Friday, August 31, 2018

Red Planetary Serpent/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 9







10 Chicchan

Red Planetary Serpent

As she melts upon myTongue
I swallow down the full Moon whole
She settles in my Belly while
I drink the Wine of Kingdom come

She takes a silver Ride inside
Where Flesh had been until
The Container of a Woman’s Life
Fell beneath a surgeon’s Knife

Scalpel cut the Sinew and the Nerve
Creating painful Space –
My Womb is in the Tomb
But even more is in its Place

My progeny are Poetry and Prose
Conceived in the Soul by Night –
Infants unnumbered are borne
On  shimmering Beams of blue Light.


©Kleomichele Leeds





Ida Stephens Owens




Ida Stephens Owens is an American scientist known for her work with drug-detoxifying enzymes. She received her PhD from Duke University in 1967, making her one of the first two African Americans to receive a doctorate from the school.

Early life

Ida Virginia Stephens Owens grew up on a farm in Whiteville, North Carolina. Her mother died when she was six years old.

Education
Owens' early education was in segregated public schools. Owens then attended North Carolina College, now North Carolina Central University, graduating in 1961 summa cum laude in Biology (B.S.) and Mathematics (minor). In 1962, she began her Ph.D. studies in biochemistry and physiology at Duke University shortly after Duke racially integrated its graduate and professional schools. When she graduated in 1967, she became one of two first African Americans to receive a PhD from Duke University and the first woman to receive any degree in physiology from Duke.

Scientific career

After graduating, Owens held a postdoctoral position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) focused on how drugs are chemically processed in the body. Owens then became an NIH researcher, working for the Laboratory of Developmental Pharmacology in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In 1981 her work evolved into the NICHD Section on Drug Biotransformation. Since 1988, Owens has directed NICHD's Section on Genetic Disorders of Drug Metabolism in the Program on Developmental Endocrinology and Genetics.

Scientific advancements

Owens' postdoctoral work sparked her specific interest in a critical group of enzymes, called glucuronosyltransferases (abbreviated UGTs), responsible for detoxifying numerous drugs, toxic chemicals, and other substances. She then designed methods to study genes that code for specific UGT enzymes. These methods allowed her to characterize UGT1A1, the gene coding for an enzyme in this family that processes the protein bilirubin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin, and to identify 12 other previously unknown and independent UGT enzymes.

Owens' research group has subsequently made multiple advancements regarding UGT enzyme biology. Her laboratory was the first to identify a genetic defect, in the gene UGT1A1, that leads to Crigler-Najjar syndrome. Crigler-Najjar syndrome is a disorder that disrupts normal processing and excretion of bilirubin, leading to jaundice. Owens' research group also identified that UGT enzymes must be activated before they can detoxify foreign chemicals and that in some cases suppressing these enzymes could enhance the effects of therapeutic drugs. Owens' laboratory found that activity of UGT enzymes can be lessened by kinase inhibitors and that protein kinase C and tyrosine kinase enzymes can alter the enzyme specificity, likely contributing to their ability to detoxify a wide range of foreign chemicals.

Honors

Owens received the 1992 NIH Director's Award and, in 2013, the Duke University Graduate School's first Distinguished Alumni Award.*





CHICCHAN



Kin 205: Red Planetary Serpent


I perfect in order to survive
Producing instinct
I seal the store of life force
With the planetary tone of manifestation
I am guided by the power of space
I am a polar kin
I extend the red galactic spectrum.


The Path, though unified, appears different to each person.*


*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.






The Sacred Tzolk'in 






Muladhara Chakra (Seli Plasma)




Thursday, August 30, 2018

Yellow Solar Seed/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 8






9 Kan


Yellow Solar Seed

Clouds float by
In grand Procession –
Billowing, pillowing
 Wisps of white –
Stately Fortresses of Mist
Kissing a blue Sky

Shape-shifters all –
Turning Light to Shadow
Eclipsing both Sun and Moon –
Silently they pass en masse
Carrying Hope to Heaven.


©Kleomichele Leeds




Three Placards, Photograph by Marilyn Nance, 1986


Marilyn Nance (aka Soulsista) (b. 1953) is an African-American artist whose interest is in technology, exploring human connections, and spirituality. Her photographs have been published in Life, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Essence, and New York Newsday.

Early life and education

Nance was born in New York on 12 November 1953, and grew up in Brooklyn. Her mother was a factory worker and her father was an elevator operator. Nance attended New York University (1971-1972), studying journalism, before gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in communications and graphic design from Pratt Institute (1972-1976) and a Masters of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, (1996) as well as graduating from ITP, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (1998).

Work

Nance began taking photographs as a child but declared herself a photographer after having worked in the photo studio of Pratt Institute's Office of Public Relations under the direction of Alan Newman. After the studio closed in 1974, she began freelancing for The Village Voice.

