Thinking Teastained Woman: Regard Your Times (updted)

Updated for 2023. Originally posted January 17, 2019. Teastaind women, in order to regard our times and record our witness testimony, we have to be willing to step outside of what society tells us is socially acceptable or politically correct and, critically thinking/discerning ask ourselves WHY certain things are being guided into our psyche as normal, acceptable, or even celebratory.

Diarist’s NOTE: Throughout this piece I have included imagery of things I have regarded in the recent times. These image clusters are NOT JUDGEMENTS (before you go off on the deep end with me and accuse me of something else), simply what I am seeing, inferring, and keeping tabs on in the times; what I am noticing and even questioning. One of the reasons scribes and prophets of a generation are always the first to be assassinated is because they have catalogs and keen regard for what they are seeing transpire, and are unafraid of the consequences of speaking to them. What we see today can have weight in the future, and because we don’t know what its consequences might be, we make notes. If we keep our concerns, the patterns we’re seeing in our minds and thus unwritten, we risk handicapping the next generation who may very well ask us “Did you know _____ was coming? Did you ever see patterns in your generation that proved we were being led into _______?”

These things illustrated throughout the following piece are what I have seen, what I am seeing in my times. Ask yourself: What have YOU seen? What have you done with the things you have noticed about your generation? I hope you’re writing these things down in your journal.

We don’t ask to know the answer, we ask to stay vigilant. That being said...

Above: Why is the lascivious, leacherous, promiscuous image the default image for the Black woman in music? Who is benefitting from this presentation?

There is a cost to not functioning in a timely manner. You can be too early and wait in vain and idly for too long before an event OR you can be late altogether. Both scenarios risk your lack of preparedness: too early, you spend time waiting around instead of doing what you could be doing to prepare for what’s to come; too late and you arrive prepared, but unable to deliver to those you were meant to show up for, and in the time for which you were meant to be relevant.

Above: Pedophilia is being normalized in subliminal ways; it’s also being introduced to congress to start it on the path towards legalization.

There is a cost to not knowing what time it is. I’m not talking 12:03pm. I’m talking about being able to see recurring trends that aren’t trends in your era and being discerning enough to not believe distracting illusions sold through media and news. I’m talking about being able to glean insights about things happening behind the curtain of sociocultural dynamics in your community, region, country and being able to vocalize that something’s amiss. I’m speaking to knowing how to prophecy the future based on all the patterns you’re seeing in society in your allotted present, your lifetime. Or knowing why you have the gifts and insights you have and why and for whom you are to use them to impact your generation. When you know the character traits of your times you keep yourself from getting sucked into lies told and sold to you on a daily basis. You evade the pit that so many fall into because they can only see their day-to-day and don’t necessarily know how to lift their eyes to see the big picture of what’s going on in their times. On the metaphorical theatre stage of the journey you must know not only your lines but also your cue to step onto the stage and pave the way for those coming after you. Your purpose expressed in time and on time leaves the cue for those next on stage: If you don’t know your times, you don’t create that which can survive the test of time in truth; you don’t set the next generation up to know theirs.

I’m also talking about knowing the characteristics of your era. Life isn’t your blindly participating in your allotted portion of years. As a sojourner you have the power to use your place in life as the best seat in the house to observe dynamics and collect the facts about what’s happening in your ERA. Look at the trends, current events, the celebrities and their common characteristics, and how “entertainment” is being defined. Listen to the words to song lyrics, regard who gets celebrated and who gets categorized as a hero. What criminal cases have been prominent? What were their verdicts? What’s permissive in society, what’s being made into a law, what freedoms are being challenged, what’s happening with food and medicine? What diseases are rampant and who’s behind their being spread (because some diseases are manufactured and strategically placed)? What kinds of vaccines are being promulgated in your community? How often do you see chemtrails in the sky and over which neighborhoods are they floating?

Above: Is the media seeking to normalize beastiality?

What are the current trends?
What’s being advertised?
How are people of color positioned (literally) in advertising images?
How is marketing and technology impacting your peers’ minds?
What are the characteristics of your generation? The one before yours?
What’s happening to the elders? What are they saying?
What’s being criminalized and what’s being enabled in society?
How are people dressing and what’s inspiring that dress?
What about hair? and makeup?
What’s the value of currency, gold—of melanin?

All of these things are documentation-worthy. They are your responsibility to note, your duty to ponder and process into your writings.

Above: Media conditioning celebrating the white family as a preservation-worthy, indestructible, valiant unit. Consider: How is the family of the teastained woman portrayed? Why are our families broken or… swirled…?

Above: Don’t play dumb. A people that never apologized to us for grand crimes against humanity is now procreating with us AND/OR ADOPTING OUR CHILDREN???… We understand love and attraction. But we must ask: Where is the inheritance going? What is the motive? This is not attraction but possession; not love but fetish; not intimacy but cell and energy-harvesting.

This society takes pride in how distracted you are. Despite the pressures of life, you have not been placed on this earth to think only about yourself. The system, media, and even circumstances will lie to keep you thinking about your upward mobility on the illusionary corporate ladder and have you in survival mode to hustle and grind yourself into a powder—then snort it to keep moving. You’ll find yourself so caught up in getting on in society or ahead in life that you won’t notice stuff like subliminal messages in TV programs and songs you use to “come down” at the end of a day. You won’t notice how your food choices are being influenced by media or how social media is recalibrating you by setting off your dopamine releasors and be your new drug. You won’t research history’s history or be able to perceive the reality of your reality. These things are seminal additions to your journal entries: they’ll speak to your awareness of your times, your clarity and discernment, your critical thinking, and your broadness of mind and soul to consider more than just your sphere of events in logging your existence. They are proof that you can tell your times and thus orient yourself accordingly.

