WALK WITH A WHITE SURGEON SANGOMA (SHAMAN) #2

     

Anon.

 When you tell your story to yourself or to a trusted, supportive witness you may be surprised by the wisdom that comes out of it. Clearly your story will differ from anyone else's but nevertheless it is unique. The ancestors say that unless we actualize what has happened to us in a positive way we have it, but have not embraced it, we have not owned it. We have to bring it home to ourselves to help us grow. We need to go where the catalyst is and that can sometimes be painful. Turn the crap into manure - grist for the mill.

The lessons of my "story" which I will partly share in the subsequent blogs, I hope will you induce you to record your own story and look at the lessons gleaned along the way. The good should empower you, and the bad induce you to be more of who you are and can be.

"I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games... I have failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." Magic Jordan

We have to acknowledge unskillfulness before we can correct it. The Talmud says that one who cannot see themselves cannot be redeemed. 

It is important to get as many skills as possible, as many tools in your spiritual tool box to help in the transformational process.

The ancestors stress; 

The value of information is in its use for transformation.

After the San experience I began to connect with curanderos in Peru and to recognize that like the San Bushmen, they had intuitive abilities that I wished I had. The only concern was that it seemed that in order to "see" one had to take an entheogen, a sacred mind altering plant which was only used in ceremony for diagnosis and healing. I had two experiences with ayahuasca - the vision vine of the jungle - which were most informative but I did not want to rely on an entheogen to open up my "Third Eye." I reasoned that using an entheogen was like going to the top of a spiritual mountain top in a helicopter, when I felt I would rather walk up slowly up to honor the process.

Around this time I was going back to South Africa and taking groups on Inward Bound Journeys. I began to experience the magic of bone divination practiced by the Southern African sangomas. Going back to the watering hole of my origins felt right and I appreciated that using entheogens were not seminal to this tradition.

Their readings were profoundly accurate but what astonished me was the following. 

"Your ancestors are calling you to do our work, divination, dreams,  plant medicines." 

I would have liked nothing more but doubted my psychic abilities. I was flattered but chose to ignore their instructions (these readings were all from different sangomas, in different parts of the country, none of whom knew each other and they all said the same thing.)

Eventually out of frustration my ancestors came through a sangoma I was consulting near the Kruger National park. She became "possessed" and channeled the following; 

"Your ancestors have been telling you what to do but you have ignored their instruction ! Until such time as you listen your very bad headaches will not go away !" 

I was getting migraines on a regular basis and nothing I took helped. Fortunately they happened at night and were gone by morning and I could go to work. 

The spirit that the sangoma channelled was stern and unconditional  and I knew I would have to do something about their insistency. I also for the first time realized that I had the "calling sickness."

 "The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf. "

Shakti Gawain

"Out there beyond ideas or wrong-doing and right-doing there is a Field. I will meet you there." Rumi

Synchronicity and the "Field" of Potential

It was at this time that synchronicity began to show its face. When I went back to Johannesburg a friend gave me a book by Susan Schuster Campbell, titled - Called to Heal.  Susan was an American CEO who had been stationed in Southern Africa. She had had a life changing experience with a sangoma. This induced her to visit prominent healers and write this book. I managed to locate her and asked her. "Of all the sangomas you interviewed which ones would you recommend for initiation." Without hesitation she recommended two. The first, Nomsa Dlamini lived in Soweto Johannesburg - a township devoid of any nature. I decide to go to Swaziland where P.H. Mntshali - a Zulu sangoma lived. 

Power Animals or "Signs" along the way

Your guides, can - with their energy - guide animals or send other signs and signals to help inform and reinforce what you are doing,

 or even warn, against doing what you intend to do. One has to be openly receptive to the unusual, the subtle and sometimes the common behaving in a strange way, in order to discern and heed the message. 

These signs helped tell me that I was now on the right track. As I drove through the Swaziland border gate I spotted a martial eagle (an unusual siting and in the wrong place) close by sitting on a pole looking at me in a strange way. After driving down the dirt road to P.H. Mntshalis'  homestead a large monitor lizard (the size of a small crocodile) slithered across the road right in front of me. Synchronicity often appears as a power animal at the right time and in the right place to give a message of support. The eagle - a bird of seeing, the lizard - a dream animal.

 

When I arrived I immediately took to P.H. He also lived in a rural area with enough nature around to satisfy my Bushman consciousness. What I especially liked was that he said he represented the ancient healing wisdom of the Zulu unpolluted by the missionaries or the west. He also warned ...

"The trouble with Westerners is that they have lost the way, they pay no attention to their ancestors. Some do not even know who they are. They are like papers blowing in the wind. They may have everything the want or need but are unguided and unprotected spiritually from the other side."