In 1977, she served as the official photographer for the North American Zone of FESTAC 77 Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, a Panafrican international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria. Over the course of the month-long event she amassed 1500 images, representing the most complete photographic archives of this major event.

A two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography (1991 and 1993) for her body of work on African American spirituality, she was awarded three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, for photography (1989, 2000) and non-fiction literature (1993). Nance served as an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in New York City from 1993-1994, Her work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's Preservation of the Black Religious Heritage Project. Nance gave a lecture on her work to the Library of Congress in 2004.

In 1995, Nance became a digital pioneer, developing her soulsista.com website, and in 1996 serving as one of the first internet DJ's. In 1997, she developed a digital project prototyping Ifa divination, and in 1999 she curated a digital project for the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, putting online more than 500 images of nineteenth-century African Americans. Nance went on to become a Technology Specialist in the New York City public school system, helping teachers and their students use technology as a tool for lifelong learning.

In 2017, Nance attended ITP Camp, a 4-week crash course/playground where makers, artists, musicians, artists of all sorts come to create, hear speakers on the cutting edge, and collaborate with people from diverse disciplines. She is a two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography.*





KAN



Kin 204:Yellow Solar Seed


I pulse in order to target
Realizing awareness
I seal the input of flowering
With the solar tone of intention
I am guided by the power of universal fire.


If one seeks to know the way or purpose of life, then one must study oneself.*



*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.









The Sacred Tzolk'in 






Sahasrara Chakra (Dali Plasma)




Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Blue Galactic Night/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 7






8 Akbal


Blue Galactic Night

In the midnight Fire
Of winter’s second Moon
I rise again – again I rise
To ask for Blessing

In the midnight Fire –
A full Moon blazing
Disappears all Fear
In a Prayer for Love and Peace

In the midnight Fire
Of the midnight Hour
My heart’s Wing
Reaches to embrace my Beloved

A full Moon burns cool
In a midnight Sky
Far Stars shine twice bright
Each tear Turning
To a Pearl of great Price. 


©Kleomichele Leeds




Anna Murray-Douglass



Anna Murray-Douglass (1813 – August 4, 1882) was an American abolitionist, member of the Underground Railroad, and the first wife of American social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass, from 1838 to her death.

Early life

Anna Murray was born in Denton, Maryland, to Bambarraa and Mary Murray. Unlike her seven older brothers and sisters, who were born in slavery, Anna Murray and her younger four siblings were born emancipated, her parents having been manumitted just a month before her birth. A resourceful young woman, by the age of 17 she established herself as a laundress and housekeeper and later became very wealthy. Her laundry work took her to the docks, where she met Frederick Douglass, who was working there as a caulker.

Marriage

Murray's freedom made Douglass believe in the possibility of his own. When he decided to escape slavery in 1838, Murray encouraged and helped him by providing Douglass with some sailor's clothing. She also gave him part of her savings, which she augmented by selling one of her feather beds. After Douglass made his way to Philadelphia and then New York, Murray followed him, bringing enough goods with her to be able to start a household. They were married on September 15, 1838. At first they took Johnson as their name, but upon moving to New Bedford, Massachusetts, they adopted Douglass as their married name.

Murray-Douglass had five children within the first ten years of the marriage: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (Who died at the age of 10). She helped support the family financially, working as a laundress and learning to make shoes, as Douglass's income from his speeches was sporadic and the family was struggling. She also took an active role in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and later prevailed upon her husband to train their sons as typesetters for his abolitionist newspaper, North Star. After the family moved to Rochester, New York, she established a headquarters for the Underground Railroad from her home, providing food, board and clean linen for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada.

Murray-Douglass received little mention in Douglass's three autobiographies. Henry Louis Gates has written that "Douglass had made his life story a sort of political diorama in which she had no role". It is speculated that his long absences from home, and her feeling that as a relatively uneducated woman she did not fit in with the social circles Douglass was now moving in, led to a degree of estrangement between them that was in marked contrast to their earlier closeness. Supposedly she was hurt by her husband's friendships and professional relationships with other women, but nevertheless remained loyal to Douglass's public role and the two loved each other unconditionally; her daughter Rosetta reminded those who admired her father that his "was a story made possible by the unswerving loyalty of Anna Murray."

Later life and death

After the death of her youngest daughter Annie in 1860 at the age of 10, Murray-Douglass was often in poor health. She died of a stroke in 1882 at the family home in Washington D.C. She was initially buried at Graceland Cemetery in Washington, D.C. But the cemetery closed in 1894, and on February 22, 1895, she was moved to Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.Frederick Douglass was buried next to her after his death on February 20, 1895.*




AKBAL



Kin 203: Blue Galactic Night


I harmonize in order to dream
Modeling intuition
I seal the input of abundance
With the galactic tone of integrity
I am guided by the power of accomplishment
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.



