Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Watch what you're saying, Weigh what you're doing

The Jewel for the first official post outside of the intro was Knowledge. Now this is Wisdom.

Intelligent conversation. Know what to say and when to say it. I saw that a lot of people are full of porkshit in my travels. Talking ‘gutter’ amongst the educated as though that is reflective of keeping it real. Talking ‘superscientifical’ amongst the common folk as though that makes one ‘look’ intelligent.

I’m that uncommon common man. I can flow into any situation/environment yet still radiate enough shine to stand out. I learned most of that skill from my mom and my pops. It is definitely an acquired skill. When I was younger I was definitely very introverted. As I got older I learned to take the attributes of my introvertedness (yup..made up word…rock it with style) and make them cool. I’m a Black Nerd, Ghetto Griot Geek, Supreme Ultramagnetic Swagger Rocker with a twist of Sake, Suburban Block B-Boy Breakbeat Beatboxer, Comic Chess Cosmic Captain Melanin, The Oreo with the Chocolate Filling, historian, father, lover and friend.

Now, being on the ship one thing that I had to get use to was the movement of water. It was during the second week that I got my first bout of sea sickness. In the kitchen you have to understand that I had to endure 1001 different smells from the cleaning chemicals, to lobster guts, boiling beans, and just the general funk of some of those crew mates who for some reason were scared of their showers.

Now, I was getting used to getting up early in the morning and getting straight to work. At home, I got up around the same time to start the day with my son and myself. The difference was that we got up 6:30am so that we could ease into our day. We would wake up to fresh music, have some tea, go over some affirmations/math exercises, and just watch some fresh stuff on animal planet. Here I had to get up, get the physical dead right, and get up stairs to work.

In the kitchen you have a fresh view of the ocean through the window so it was like visual meditation. I loved it. Not this morning though. We were going through rough seas and..um….my stomach was flipping out. Now, it just isn’t the stomach, it is the whole nervous system of the body. I was like..damn. A hangover never felt like this. I had to go downstairs to ‘relieve’ myself like 5 times during the morning meal. After that Dramamine became my mistress.

In solitude I learned that I needed to get some things done. I needed to get them done because they would become the doorway by which I could continue to elevate and move forward. A quality of Wisdom is making the right choices. Right choices increase room for growth and development. Wrong choices generate stagnation. What was incredible is that I was able to get a lot done on land while I was at sea. I wasn’t distracted so I was able to keep in contact with the right people on land (good lookin’ guys…you know who you are) who kept everything kinetic.

Wisdom is will. After I got rid of the other porkcrap in the mental I was really able to see what MY will was. I then remixed it and said this is what WILL happen. It is just about being ALWAYS conscious that we make things happen and that we have greater control over situations then we give ourselves credit for.

Within the first two weeks I saw many loose their jobs due to their actions. They were all chilling with some of the seven deadly sins. One girl lost her job cause she snuck down into the men’s quarters to get her sex on (lust). One due just kept falling asleep on his watch (sloth). One dude thought that his was the 1st mate instead of the deckhand (pride).

With communication we just don’t rely on what ‘webster’ says. We generate and create language anew everyday. As such we started to make words that were applicable to our common experience. Let me share a few with you.

Lala-put at the end of any woman onboard who was a weed smoker. Ex..Lisa la la. You had to take a drug test to get on the boat yet not STAY on the boat. The women were especially guarded about their use so the code came up for them.

Exclamation-on the real..there were a lot of metro-homothug-dl mofos onboard. They got into mad hissy fits. They acted like a ‘stereotypical woman on her period.’ So we started to say that dudes were on their exclamations.

SARS-Shit Ain’t Right

We had some others. When they come through the mental I’ll drop them.

