WALK WITH A SANGOMA-SURGEON

DESTINY

Our fate is the card we are dealt in life, our parents, our education - lower and higher, the friends we keep, other adult role models besides our teachers and the choices we make around these - skillful or unskillful. Some are dealt unfavorable cards but find a way to make wise choices and rise above their fate into their destiny. Others may be born with a silver spoon in their mouths and their choices are so enticing that they fall pray to the temptations of samsara and a sensory existence. 

Free will is the cosmic law and cannot be abrogated. The spirit world cannot and does not usually tell us what to do. They can hint at the direction usually in dreams. However, if one does not have a receptivity and a spiritual connection or practice it is unlikely to happen. Hence few of us know or even follow their destiny in spite of honestly wishing they knew what it was, because of distractions and confusion.

Kierkegard also added; 

"A possibility is a message from God, one must follow it."

We all have our own destiny "CUP" to fill. Some are granted many gifts and have a bigger cup but 

to those whom much is given much is expected  

and their path may be more challenging and difficult. Too many choices. The Creator doesn't play favorites so that as long as we fill our cup our karma is secure.

At the end of the day it is about what we can bring to others and the planet - the Still Beings, Growing Beings, Wild Beings or Talking Beings. Each of us will have a proclivity for one or the other according to our signature/core strength (Seligman) or archetype.

By then I pretty much left Peru and what it had to offer behind me in terms of curanderismo and started to arrange Inward Bound journeys more and more to Southern Africa, especially the Kalahari. I would also check in with sangomas about my life and the upcoming trip and what to expect from the group. They always answered my questions but invariably added; 

"your ancestors are calling you to do our work - divination, dreams, rituals especially with plants." 

Some added that it was the "grans" on my mother's side who were calling me and an uncle who loved me. I knew this to be my favorite uncle Sam. Another added that there was a black woman spirit who had been a sangoma in her previous life who wanted to help me with divination. I was enchanted, curious and flattered by the messages which came from at least six sangomas in different parts of the north who did not know me at all or each other. I ignored the information because I did not feel I had any intuitive or psychic abilities other than my dreams which did sometimes tell me what was going to happen.

The Ancestors

I was lucky - I was told what to do but I discounted it for some time until a woman sangoma (I was having a divination with her husband) spontaneously went into trance, got possessed by a spirit and read me the riot act. 

"You have been told what to do and are ignoring instructions. Now you have a bad pain in your back and until you listen your bad headaches also will not go away!" 

She pointed to the exact spot in my lumbar-sacral area that had been plaguing me on the trip. She was dead right and diagnosed that I was suffering from the Ancestor Sickness. 

I had been getting severe migraines for some time, almost weekly which lasted about six hours, were dibilitating and nothing I could do or take prevented or relieved them. Luckily they came on at night and were gone by morning after which I could function and go to work.

I decided I had to relent and follow advice regardless of the consequences and my concerns that I was inadequate which could also have arisen from fear, laziness or complacency.

Some time later I had a dream that said Safe Harbors! I thought it should be the title of the book I was to write about my initiation but maybe it wasn't. I had to resign myself to this path which meant committing to the Ancestors and the work and putting them first. I had to leave my Safe Harbor.

Unlike my medical training where I could rely on intellect and cognitive knowledge, this was to be a totally different learning experience. In a dream in Peru I had this teaching; 

It is better to experience the learning than learn the experience. 

Kabir confirms this more eloquently.

"The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of, is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true."

That was what initiation was to be about. There were no scriptures, no manual, no books to be read. Though different it was also to be just as challenging as getting an M.D. degree. Now, however, my M.D. was to mean Master of my Destiny or at least the next part of it.

The Ancestors

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