jesus depicted in your Old Master paintings from Italy, Spain, France or the Flemish Masters. No, more than likely he was a swarthy man with kinky dark woolly hair, skin darkened by constant exposure to the sun. Jesus was someone whose looks paralleled the populations most of the indigenous tribes of Africa, North and South America.
Revelation 1:14-15
New King James Version (NKJV)
14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;
We Sisters and Brothers from what you named the “Third World” now know that Jesus came for us just as we are. God accepts us in all the richness with which he created us. We Black and Brown followers have redefined and returned Christianity to its original intent and meaning.
No longer do we walk the “Trail of Tears” or the Via Dolorosa. Now we stand together arm in arm marching onward to Zion that beautiful city of God taking our place among those who have been redeemed.
Addiction – some habit usually unhealthy that takes over your life, an activity over which you have no control. For those lost in the throes of prescription addiction there is no escape from the horrors of the mind except via medications freely doled out by more than willing physicians and pharmacists. Drug induced hallucinations for those possessed by insecurities, depression, psychosis and various types of mental illness open previously closed doors in the mind. The addict seeking to escape earthly pain often unwisely even unknowingly opens portals to new cerebral dimensions, portals that eventually lead to the gateway to Hades.
I find myself walking through Bedlam calmly and quietly observing the poor wretches imprisoned within the only separation of safety between me and they glass with reinforced steel bars. Until I come to a long hallway on either side a series of rooms each secured with double bolt thick steel doors the only openings a slot in which to slide a plastic meal tray and a small window used by roaming psychotherapists who occasionally looked in upon the inmates deciding which mental miracle drug to dispense to these unsuspecting unfortunates. Compelled to stop in front of one particular door I peer through the small grimy window only to be shocked yet not too surprised to find my gaze met by my doppelganger. There I stand frozen to the spot my extremities taking root and branching out seeking crevices with which to penetrate the unyielding door that separates me from myself.
Jesus explained the dilemma of mind altering drugs the best in Luke 11:24-26
New International Version (NIV)
24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most celebrated fictional drug addicts known to most Americans. As played by the late Jeremy Brett, Brett’s Holmes captures the true brilliance of a man possessed by a troubled mind. He is the quintessential eccentric elitist, misanthrope and misogynist. In between cases Holmes uses cocaine to escape from the commonplaces of existence. Subject to long bouts of depression his drugs of choice morphine and cocaine, hence the 7% solution in his reasoning clarified and stimulated the mind. Often this is the case with talented, gifted genius level individuals. They abhor boredom and stagnation; craving constant mental exultation whether through industry, work, artistic, musical or literary projects. When the normal stimulants’ of challenging work are unavailable the well respected and recognized addict resorts to any number of remedies to recreate and/or achieve the same high gotten from recreational pursuits.
Holmes is the atypical functional drug addict. This is not to glorify or elevate prescription drug use above the use of common street drugs; the results from both are about the same. Both types of addicts experience dependence, cravings, reliance, and slavery to substances that destroy mind, body and spirit, eventually leading to death.
Like many possessed of a tortured brilliance only known by members of the “Talented Tenth” Holmes is an insecure elitist. The luster and sparkle of genius seeks to be delivered from the mundane, the trivial and from the insecurities that threaten to destroy a superior intellect. The trick is to elevate and expand the thought processes and at the same time hoping to eliminate present daily realities of pain and suffering.
Drug addiction is a false cure, a fake hope, phony sanctuary, ever failing to grant rest or repose to its seekers. If the Sherlock Holmes character was updated to these modern times his drug of choice might be Ambien the sleep aid that bridges the gap between conscious and subconscious mind.
Ambien transports ones soul to that place between wakefulness and sleep. It appears to enhance ones innate natural creative abilities. Users of cocaine and speed often make the same claims. These drugs both legal and illegal offer a false escape from the mundane. Substance abusers even leave the natural human sexual relationships in order to experience the multiple mental orgasms they cannot achieve through physical sex with a partner. Reality becomes the bad dream. The user finds her/himself caught up in an almost inescapable quagmire.
In one episode Holmes states that, “There’s no escape from the terrors of the mind.” Many times I secretly wished that life was like Etch A Sketch, that famously popular toy we children of the 60s played with for hours on end. If only life were like that little plastic Neanderthal laptop where with a few vigorous shakes you once again had a clean slate and the ability to start over.
It was a secret desire born out of stress, depression, and hard times to return to a time of innocence and being care free. However I realized that there was no turning back the clock. I had to face my inner demons. I had to ask myself did I want to live the rest of my life in the Twilight Zone when everyone around me constantly telling me I have a gift, a gift that needs to be shared with the world. Also what about my family? What about my beloved autistic brother? Where would he be if I suddenly was not on the planet anymore? In addition how could I ignore the calling I knew God had on my life? The answer is I couldn’t. Never at any time did God give up on me. That in and of itself amazed me. God kept sending people my way to set me back on the path of life. Even when I wanted to let go of this earthly life and move onto another plane, God said not yet. I’m not ready for you yet. You have more work to do on this earth.
No God did not immediately take away all the problems and challenges I’ve been experiencing but He did reveal to me better ways to cope. Through my gift of writing He has opened doors for me that never would have opened had I allowed myself to sink into the substance abuse quicksand. Of course there will continue to be bumps and potholes along the roadway but isn’t life somewhat like an obstacle course where the prize for those of us who esteem intellect the ability to successfully negotiate those obstructions by being quick thinkers and thrill in the victory of being an Overcomer? Enjoy the Treasure Hunt! Enjoy the excitement of the chase while in your right mind because you’ve been given everything that pertains to life and godliness and you are Empowered to Succeed!
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 