After throwing the bones that confirmed he should initiate me he said; "Your job will be to take this knowledge to the West where very few know about it."

The ancestors, some time later when I was back in California said the same thing; 

"You are to take from there (South Africa) to bring to here." (Not the other way around.)

P.H. in his traditional attire with his initiate

Learning divination

Dancing to the sound of the drum which brings forth the ancestors 

My most epic power animal experience was on route to meet the "Prophet" and his "brother" sangoma who were going to take me to the river, to the Water Spirit - the Unzunzu.  I knew I had to do this before becoming complete. While driving to the destination I encountered  a series of nine hammerkops in quick succession, The "Hammerkop" (Afrikaans for Hammerhead) is a mystical bird in African lore. There was one on a tree branch, another in the road, a third on a pole, one flying ahead of the car etc. I felt these were good omens of what was to come.

P.H. later told me there would be nine guides who would be working with me in the future.

In order to see and experience you must first believe. Although I did not understand what the water spirit was, I fully believed in its existence and what it might do for me in my initiation. After going to the water everything changed with the dancing and the trancing and I completed my time with P.H. with much gratitude.

A Hammerkop

After P.H. I spent time in the far north of South Africa (just south of the Limpopo river) looking for a healing center that I had seen in a dream during my time with him. In the dream two Bushmen came out to greet me. I was in a valley and on the one side was a two tiered mountain with a distinct ridge between the two levels. The lower level was bush covered, the upper, rocky but numinous and luminous. The rocks were shimmering and vibrating. The dream was so compelling I knew I had to find, vision and build this magical place into an indigenous healing center. 

During my initiation I had learned divination, had begun to understand the power of dreams scripted by guides and also realize that they could "copy and paste" information into my intuitive psyche in awake time. However, I had learned very little about sacred plants and how to use them. I felt like a medical student who had just graduated but now needed to embark not only on an internship but also a residency to gain more depth especially with sacred plants. After a prolonged hunt for the place of my dream, I found it and made the vision materialize.

My postgraduate training was to happen at my dream place which I called Tshisimane - The Source (in Venda.)

Far upper right - the mountain landscape of my dream

I already had my diagnostic bones to divine psycho-spiritual diseases but at Tshisimane I found my "medicine bag." Below is a list of the sicknesses unknown to Western medicine and psychiatry that I learned existed and that I could diagnose with the bones. I could now also treat them effectively with sacred plants.

 The first cause below is rather one of Omission rather than commission as P.H. had warned - being unprotected by the spirit world. The question mark speaks to the fact that only the Creator understands the meaning of illness and why some get it and others do not. Someone once said;

"Anyone who is not confused here really does not understand what is going on."

Some of the medicines learned and collected during my stay are in the photo below. Each has a separate intention and is a password or informed consent to the guides and the Creator for a healing outcome. Free will is the cosmic law and one must ask to receive. Also one must ask very specifically hence a sacred plant for each intention. I now combine sacred central Californian plants with the African ones in the healing.

Little did I realize that I was also going to have to learn a lot about  countering witchcraft and sorcery. The minute I arrived at Tshisimane 

 illegal land claims were levied on the property. The claimants in addition to using a biased legal system effectively also employed three expert witches to work against us and to ensure their claim would be successful. 

Andries below was now my new mentor and assisted me with this. He lived only an hour's drive away - P.H. in Swaziland was a six hours away too far to be practical.

Andries my new mentor at Tshisimane

For those interested, this movie was done by South African T.V. just before I relinquished Tshisimane to the illegal claims. It is about 45 minutes and may be of interest to those intrigued by indigenous African wisdom as well as the story. It may help you to tell yours.

Click on the link to play Wounded Healer 

VIEW: Wounded Healer

P.S.

For those interested in an upcoming Zoom class in two sessions on 

FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES

To register go to # 4 or 5

IMPORTANT LINKS:
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2. Registration Help Page: https://www.sbcc.edu/extendedlearning/get-help.php 

3. Noncredit Class Schedule: https://banner.sbcc.edu/PROD/pw_pub_sched.p_search?level=NC

4. THIS ONE FOR THIS & FUTURE CLASSES
Fee-Based Class Schedule: https://www.sbcc.edu/extendedlearning/feebased.php

5. THIS ONE SHOULD TAKE YOU DIRECTLY TO THE UPCOMING CLASS
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 WALK WITH A SURGEON SANGOMA (SHAMAN) #1

The purpose of this series of blogs is not so much about my journey but more about your story, your own "walk" and how you can benefit  from both my good and my bad experiences.

