WALK WITH A SANGOMA SURGEON

THWASA

(Apologies for changes in font size I could not correct - tricksters?)


P.H. Mntshali or P.H., as he was mostly called, agreed that I could come for a month at a time to Thwasa so that I could return to nurture my practice. The initiation was to occur over a period of about two years instead of the usual intensive 24/7 three months. 
The information below occurred in stages over that time.

There are four main components to the sangomas repertoire; Divination, Possession, Dreams and Plants Medicines
used in ritual. 
There were many other ways to do ritual but plants were the mainstay. Animal sacrifice was only used on special occasions on behalf of the Ancestors.

Sangoma initiation also involved dancing to the sound of the drum. Ngoma is a drum in Zulu and the call of the drum invites the spirit to enter the body while ego stepped aside. In the early hours of the morning when the veil between worlds was the most open I would be awakened. P.H. and or his sangoma wife Miriam would also be present with the drummers while I danced to the sound of the drum. It was the drum that would allow me to step out of my ego and get possessed by one of my ancestral spirits. P.H. traditionally had thought it would be the ancestors on my fathers side who would come through but the bones had indicated that it was my mother's Grans who were operative.
The same drumming and dancing would occur at night but no spirit possession happened. When they would ask who are you I would always reply, Cumes.

The only one of the requirements that worried me was spirit possession. This was the more so because my grandfather on my mother's side came in a dream associated with vibrating Kundalini energy and directed; "you will not get possessed!" Nevertheless P.H. persevered. I was not comfortable with a spirit taking over my body completely and doubted I would be able to allow my ego to step so completely aside that this would happen. This was also definitely not a part of my culture. All the other modalities intrigued me as did the possibility of a gentler form of channeling.

I had read about maggidim or sages coming to students of Kabbalah in dreams and instructing them but full on possession was entirely different. 

A man once dreamed that there was a great treasure under a bridge in Vienna. He traveled to Vienna and stood near the bridge, trying to figure out what to do and not get arrested by digging next to a bridge. An officer passed by and accosted him, “What are you doing, standing here?” The man told the officer about his dream who ridiculed him for coming all the way just because of a dream. The policeman said I also had a silly dream last night, but the treasure I saw was in a small house, under the cellar, accurately described the man’s house. The man rushed home, dug under his cellar, and found the treasure.  Rebbe Nachman’s Parables.

The process of the officer's dream in the story has been called "getting someone else's mail." 

Every morning P.H. would teach me the "bones." There were not just animal bones but other objects especially shells representing different polarities of the human condition. As the metaphors, symbols and messages on the mat unravelled and revealed  themselves it occurred to me that the bones were showing the cosmology or the dream that was the client's life. 
"There is a dream dreaming me."
Bushman saying
It was like a psycho-spiritual C.T. scan  that could diagnose spiritual conditions unknown to Western medicine but as real as any other pathology. P.H. called them the Big Boss which made me feel I did not need to get possessed if I had this as my diagnostic kit.

 I found to be P.H. correct,  - the bones talk! I also was assured that I was the messenger and I should get out of the way of myself and as he instructed, "just read it!"

With regard to diseases unrecognized by allopathic medicine there were an array of spiritual conditions. Apart from intrusive spirits which may haunt the living there were also earth bound spirits. These, because of a sudden or confused death had not seen the "light" or heard the ancestors calling them home and were sadly stuck between the worlds still needing to cross the veil to the other side to complete their karma. This could be done with the assistance of one's spirit guides. For those intrusive spirits who were hanging around their living loved ones for closure, forgiveness was the remedy.  If granted best with spiritual help, forgiveness would released the ailing spirit from that particular karmic sin where they had been found wanting and they could move on. 

There were also a host of factors that could cause energetic pollution or ritual impurity which could be diagnosed and remedied such as; being in contact with "blood"or death, eating road kill, illness and or hospitalization, an unwholesome journey or venture, certain objects as well as land polluted by evil intention.

 Femba was performed periodically and was a form of psycho-spiritual cleansing or exorcism where another specialized sangoma, Mazia, went into trance and routed intrusive spirits and energies trying to interfere with my process while welcoming the good ones like Mpofu my guide for the bones.

I learned that witchcraft and sorcery were ubiquitous in all cultures (you can now sadly learn all about the techniques on line.) The basis of this was a heart of envy - hence the commandment do not covet... !  
You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus
The witches and sorcerers were often the "traitors in the gates" thus presenting themselves in a favorable light, making their true nature invisible. In Africa witchcraft is always dark unlike Wicca in the West which can be of the light.