Above: Regard the uplifting, positive vocabulary used on these covers…and the images used to be associated with these words.

How do you get to know your times?
You cultivate a nature of quietness within and pay attention. Make notes on everything you’re sober (look up the definition) enough to see, and seek sobriety of mind and discernment to be aware of the stuff you can’t see; the stuff behind the veil of “what is”, the stuff you’re not aware is happening right before your eyes. There are agendas in this world that are operating under smokescreens manufactured to keep us busied with false hopes like the “american dream”, “success”, “wealth”, “getting ahead”, and “ascending the corporate ladder”. There is news being formulated to create emergency and complacency where both are inappropriate. There are lies in which we participate everyday without knowing, like buying from non-PoC businesses because we think they’re less quality, getting the Flu Shot that’s proven to target melanated peoples, buy from stores who are supplied by prison labor, attend churches whose pastors steal from the congregation they brainwash; we vote on issues we are given the illusion that we are changing, we spend our money on luxury brands that have stated they despise brown skin, etc. etc.

VGB’s “Regarding Women”

how do you document your times?

• Start by documenting all you see. You can even start a sentences with “This is what I have been seeing going on in the world lately…” speaking to patterns you’ve made note of in the times, in your generation. Journaling about what you’ve seen activates your mind to keep noting such patterns.

• One of the best ways to journal about what you’ve regarded in your times is to research other cultures’ histories and the histories of world events. As teastained women we cannot rely on the Western perspective to shape our own. This system and its culture lies; we must seek out the truth about what we have been told to believe about wars, people groups, world leaders, events, etc. There are countries who are angry at the West for legitimate reasons and we have been conditioned to believe these “angry” nations are terrorists, inhumane, and our enemy. There are people groups who have experienced genocide and disenfranchisement from the West that our media never spoke about. There are migrations taking place because of corporate abuse of land, drug and human trafficking diverted into innocent areas, raping of the land and its valuable resources back to the West, and even useless wars… Research, research, research!

• As a believer in Yah, I use the Bible (specifically, the Cepher translation) to regard my times, to process what I am seeing to ask: has this already happened, been foretold, been experienced by another from olden times? What do you use as a measuring rod to regard your times? What keeps you grounded during such uncertain days?

• Document the common words you’re hearing in world leaders’ speeches, in the TV shows you watch, or even the commonality in the song lyrics you’re hearing on the radio (if you so happen to hear them).

• As you question the happenings in the world around you, do more research that keeps your questioning fresh. Remember your mind’s sobriety is a priority. And if you share with others be prepared for them to call you crazy. This isn’t about dialogue, though. Regarding your times is between you, the Creator, and your journal.

• Your socioeconomic status gives you a valuable perspective into the workings of the world. For example, being low income is a valuable face-to-face perspective of grand injustices. Taking notes on these is powerful. I remember being homeless with my family and documenting the many faults to homeless shelters that are women-only and exclude pets (I have a brother and a dog), being able to see so clearly the food waste problem in this country, and even noticing how megachurches perpetuate negative cycles to “helping” people in such situations (I remember a phone call where my mother asked her new “friend” at a megachurch in TX for some helpful resources only to be told “sorry, I have family coming this weekend”. That woman was the leader of that church’s “hospitality ‘ministry’ ”). Rich, middle class, poor, etc.—these aren’t merely societal positions; they are vantage points into how society works. Whatever vantage point you have, take good notes on what you are afforded to see with your experience, environment, resources, etc. This is your power. Your notes can be the blueprints that enable your next generation to create change…

• Document the news as you encounter it (I am not advocating watching the news but don’t be ignorant either). Your journal entries can be punctuated with mini current event reports, distinguished by your feelings and premonitions for what’s coming next. Such insights are invaluable to your journal as a futuristic artefact.

• Describe different ads you’re noticing in the public spaces in your community. What images are in your subway, bus stops, on the billboards along the highway, in magazines, etc.?

Above: The new face of “wellness”?

What does regarding your times have to do with journaling? Your journal is not just a book of “Dear diary, blah blah blah.” As much as your journal should contain as much of your everyday existence (mundane and not), it should DOUBLY contain heavier aspects of your occupation in time. Your journal is a logbook of all that you are sentient enough to discern, notice, and remember. Your journal is proof of all you deem worthy of your attention; it’s a catalog of all you’ve been listening to, thinking upon. Keep detailed accounts, be faithful, and don’t tell yourself that you’re crazy for discernment.

Your assignment in time has given you an individual perspective that NO ONE ELSE SHARES. No one else has your identity combined with your vantage point of the times, your socioeconomic status, your perspective, your insight. These are directly proportionate to what YOU have been predesignated to preserve. Others’ acceptance or rejection of the notations and conclusions and insights you have about your times should not have weight on your documenting them and acting on the truths you’ve come to know. Your journal is first private. Maximize that privacy by preserving your radical thoughts about what you are seeing in your generation.

Accept your position as a scribe within your generation and Journey Soulfully.