“While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others.” Rick Warren

This no doubt is true but sometimes as the Ancestors say;

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

 Kabir seems to agree; 

"Kabir talks only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through, it is not true." 

These two truths speaks to the value of a rite of passage or an initiation. We need to look at this aspect of our walk since this is always the most powerful, and not easily forgotten, as long as one can pause and see the gift in the pain. 

There are two archetypes to scrutinize on your walk down memory lane - the Hero and the Warrior. 

The Hero/ine's journey has three phases: 

SEPARATION 

THRESHOLD - the process itself 

INCORPORATION - where we bring back the "grail" to the community of Beings, not just the Talking ones but depending on us, also the Wild, Growing or Still Beings.

The Warriors journey, however, has only two stages; 

SEPARATION and THRESHOLD - the grail is kept for the warrior, the family or the corporation.

The intention of the blogs is to look back at all the Warrior's journeys you have done - of which there are many - and more especially the less frequent - Hero's journeys. Often we were on the Hero's path but we stepped away and we failed to incorporate the grail or the "aha" experience. Life got in the way and we experienced the "Fall."

We are much more than we think and know much more than we think we know. We have all gone through numerous life times and incarnations and there is wisdom imbedded in our "soul-lular" memories. We just have to re-remember. When we encounter these truths they often feel familiar to us and are more easily embraced.

The Hero's journey is as ancient as is our higher consciousness. It has also been part of indigenous rites of passage for eons. These rites of initiation are only now being slowly introduced in the West, but still minimally so. In the West we are usually forced on a journey of awakening by; loss of a loved one, of health or livelihood. Now with Covid, climate change, and political upheaval even more so. This may be the time for another such journey. If not, then at least to tell our stories, review and renew what might have been and learn the lessons of the past. It's not what happens to us that counts but what we do with it.

The Ancestors teach; 

Take what you need from the past and leave the rest behind. Ancestors live in the moment (and so must we.)

Fear is present in all three phases of the Hero.

"The cave you enter hold the treasure you fear." J. Campell 

Your teaching is in the shadow of your experiences (and especially your Heros' and Warriors' journeys.) Threshold is often a dark night of the soul.

The way to become more of you is not to become more of others. 

The Ancestors 

My first seminal Hero's journey was a trip I took in 1987 to the San Bushmen, the last hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa. At the time I was experiencing an existential challenge in my surgical practice after leaving the Ivory Tower of academics and beginning a private practice. I felt that I had at least previously been a bit of a "hero" by helping patients, teaching students (and receiving a reliable check at the end of each month.) I did not feel then that I was trying to run a business - that form of Warrior's journey had never been on my mind. 

In order to balance my polarity and find equanimity I embarked on a regular yoga practice and for the first time came into contact with a lot of New Age thinking. Being a left brained medic I was skeptical of a lot of the claims being made. However, because of my South African upbringing I did believe that ...

I knew from my African experience that there was much indigenous wisdom that I had not been privy to growing up in the Apartheid era. This feeling was one of the reasons that compelled me to go and spend a few weeks with the San in the Kalahari. I had been taught about these magical people at school in Johannesburg and later at university and had always wanted to go and spend time with them on my own.  Izak Barnard was the "instrument or power" seminal to the Separation phase of this journey. He and his group that I joined, spent several days witnessing their amazing survival skills. Izak had agreed ahead of time that I could stay behind with the San after he departed with the group. He left me equipped with a 4x4, enough food for my stay, a tent a sleeping bag and mat. Once on my own I became more interested in the San's intuitive skills than their technical ones - those beyond the five senses that enabled them together with their exquisite hard skills to survive and even thrive in this wasteland. I theorized if I could find any truth in New Age thinking it should exist here in the First people who could not have survived without spiritual help.

I was immediately adopted by several men and women who attended my wants and needs for the duration of the stay. I spent time foraging with the women trapping and tracking with the men and going more deeply into their incredible survival skills that they had already shown the group. The best part was their singing and dancing after the sun had set when the desert was released from the incredible heat of the day. 

In the meanwhile I was validating what Einstein said;  

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts."

 They convinced me that divination worked, that dreams can be scripted by spirit guides and that in their trance dance they could travel out of body to the spirit world to glean information not localized in space and time. During this spirit flight and so called "Little Death" their body remained motionless on the ground until they came back down into the body again by means of the "Ropes to God."

Click on the link and play to view the out of body spirit flight of the San Bushmen shamans (Five minutes.)

