Thoughts giving rise to chapter 7 in my 2011 publication titled “An Unassuming Love” must’ve heard and seen their cousins, sisters, brothers or friends crossing mind. Imagine thoughts smelling thoughts, tasting thoughts — just touching each other, asking about their root in emotions and patterns of emotion. Thoughts have histories — they reach back intuitively only to source a semblance of truth or a truth itself that stuns the thinker.
This piece is about one thought I drew on and followed through. What I ground it in was not evidence-based, neither was it on a clear body of tested fact. It was mere intuition, which I have to conclude, is supported by its unique anatomy.
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A few months before the 2008 US election, President Barak Obama and his wife Michele, visited Montana to be part of a Crow Tribe ceremony. Writing on behalf of ABC on May 19, 2008, Sunlen Miller described it thus: “{T}he Crow tribe does adoption ceremonies for special dignitaries who visit the
Reservation. The Black Eagle family was chosen to adopt Obama because there
is one of only five living generations on the reservation. With life expectancy so
low, it is a sign of great fortune and honor to have several generations living in
the family.”
The Crow Nation named Barak Obama, “Barak Black
Eagle” and his wife Michele Robinson, “Arrowhead Woman.”
In “An Unassuming Love” I wrote, “{P}eople meet down the womb and loins of generations. Today, in the epoch of nonlocal consciousness who knows the instance of that initial encounter between prior generations of Sony and Mary Black Eagle, the Robinsons and Barak’s mother—the form that memory
takes to its archaeologizing; the wings it lifts to skirt the wonderful landscape of
Montana.” http://www.xlibris.com – amazon.com
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That thought down the “womb and loins of generations” knew another, a familiar aroma, sight and sound. Other thoughts hovered in the distance; could’ve been stringed within a vibrant mitochondria. Ooops!
When I wrote “who knows the instance of that initial encounter between prior generations of Sony and Mary Black Eagle, the Robinsons and Barak’s mother” I was being intuitive. Yes, the theme running through “An Unassuming Love’ was both archaeological and memory-driven, but at crafting time, I thought about possibilities that the families of participants in that Montana naming ceremony might have met before in another century, though I had no evidence of it, no historical facts to be authority on the encounter.
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On July 31, 2012, I heard echos of my thoughts. These sounds emanating from a Jon Swaine article carried greater authority, even validity grounded as they were in research of genealogist Joseph Shumway. The article was titled “Barack Obama’s mother ‘probably the descendant of a black slave.”
Swaine wrote, “ … researchers now believe that they have traced back the family tree of the President’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, by almost four centuries to an African servant in Virginia called John Punch. The finding would mean that Mr Obama is in fact the 11th great-grandson of the first documented slave in American history, who was punished for trying to escape in 1640 by being indentured for life.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9439103/Barack-Obamas-mother-probably-the-descendant-of-a-black-slave.htmllist end
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When I thought of a possible relation in time among select members of the Crow Nation, Michele’s family and Barak’s Mother, I was intuiting a genetic strand; given returns of historical events; given that President Obama himself might’ve archaeologized connections between his Mother and Crow nation members; given that Michele’s people may have roots in Crow People as well as African. Then came Jon Swaine — the cross-reproduction from one of the first African slaves to a White woman!
Can this all be true? Not necessarily. Could well be political positioning in light of November’s election. Could well be that I followed my mind and its composition of thoughts.
Flowing from a Caribbean cosmology, I’ve learned from Jon Swaine, “An Unassuming Love” and Bob Marley when he sings: ‘don’t bury your thoughts’!
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And what when a writer works exclusively from what flows like the poetic attitude; giving ear and heart to word sound, thought flight, pattern and appearance. The calypsoic writer cares little about whether what is written agrees with correctness, whether political or historical. She/he just writes, then returns to breathe tweaks on the text. Hmmm. In a mode of practice such as this, writing is open like an adult pedagogy. The implications for historical methodology herein are critical. Seems to me that everyone has space to write, sing, speak, practice as an intelligence. This is not to say there are no methods; there’s just a different community. Language shifts. Images appear and ways of learning are enriched.
Look around you. The record you make of everyday events in your life, your potential for journaling can determine, no matter how small, significant advancements your people make culturally and in these times, economically. Given available social networks and smart technologies, Everyone becomes a collector and, regulators scream where are the rules, the collection methodology. And I, I just let the wind blow.
The text, from here begins to run; thoughts stringing thoughts, calling out to each other from their settlement windows, ships passing ships on a vast ocean. I heard lexical qualifying ocean. Who will these two be represented by in 2121, this Barak Black Eagle and his wife Arrowhead Woman? What can you write, collect, record, photograph, sculpt, paint and design, conscious that its implications will be felt and known down the loins and womb of time? I googled ‘Fu Hsi Wooly Hair’ and chillaxed a while. I tell you, do not take the present for granted. Have a wise Emancipation Month in its solar flare!
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Crow Nation
Barak Obama
Barak Black Eagle
Michele Obama
Arrowhead Woman
Jon Swaine
Sunlen Miller
Fu Hsi Wooly Hair
An Unassuming Love