BTW all communication is emotional. Emotion is the QUALITY of a particular communication. Even if one is ‘emotionless’ or ‘logical’ the quality of that communication is ‘cold’ or ‘detached’. It is wise to deal WITH emotions. Recognize them for what they are. They are indicators of the nature of the relationship between two people, places, things, etc.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Doing the Knowledge AKA being aware of WTF I just got my ass into

I got a bus ticket from New Haven, CT to Bankgor, Maine. I have never even HEARD of Bankgor, Maine (ain't that in Thailand). I had decided to work on a cruise line as a Galley Stewart for 3 months. I got to the boat (after 9 fcuking hours on a bus), put my clothes in my room and got right to work. I ain't never been on the water for more than a few days. This was brand new to me.

I started to realize that this trip was going to be about focusing on myself. I was so used to being the focus in other people's lives that it was proving difficult to deal with things that I had to do for myself. I set myself up in a situation where the majority of my day would be centered on working thus there was no place for non-essential things.

What was the 1st emanation? What were my 1st thoughts when I was a child that I wanted to bring into my adulthood? I wanted to write. I wanted to go to the moon. I wanted to dig up dinosaur bones and Egyptian mummies under desert suns.

The sun adds on to self with hydrogen adding to hydrogen through nuclear fusion in order to make the heavier elements and planets.

So in order to get back to my first thoughts I took myself on a journey to clear clutter and just make it happen. Thoughts need to be as pure as possible because they are the building blocks that one needs in order to build buildings. If the foundation is flawed and weak your building is like Atlantis; shit is sunk.

At first when I got down in the men’s quarters I was like…L No! Some ole army barracks, all men living in the same communial room type steez. Not for nothing, I wasn’t trying to be around this much male shit and sweat for 3 months. I was elated when I found out that as Galley Steward I had my own room, own television, and own bathroom. If I wanted to shit butt naked in my room during breaks I could (and maybe I did).

Rat Kings are mythological beasts said to arise when a number of rats become intertwined at the tails, and additionally stuck to each other with blood, dirt, and excrement. Consequently, the animals grow together, joined at the tails, which are often broken. Most known "rat king" examples are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus). The only find involving sawah rats (Rattus rattus brevicaudatus) occurred on March 23, 1918, in Bogor on Java, where a rat king of ten young field rats was found.

Yeah I saw some rats, not on the boat, yet that is another story for later.

The firs week was all observation. I was looking at the whole crew whom I was going to be in close quarters with for 3 months. The first day they threw me right in the kitchen to get it moving. Galley Steward handles everything in the kitchen except cooking so that means; dishwashing, cleaning, handling the inventory/ordering of food. It was on. All day everyday. Sunup to sundown.


The Piri Reis Map is a famous premodern world map created by 16th century Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The map shows part of the western coasts of Europe and North Africa with reasonable accuracy, and the coast of Brazil is also easily recognizable. Various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia. The map is noteworthy for its depiction of a southern landmass that is evidence for early awareness of the existence of Antarctica.

Where the L was I going? What the kcuf was I doing? I realized that we would physically be traveling up and down the eastcoast of North America yet it didn’t answer my own questions as they related to me. Even though I knew that his was something that was most beneficial to me and, in the long run, to those around me it didn’t lesson the blow of going away for a season from familiar problems, those whom I still had issues with and those whom I cared for.

I knew WHAT and WHY I was here yet it didn’t make it any easier at first. I told myself that if I could get through the first week it would all be gravy from here on in. Due to my focus and standards I was referred to as the ‘moral compass’ of the crew. See, I didn’t confuse the my reason with being here for everyone else’s. Some actually just made it a damn soap opera on some ‘who’s zooming who’ stuff or why ain’t X talking to me. LOL. I found it humorous. I was here for the gold and mental clarity.