    VIEW: San Bushmen Out of Body Spirit Healing Trance Dance

When I left the San and returned to California I "incorporated" my experience into a book - Inner Passages Outer Journeys - the title of which I dreamt signifying that the Kalahari had already opened up something inside of me. The book was about the spiritual principles of attaining "Wilderness Rapture" which was similar to Maslow's peak experience. In its more diluted form it was a feeling of profound equanimity, harmony, balance and an Alfa mental state of consciousness. My idea was that the more we could simulate San's way of being in wilderness, by having as little between us and nature as possible, the more powerful the effect. I also formed a small company called Inward Bound and began taking folks out on wilderness journeys of healing and transformation. These trips took two weeks which included several days of travel in order to be in remote wilderness. It was costly of time and finances. The principles worked but it was hardly a practical form of alternative healing that I could add to my surgical practice.

 The spiritual journey is like a treasure hunt - you have to follow the clues, the possibilities, your intuitions which will eventually take you to the next clue. 

In retrospect there seemed to be a hidden hand that was laboriously and slowly attempting to guide me from the "Field" of spiritual potential. I had not yet identified any distinct spirit guides.

The hunt for you destiny is the hunt of your life, stick to the scent, stay on the spoor. The Ancestors

This journey is not dissimilar to a Bushman tracking his prey. He often loses the spoor but eventually finds it again and carries on with the hunt. Sometimes on the treasure hunt for your destiny, the path seems to lead backwards but if you did not follow that clue, you would not find the next crucial one. One had to trust, be patient and experience the learning.

“What you can do, or dream you can, begin it - boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Goethe 

My journey began in 1987 in the Kalahari and it was going to take another 13 years to eventually materialize. Up until the turn of the millennium I had been only an observer, after the millennium, an active participant. For some of us the path may take a long time.

 

 FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES #8

“The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears.” 

Native American saying

"Golden verses of Pythagoras speak of storms coming and going. The wise person like the good sailor knows how to rid them. Know your weaknesses and inclinations that you can temper them with your strength." Anonymous

Things in the past may have been even worse than they are now.

Click on the link and view.

 Corona Epidemic | global pandemic | Merin Joseph ... - YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch

So how do we turn darkness into light. 

Some wisdoms from the ancients and thoughts:

Your teaching is in the shadow of your experience. 

The Ancestors

"The cave you fear to entry holds the treasure you seek."

Joseph Campbell

Take our suffering and make something useful out of it. Allow the Phoenix to raise out of the ashes around us.

Its not what happens to us but what we do with ...

 

Grief and Sorrow

There is enough suffering we do not need to take on more.

Folks with the help of the media and movies are almost impelled into negativity because that is what attracts our attention the most. We need to stay with light, love and laughter as much as possible.

We should treat ourselves with compassion and forgiveness, and others as well. Self-recrimination and self-condemnation have no place if we are to maintain balance. Nor should we judge others for their imbalance by projecting our own onto them.

 

Trust in God and your guides who are the intermediaries between you and the Creator.

We are not just influences but recipients of influences from distant places and distant times. (Past life loved ones and guides.)

The Ancestors

"When I lose my way, God will come along the road & reach me. When I grope in the land of forgetfulness, God will remember me. When I no longer know who I am, God will call me by my name. When darkness is my only companion, memories & old prayers will be stars & in time or beyond it, someone will be sent, bringing a lamp."

 Christine Fleming Heffner

 But there is a caveat ...

It will be given to us according to the measure of our humility,

the measure of our love,

and the measure of our faith.

The power of prayer is greater that the power of prophesy (or the prognosis of the situation.)  The Ancestors

Grief and sorrow give us the impetus to focus on the impermanence of all things, good and bad and that this too will pass.

Death might seem a strange subject to bring up when talking about remedies for darkness but it goes to the core of our fears. 

"Death does not extinguish the light. It puts out the lamp because the dawn has come." R. Tagore

When we think of impermanence we should also meditate on death - our last and final journey. 

Death should be a blissful experience if we are prepared and there has never been a better time to prepare. For those that are sick and ailing death is also a pleasant release from their suffering.

“When you were born, you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you are the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Buddhist teach that of all the meditations the one on death is the most powerful, yet most of us try not to think of it. For many, it is at best subconsciously, the ultimate fear.

The first noble truth of suffering of Buddhism is the truth of: Uncontrolled birth, sickness, aging and death.

The Zohar says we are living in only a 1% world - there is another 99% on the other side of the veil.

Everything that happens to us is a test of our spiritual metal. We should join the spiritual "special forces" and weather the storms of life so as to perfect our karma with humility, love and faith. In this way we have some control over how we pass over, which vibration we inherit and also our next incarnation and rebirth. We may also be able to approach sickness and aging as a test of our spiritual practice.