We are meant to become cosmically activated bio-electromagnetic plasma generators.*



*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.








The Sacred Tzolk'in 






Anahata Chakra (Silio Plasma)





Tuesday, August 28, 2018

White Resonant Wind/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 6






7 Ik

White Resonant Wind

I hear a Call
From the eastern Gate –
From the Roses on the Vine

Lightning flashes from Head to Foot
Settling in the Belly –
A slow Burn of wild Desire

I feel a Call
Lifting me out of the Desert
Out of the Dark, into the Wind

Gone the sharp crackling Weeds
Gone the burning Sun
A cool Breeze floats through me

I know this Call
I’ve heard it all before
Before the Locusts ate my Life

Now clear Water flows
I have attained the Oasis
My Thirst is sated, my Hunger ceases.

©Kleomichele Leeds



Luci Murphy



Luci Murphy is an African-American singer, political activist, community organizer, and language interpreter. Since the 1960's, she has been performing political songs in musical styles such as Jazz, Blues, and Jazz Opera,  In 1989, she performed in Germany in the Festival of Political Songs.

Music

Luci Murphy sings in the genres of Jazz, Blues, and Jazz Opera. She has sung for social justice by giving support for civil rights, the end of white supremacy, affordable housing, food security, union rights, peace, and Palestine and Latin American self-determination, among other causes. She has performed in Cuba, China, Brazil and Palestinian camps in Lebanon. She often encourages her audience to join with her in song. She intends to increase her audience's sense of power and rational thinking. Within the Jazz Opera Love Songs From the Liberation Wars, she sings the recitative part of the opera in which the pain and anguish of one of the African-American factory women living in the Jim Crow era is emphasized.

Political activism

She has given support to the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-apartheid movement, anti-police brutality movement, pro-labor union rights movement, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the Palestinian liberation, the Cuban revolution, the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution. Within her songs, she has sung about US police brutality, Palestinian and Colombian population displacement, and the Cuban blockade.*





IK



Kin 202: White Resonant Wind


I channel in order to communicate
Inspiring breath
I seal the input of spirit
With the resonant tone of attunement
I am guided by the power of timelessness.


One must be honest with oneself in order to see clearly and objectively, so that one may judge rationally without prejudice or passion.*



*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.








 The Sacred Tzolk'in





Manipura Chakra (Limi Plasma)




Monday, August 27, 2018

Red Rhythmic Dragon/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 5






6 Imix

 Red Rhythmic Dragon
I descend at the Height of Day
Mind awake 
  Eyes wide open -
I find dead my Maidenhead

A Land of Love strewn with Bones
Dry white Skeletons sitting on Stones –
Life decayed/ Care delayed
Turns Landscapes deathly gray

 Wind blows through Bones –
Sounding Moans both high and low
For Years and Generations
No Family here –
  Bones alone

Shame eats the Flesh of Love
A gaping Maw of guilty Acts
Consumes the Meat that might sustain us –
Furies - Harpies dive
To take the Smile from smiling Lips –
A Hand too frightened to caress
Hits hard and hits again
Hearts break open –
Red Rage roars
Hear the Breeze
Blowing on Bones –
Too little Tenderness too late
Can neither stop the Wind
Nor alter Fate.


©Kleomichele Leeds 



Dr. Yolanda T. Moses


Yolanda Theresa Moses (born 1946) is an anthropologist and college administrator who served as the 10th president of City College of New York (1993–1999) and president of the American Association for Higher Education (2000–2003).

Early life

Moses was born to a family originating from northern Louisiana that relocated to Washington during the Second World War to work in wartime industries. After the war, Moses and her family moved to southern California. Moses received her associate degree in 1966, and bachelor's degree in sociology in 1968, both from San Bernardino Valley College. Inspired by a meeting with Margaret Mead, Moses chose to pursue anthropology for a doctorate degree, which she received in 1976, from the University of California, Riverside. As a student, Moses participated actively in the Civil Rights Movement through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Academic career

From 1976 to 1993, Moses taught at the collegiate level and conducted research at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona College, and California State University, Dominguez Hills. At California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Moses combined the Women's studies and Ethnic studies programs into a single interdisciplinary Department of Ethnic and Women's Studies. From 1982 to 1989, Moses served as the dean of the Cal State Polytec's College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences (CLASS). In 1988, Moses was appointed to the position of vice president of academic affairs at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

In 1993, Moses relocated to New York City where she was appointed to the position of the 10th president of City College of New York of the City University of New York. She was the first woman to lead City College, CUNY's flagship campus. She has served as President of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) (1995–97).