I learned how to let go of some mental debris (1:14, 5:14, 32:40) my first week there. I got the hang of certain mental exercises that would later serve me well to order my planning (1:40). I learned how to put my body on automatic while I removed clutter. Then I would focus again on the body in a sense ‘rebooting’ the body. Stress would melt away. I got the hang at multi-tasking on a grand scale also. I also learned that I couldn’t live without seeing the sunrise over the salty sea or sun set next to the docks

Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail-Among the more intriguing facts that this fascinating book contains is this statistic: by 1803, nearly 20 percent of seamen's jobs were filled by black men, most of them freemen. Historian Jeffrey Bolster, himself a sailor for a decade, covers the story of black sailors from Africa through mid-1800s America. Working as seamen helped blacks support families and helped facilitate communication among widely dispersed people. There were dangers--free blacks could be kidnapped and sold into slavery, and all black sailors were subject to vicious racism. Yet for all the drawbacks, sailing was a profession black men saw as "an occupation of opportunity
Licensed master mariner Bolster (history, Univ. of New Hampshire) writes a descriptively rich, engaging narrative of African American seafarers from the 1740s to the 1860s. He recounts how tens of thousands of African American sailors formed an important sector of the maritime labor force, shaped mariner culture and the identity of free black communities, and linked the Atlantic world of the black diaspora. Both free blacks and slaves found opportunity, dignity, and freedom despite harsh working conditions. They were skippers and captains as well as ordinary and able seamen, pilots, and cooks on merchant ships, warships, whalers, and other coastal and deep-sea vessels. Bolster devotes attention to the construction of race in the interactions among black and white sailors on ship, in port, and in the War of 1812 POW camp of Dartmoor (England) Prison.

I had put my self on the sea. I was going to be successful in my undertaking. Yet even at the beginning point I didn’t Knowledge what I was in for.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Intro

Peace,

Season for Everything

It was indeed a journey. I knew that I had to remain focused yet I didn't really fully see what I was entering into when I decided to work on a cruise ship for 3 months. I did know that it was somewhere that I needed to be in order to clear my head and get clarity on a lot of issues within my realm.

I have named this whole section of my travel the "The Twelve Jewels of Ishmael". It is in reference to a plus degree within the Nation of Gods and Earths (the 12 Jewels of Islam) and to the Biblical and literary personage of Ishmael (if you don't know who this is in both cases pick up a book or at least read wikipedia). There are twelve jewels given in said degree and I was on the boat for 12 weeks. I correlated each jewel to each week that I was on the boat. I decided to start a whole travelogue blog because I have traveled a bit in comparison to other people whom I know. I thought that it would be good to give a Black Man's perspective. I will be giving other notes about my other travels in the near future.

For me this journey up and down the East coast was the "Atlantic Ocean" (2:11+2). The Atlantic Ocean is the divide by which many original people came to North America during the Middle Passage. In that way it has a bloody history. Yet those who survived said passage also gave birth to those whom were later enlighten to the Knowledge of their self. Traveling over the Atlantic Ocean was only the 1st phase of this journey of mine's. Did they receive more gold? Emphatically no. Yet in time many realized that the gold was in their own self setting and reaching their own goals. Though through this I did generate a surplus of gold in order to finance the next phase of my continued growth and development. This is the travel through the "Indian Ocean"(3:11+2) (going back to school for Radiology Tech i.e. enlightenment) and finally the "Pacific Ocean" (1:11+2) (living abroad for a few years comfortably).

A wise Earth constantly reminded me that I'd be only gone for a season (12 weeks). I was. With seasons things change. I was Old Man Justice (who was a Merchant Sea man by the way) traveling on the sea. Some days the boat was Ra's boat. Other times it was the nail boat.

I hope that you gain some insight and enjoyment of the recollection of my journey. The wise stuff I did, the trouble that I got into at times, the unwise stuff I did, and the just down right silly stuff I found my self in sometimes. Some parts of this are X-Rated so hide the children..lol

The race is not given to the swift

P.S. Though this is not specifically geared toward those whom are in the Nation of Gods and Earths there are sections that are reflective of that way of life. The numerical notations in parenthesis are numeric notations of our curriculum
, 120 degrees.