There were ritual baths with sacred medicines added and medicines to drink and burn. There was also regular steam purifications in a mini sweat lodge just big enough for me and a giant iron pot filled with water and magical plants. Red hot rocks would periodically be placed into the pot with a shovel to catalyze the medicated steam. There was no place to escape from the heat, not to mention the 100 degree heat of the Swaziland summers outside.

There were other rituals as well, including sacrifices to call and thank the Ancestors on special occasions. Though unsavory to many Westerners, the way it was done was more sacred than going to buy packaged chicken in a supermarket. 

After P.H. had tested me and was satisfied that I had mastered the bones and performed all the rituals with right intention and been purified, the time came to go to the river to engage with the water spirit.

All the sangomas had confirmed that I would have to go to the river eventually to finish. No-one could explain to me what the water spirit or Unzunzu (Zulu) was. 
I knew Umbilini was intimately involved with Thwasa and was an obscure spiritual force similar to the San Bushmens' Num. It was also very similar to the yoga Shakti, Kundalini, feminine, serpent energy wound around the central channel of the spine at the first chakra. The source of sangomas’ power is called umbilini, said to feel like a hot coiled snake ascending the spine. Sangomas learn to summon this power at will through the beating of a drum. Most South African tribes believe in a feminine force residing low in the belly which is key to spiritual power and fertility in the female (as in the Domba or python dance of female pubertal initiation amongst the Venda people.) 

Nyami Nyami

The Nyami Nyami water spirit of the Zambezi river has been represented as a snake like spirit with its tail in its mouth as in this Shona soapstone carving above. Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail is Egyptian lore holds the meaning of infinity or wholeness and is also a symbol of alchemy. Cleopatra  was an alchemist associated with Ouroboros so the symbol again has a feminine connotation.

Whatever it was, the Unzunzu appeared to be a formidable force for change. Miriam took me to the Prophet who was to facilitate the ritual. He lived two hours drive away. A time and day were arranged and the necessary offerings to the water spirit were gathered. Two weeks later we were taken to a sacred, large pool fed by a river cascading down the mountain. Only sangomas and their initiates were allowed there. The various offerings were made to the Ancestors and two white chickens prepared for sacrifice while I stripped down to my shorts.  Meanwhile another sangoma dressed only in an antelope skin draped around his waste and the Prophet (from the Zionist Christian church who was more sangoma than Christian prophet) told me what to do. I was to strip down to my shorts, enter the pool and hold onto a rope tied to a dead tree on the bank. They commanded; 
"do not let go or you will be taken by the water spirit!"

 They entered the pool with me and began to call out to the Old and New testament patriarchs. They then proceeded with a primal form of Baptism. They would push my head under the water repeatedly and hold it there for a reasonable time but when they let go I would come up, only to be slapped vigorously around the head, neck and shoulders by both of them. I lost all sense of time and everything else. When I finally emerged and stumbled onto a rock I felt the "Kundalini-Umbilini-Num" energy suffusing my body and vibrating me from head to toe. Simultaneously there was an ecstatic experience of oneness with everything around me turning numinous and luminous. I washed in the medicated water mixed with some chicken blood and then rinsed off in the pool. We hiked back down the mountain to the car and to the sangomas Ndumba or healing hut where Miriam was given new medicine for the steaming and the other rituals.

I will never know what happened but after that everything changed. When the drumming began I felt the same Umbilini energy moving up my spine and would leap up to dance with the feeling that I was being danced and was the dance. When P.H. asked me who I was, I still said Cumes but on successive occasions channeled three guides, the most seminal one being Mpofu the African woman who had been a sangoma in a past life and was now helping me with the divinations. Mpofu instructed; "His method will be bones. They will think him crazy if he gets possessed in California and there will be no-one there to drum for him."                     Being a sangoma clearly needed a "village."

P.H. accepted now that I was an nyanga (a diviner) rather than a sangoma (someone possessed by the spirit when called to serve by the power of the drum.) He agreed I was "possessed" in the bones and dreams and when I had garnered medicinal plants I would be possessed there too. I felt complete and we parted company until some time later. 
On route to Johannesburg I visited Shado Dudlu who was also a mentor and powerful sangoma. He had helped advise and encourage me from the outset. He threw the bones and confirmed I was complete but now had to learn plant medicines. A bit later after testing me a Tsonga sangoma in Limpopo province (which location had become my new source of inspiration,) tested my skills, formally initiated me and gave me the necessary sangoma apparel and accoutrements. He also provided me with the medicines I would need until such time that I could make my own.

My path had just begun. I was now like I had been once before, an M.D. about to do his internship with a prolonged residency or postgraduate training ahead.

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