Goddess Black Woman

Goddess Black Woman
by Ras Tyehimba

Before God, there was Goddess
Goddess Black Woman

Whispers of her coming vibrate
Through gorges and hills
Valleys and plains
City and country
She is without beginning and without end
Her name etched out on the ancient walls
of ancient caves and buried temples
Her image molded into clay figurines
Yet few who see her know her
Many wait lifetimes for her
But recognize her not
Walking in their midst
This ordinary Goddess Black Woman

Goddess Black Woman
She comes,
Intersecting past, present and future
Archetype of divinity
Griots speak her name in reverence
Singers chant her name in praise
Legends respectfully speak of her
Seekers of truth seek her
Warriors invoke her name before battle
Wise men and women seek her counsel
Ancient oral traditions describe her
Yet no words can capture her essence

Goddess Black Woman
She comes with the blazing light of the morning sun,
Sharpened blades slashing the lies of centuries old.
Censored by so called holy men and patriarchal scripture writers.
demonized
Whitewashed out of history,
Erased from the records
Beaten out of memory
With cat-o-nine tails and taut whips
Shot, and Burnt, and hung, and lynched and thrown overboard
She is dead, alive, yet to be born
ETERNAL

Goddess Black Woman
She has been called many names
Pagan, Goddess, Whore, Mother earth, Witch, mother nature, Obeah Woman, Queen, Voodoo woman, disrespectable jammette, rebel
Too black to sit in the pews of straight haired- white/light complexioned-iconographed marbled churches
Too womanly and rebellious to enter temples and mosques
Feared by politicians and men of religion
Ignored by mainstream media
Academics intellectualize her out of existence
Mainstream religion warn of her evil and immoral influence-
(This inventor of the dutty wine and passa passa)

Goddess Black Woman
She comes, powerful
She is no walk over
No walk in the park
She is dread, Medusa dread
writhing, wriggling snakes hiss from her head
Those who cross her, fear her
Her fiery tongue has burned down cities
Her essence has brought the arrogant to their knees

She comes, bearing millions of years of history on her shoulders,
Deep ancestral insights bubble on her tongue
Some spoken firmly to authority
Others whispered in the ears of seekers
Earth shaker,
Illusion breaker
Myth buster
Truth exposer
Destructor of velvet-padded comfort zones
She holds the keys to the rites of passage
The unwritten scrolls of self knowledge
This initiator of men
She is the riddle of riddles,
Mystery of mysteries
Solve it and win yourself
Discover yourself
Know yourself
Be yourself

Goddess Black Woman
She comes,
Shattering psychological structures
built with bricks of imperial conquest,
mixed in the bloody mortar of ordinary people
steamed in chicken sauce and fed to the masses
Shattering myths, lies and illusions
Of Adam and Eve,
Columbus and Rhodes
Bush and Blair

Goddess Black Woman
She is the bridge between:
the mortals and the divine
the sacred and profane
the Sexual and political
words and ACTIONS
Nature and nurture
The chicken and the egg
The question and the answer
Chaos and order
She is absent and present
Abstract and pore-raising real-ity
She is Roots and resistance
Simple and complex
Controversial and unnoticeable