Moses held a senior visiting research appointment at George Washington University in Washington D.C. (2000 to 2004). She co-authored with Carol Mukhopadhyay and Rosemary Henze, the
book, How Real is Race: a sourcebook on race, culture and biology.(2007, 2014). Since 2007, Moses had held the position of professor in the department of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside and Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Excellence and Diversity. In 2014, she was also a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne's Intercultural and Indigenous Studies Program.

Moses' academic research is supported grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, for original research, including the Race: are we so different project (2007–2015).

Professional recognition

Moses has received The National Donna Shavlik Award for Leadership and Mentoring Women (2007). She is a member of the college of fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), and a recipient of the Distinguished Research Lecturer Award from UC, Riverside (2015). Moses also received The Franz Boas Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Anthropology as Public Intellectual (2015), and The Dyason Fellowship to Support Collaborative Research and Innovation from the University of Melbourne (2016).

City College of New York presidency

On May 24, 1993, Moses was selected as the 9th president of City College of New York. At the time, comparisons were made between City College of New York and Dominguez Hills; both were considered inner-city public colleges with large minority and older student bodies. The only CUNY trustee to oppose her appointment was Herman Badillo, who later became the Chair of the CUNY trustees. During Moses' tenure, City College continued to report high number of students failing placement tests and teacher certification exams. At the same time, Moses oversaw the renovation of six historic campus buildings, raised admissions standards, and introduced a doctoral program in biomedical engineering.

Moses resigned as president of CCNY under pressure from the City University of New York trustees on July 2, 1999. An article in the New York Amsterdam News reported allegations of Moses' negative job ratings, including a failure to establish rapport with College deans, and the reported involvement of New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in her departure.

Post-presidency

Following her resignation, Moses served as President of the American Association for Higher Education from 2000 through 2003. She currently serves as Professor of Anthropology and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Excellence at the University of California, Riverside.*




IMIX



Kin 201: Red Rhythmic Dragon


I organize in order to nurture
Balancing being
I seal the input of birth
With the rhythmic tone of equality
I am guided by my own power doubled.



A true seer views the world as illusion, and transmutes lower energies into enlightened states of mind in an instant.*


*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.








The Sacred Tzolk'in 





Visshudha Chakra (Alpha Plasma)





Sunday, August 26, 2018

Yellow Overtone Sun/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 4






5 Ahau


Yellow Overtone Sun


Winter Branches bare –

Ancient Arms

Reach past Amethyst

Through Blue

Beyond Blue –

Until a salmon

Pink Horizon

Sets the Sun.

©Kleomichele Leeds




Mollie Moon (R) and Josephine Baker (L) crown a beauty queen.



Mollie Moon (July 21, 1912 – June 22, 1990) was the founder and president of the National Urban League Guild, the fundraising branch of the National Urban League. She served as president of the Guild for almost 50 years, from its founding until her death.

Early life

Moon was born Mollie Lewis in Hattiesburg, Mississippi on July 21, 1912. Her parents were Telious and Beulah (Rogers) Lewis. She studied pharmacy at Meharry Medical College. She also attended the Teachers College of Columbia University, as well as the New School for Social Research and the University of Berlin.

Career

Early career

Before moving to New York City, Moon worked as a pharmacist in several states.  She became a social worker for the Department of Social Services in New York.

National Urban League Guild

Moon served as secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Urban League. She founded the National Urban League Guild in 1942 in order to raise funds in support of the League's racial equality programs. Lester B. Granger, then director of the Urban League, challenged Moon personally to help the league become 'financially stable.' At first an informal group, the Guild eventually developed bylaws and held elections, with Moon serving as president until her death 1990. The Guild's most well-known fundraising event was its annual Beaux-Arts Ball, a charity gala with a different theme each year. The Ball was held in various locations in New York City, starting in the Savoy Ballroom, moving to Rockefeller Center in 1948, and then to the Waldorf Astoria in 1960. Winthrop Rockefeller, also a board member of the National Urban League, signed the invitations to the 1948 event along with Moon, when the move to Rockefeller Center proved controversial.

Later career

Moon served on the national advisory council for Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Food and Drug Committee from 1972 to 1976. Moon received recognition for her decades of service to the Guild in later life, receiving both the Equal Opportunity Award from the National Urban League and the President's Volunteer Action Award from President George H. W. Bush. She also founded the Henry Lee Moon Civil Rights Library, housed in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's headquarters in Baltimore, which is named after her husband.

Personal life

In 1938, she married Henry Lee Moon, who became the public relations director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Moon died of a heart attack on June 22, 1990, at her home in Long Island City, Queens, New York.*




AHAU



Kin 200: Yellow Overtone Sun


I empower in order to enlighten
Commanding life
I seal the matrix of universal fire
With the overtone tone of radiance
I am guided by the power of elegance.


When one tunes in to the channel of Cosmic History, one's mind unfolds into various thinking layers of the universe.*



*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.









The Sacred Tzolk'in 





Svadhistana Chakra (Kali Plasma)