Joyce said:
Hello Joyce,
You wrote: "No, I was not aware that anyone here knew much about it. Moreover, as Sekehumu has pointed out, this thread is about melanin. Thus, that brings me to this question about something you said..."
Personally, I'm not a member or practitioner of the Dogon spiritual tradition, so of course, I'm not an expert. However, being a member of an ATR, I can unequivocally tell you, what many in the "western world" (as observers or monday morning quartebacks and not participants) would tell you are "mythic" are in fact, Real. You don't even have to believe in their (orisa, vodu, nkisi, nommo, neteru, abosom) reality in order for them to make themselves known to you. There is no mystic mental visualization taking place, but an actually physical manifestation of the Real. Also, the amazing knowledge that the Dogon possess about the heavens is really mind-boggling for them to be making up stuff.
The Dogon, notwithstanding their post-neolithic technology, have possessed for centuries a very detailed and albeit scientific cosmological knowledge that has eluded westerners until very recent. Their cosmology has touched upon the nature and movement of the heavens, stars not visible to the naked eye, an understanding of human genetic patterns and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) formation, and the plausibility of parallel universes, which is now being comfirmed by quantum physics. They also speak about the personality traits found in humans and described by most ATRs as circumscribed and dictated by different types of energy found in the universe. There's a certain thread that runs through all ATRs that can only be explained as due to melanin.
Blackbird: I stand behind the inherent greater spiritual qualities of Afrikan people worldwide via the medium of melanin - the universal organizing principle. I don't need research or books or expert dissemination to stand on because I have experiential, first hand knowledge to validate my conviction.
Joyce, you wrote: "Would you expound on this a little bit more. I'm not quite following you."
From my experience in the ATRs, Black people have a greater capacity for "passing" a spirit than white people do. Also, we are better at reading people, seeing what spirits they have behind them or what spirits are working with them. I have never seen a white person pass the spirit, but I did see my then soon-to-be wife, who was Christian at the time, attend a party (spiritual ceremony) with me and not even believing or participating in the party, actually get the "spirit." I have seen on many occasions, a testament of the inherently spiritual qualities of Black people, something most Christian are not privy to or wish to be privy to.
Basically, you will not follow me on this because your view of the world, in terms of its spiritual existence and reality, is different from mine. I was like you, seeing things from another culture's glasses, until my ancestors' called me and opened my eyes to the possibilites of the world, which is not as restricted or limited as most Westerners believe. No offence intended, just a reality I now know. I will say knowing what I know now, I could never be a Christian again, even if I wanted to. The predominately Christian thinking is too limited for the reality I now know exist.
Joyce you wrote: "What bird is this that's inside of my cells? Who is Ausar and Heru?"
The Sankofa bird statement I made was symbolic prose. It was meant to be informative, rhetorical, and signifying at once. However, the Sankofa bird is an Akan philosophical concept and is symbolized in their adinkra system of communication. Along with this concept is a proverb that says essentially, "It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you have forgot."
I was speaking about remembrance - remembrance of who we were/are as a group of people. Due to our common history, language, and origin, Afrikan-Americans constitute a nation of people, although we may have come from divergent ethnic groups in Africa. Essentially, bloodwise, we are truly Pan-Afrikan. However, due to conditioning and psycho-spiritual trauma we have faced in America, we were separated from our ancestral soul (sie), which has cause alot of the pathologies effecting us. In addition to this very damaging separation, we have divided ourselves into various factions, denominations and the like. So the call to Sankofa is remember, go back and fetch what we forgot or lost. Reclaim our past so we can control our future. Remember is also to re-member the dislocated ancestral soul, our sie, which helps to produce poverty, black on black crime, dysfunctional households and communities, etc. As we embark on this course of re-membering, we assume the role of Mama Auset, who re-member the dislocated pieces of Asar so she could give birth to child, who is the resurrection and the remembrance of the father.
Who is Asar/Ausar and Heru? I believe you already know that and if not maybe my brother Sekhemu can answer that for you.
Ase!
your brother Blackbird leaves....
Desperate...I'll Take It! Here's a cup for you too 
