Neb Naba
Rising Firefly Productions (then Firefly Productions) was founded in 1998 in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America by Neb Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig. It was the publishing arm of the revolutionary organization that Neb Naba would found in 2001. Rising Firefly Production started his movement by spreading awareness of his presence and the cultural wealth he carried since his arrival to the US in 1995.
Neb Naba arrived in Iowa in 1995 and worked small jobs just long enough to raise the money and meet funders allowing him to produce his first publication the Bayuali Magazine, a journal presenting the Bayuali readings in a form similar to the common monthly horoscopes well-known in the West. But Bayuali is much more than a common horoscope. It was a science of reading the Earth's energies originating from the temples of Thebes, Memphis, and Abydos in the Nile Valley.
Neb Naba’s family and Gourmantche ethnic group were well known throughout West Africa for preserving the integrity of the Bayuali (or M’TAM) science. He had come from a long line of initiatic priests who had taken on the responsibility of educating their communities and beyond with the knowledge their Ancestors had preserved.
Neb Naba’s grandfather was a well-known M’TAM priest who traveled throughout West Africa. He often traveled with nothing more than his traditional lute and the knowledge of the M’TAM readings. Through educational songs, he shared cultural wisdom and with the M’TAM science he was able to bring solutions to problems that the communities he touched were facing. He became so proficient in the initiatic sciences, elevating through the ranks of Kemetic priesthood that he became known as a Maakheru or “truth teller”. Neb Naba would get to spend time with his grandfather and it was from him that the name for Rising Firefly Productions originates.
“My grandfather in the bush of Meritah (Africa) in Fada N'Gourma, Burkina Faso told me once that wise people are like stars in the sky. Together they enlighten the sky and reduce the thickness of the night. Every individual should make his life the path that leads to the stars. I spent all my childhood dreaming about stars, and later came to the conclusion that one should die if one wants to become a star. When, shortly before my grandfather's death, I came to him with the question about what becomes of those who do not succeed in becoming stars, he simply told me, "Be at least a firefly on Earth if you cannot become a star in the sky." This explains why we decided to call this [company] The Rising Firefly.”
From Burkina to Europe
Neb Naba, like his grandfather, rose fast through the ranks of Kemetic priesthood also achieving the level of Maakheru. While still in Burkina Faso, West Africa he published a few books of poetry and some books on the M’TAM Science. He also carefully worked with anthropologists who traveled to his area looking to learn more about the area’s spiritual heritage which was shrouded in secrecy. His knowledge on M’TAM, invisible architecture, and other traditional sciences contributed to a few books written by French anthropologists.
In 1980, he started an organization of cultural activists of the initiatic communities called Khepra. But soon he would set his sights on bringing his message and mission to the international stage. To do so, he traveled throughout Africa visiting temples and shrines of the Kemetic legacy and gaining the support of the dignitaries of the surviving culture that had migrated from the Nile Valley. He traveled to Germany further researching some of the Kemetic artifacts and scrolls held hostage by European museums.
To AMERICA
He reached America in 1995 where his work quickly accelerated. Distributing the English version of the Bayuali Magazine around Iowa and Ghana where he traveled back and forth bringing his students and working with other Ghanaian activists. He would also distribute French version issues of the magazine throughout Burkina Faso. With funders and increased attention, Bayuali Magazine soon became Choices Magazine and more articles were added to the original two that accompanied the 13 Bayuali readings which were based on the original calendar of the Pharaonic throne, also recovered by Neb Naba and distributed by Rising Firefly Productions.
He was called around the country to give lectures and after working at a festival hosted by Africa International House in Chicago, he was called to move to Chicago to bring his activities to the big city. There he picked up a few writers and contributors to the magazine and Choices Magazine became the Chicago Firefly. In 2000, he published The Great Book of Divine Ordinances - The Code of Human Behavior (77 Commandments) poster. His students said it felt almost surreal going around Chicago presenting such an old, priceless document to stores for distribution and resale.
As he states, “Every individual whose consciousness is enlightened, enlightens the path that leads humans towards evolution.” and he seemed to have dedicated students wherever his travels took him.
leaving a legacy
In 2001, he formally started the M’TAM School of Kemetic Philosophy & Spirituality. With the assistance of his initiates, a year later, he transformed the Chicago Firefly (local magazine) to The Rising Firefly Kemetic Journal with international distribution. The Chicago Firefly was replaced by the Sunnyside Community Magazine and he released another poster presenting the spiritual wealth of Kemetic culture, the Mandala of Denderah. In 2005, his first book in English, Initiatic Tales of Hej Ptah was released.
In 2006, Neb Naba returned to West Africa, after starting two more locations in the United States: New York, New York, and San Diego, California. He restarted his activities in Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso in the same manner he started in the US. He began publishing the French Bayuali Magazine to spread awareness of his activities and hosted a radio show called “La Lumiere” or “The Light”.
In 2008, Neb Naba made his transition to the World of the Dead. His disciples, feeling the direct sunlight on their backs after the fall of such a big shade tree worked tirelessly to continue the publications and prepare the manuscripts that he had left to be published. Philosophy Podium Volume 1 was published in the same year and The Book of Purifications written with his son and heir was published ten years later in 2018.
Today, after working with the Kemetic authority of West Africa to continue Neb Naba’s activities appropriately in alignment with the way he began them, Rising Firefly continues and will be further expanding to fulfil the vision and direction of this great spirit that lived among us to remind us of the potential of the human spirit.
“Our responsibility as people of the world is to try to fix what is fixable. Outside ourselves, there is no enemy to fight against. This [company] is trying to put humankind on the podium of intelligence and spiritual honesty; a job that has been interrupted for a few millennia due to the emergence of diverse philosophical and dogmatic distractions. Our goal is to bring to dreams and imagination a dose of philosophical and metaphysical realism. Every individual whose consciousness is enlightened, enlightens the path that leads humans towards evolution.”
Neb Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig
Founder of The Earth Center