The question is are we ready and what does the karmic table we have prepared for ourselves look like?

Only the enlightened know how to live this life so they do not have to die again by karmically having to inherit another one. The Self-realized Buddhist will go to the Pure Land, others the Causal, the Kabbalist the Garden of Eden. We are all capable of reaching this vibration which will partly depend on how we have handled grief and sorrow. Everything we do is a test of our karma - how we handle the good and the bad, the sacred and the profane.

When we leave the planet we are only moving house, going out of one portal and through another. The key thing is that we cannot take anything with us. If we are "attached" it may change our vibrational passage and we could land up in the wrong place. Worst of all we could become earth bound, lost between the worlds, maybe not even knowing we are dead, thus sabotaging the next cycle of death and rebirth. A traumatic, confused death is another cause of getting stuck between the worlds. There has never been a better time to attend to our needs rather than our wants, to do a house cleaning and clear the decks of redundancy.

Before we reincarnate we come up before a spiritual tribunal who lovingly show us the errors of our ways. Our karma will determine which next life time we inherit. If we attend to our vibration with an ongoing spiritual practice we will cross the veil between the worlds happily, skillfully and smoothly, usually into the Astral realm - some into the Causal. There are countless levels of vibrational attainment.

"If you do not want to see the shadow turn your face into the sun.

No matter how long the night, the dawn is sure to come." 

Indigenous wisdom

Click to highlight, pray and meditate 

02_Your_Search.mp3

05 Crossing Over.mp3

 

FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES #7

Other Factors that increase our happiness are shown above.

 

Exercise, sunlight, gifting (paying forward) and comfort food all help in releasing serotonin (mood), dopamine (pleasure) and endorphins (pain.) Because of Covid- for most of us oxytocin - the "cuddle" chemical is off limits for now. Aroma therapy and incense, love, light, sacred sounds, chanting, song and music arouse the soul. Special techniques like E.M.D.R., Tapping and acupuncture all help. 

In addition an ongoing spiritual practice done for its own sake, not to perform or look good, that is regular, sustainable and enjoyable is the most important of all to maintain balance and well being. This does not have to be Eastern in nature and one can invoke more than one practice. Going inward will lead to vibrational coherence of body, mind and spirit and influence the folks around us favorably. It can help open the heart chakra and generate love, not as an emotion or a sentiment but as a commitment. In other words - Namaste - I see the divinity in you.

 Love your neighbor's Self as you would love your own Self. 

Well-being facilitates gratitude and paying things forward.

The Ancestors endorse the Three L's; 

Love, Light and Laughter

Click the link and play

04_Love.mp3

 

Gratitude Creates Joy

 

Be grateful and you will be happy. happiness leads to great empowerment. Attend to your well-being, especially to happiness, the cause of which is sometimes found in hidden recesses, always in gratitude. The Ancestors

 The sages have praised gratitude over the ages and now neuroscience is broadening our appreciation of the power of gratitude (Robert Emmons, and Michael McCullough.) Gratitude increases dopamine and serotonin, is a sign of emotional intelligence and creates a positive feedback loop i.e. more gratitude. In addition, it induces a parasympathetic relaxation response and accentuates alfa rhythms on an E.E.G. It also increases neuronal density in the prefrontal lobe of the brain (Spacious Mind) on F.M.R.I. studies somewhat similar to that seen in advanced meditators.            

We should not neglect to include our ancestors and spirit guides in our gratitude prayers. Gratitude is a profound form of prayer which otherwise tends to be supplication rather than giving thanks. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and when we “ask to receive” our spirit guides can help us be much more than we already are. 

 

Remember that you are made not for brokenness and sorrow but for wholeness and for joy.

Spacious mind is about gratitude and joy. Narrow mind is about acquisitiveness.

The Ancestors

Paying forward

When we feel good about ourselves we become grateful and more joyful. This helps us pay forward or

 "practice random acts of kindness."

                                       The Ancestors

 

Research shows that if we practice as if we are grateful we become more so and if we pay forward we become happier. If we do a good deed this creates vibrational coherence within, without - around us and even into the cosmic field. 

It helps to look back at our own times of deprivation to appreciate what we have. When we look around us at the misery of others less fortunate, all the more so. 

Your gifts are only gifts if you find them thus to be - your heart makes them so.

Giving opens, withholding closes.
In giving; is to receive and to welcome the other.

The Ancestors

Paying forward without regard for any return is good karma.

Laughter

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” 

Marcel Proust

Laughter, especially a good belly laugh, releases endorphins and the belly moving is thought to stimulate the parasympathetic vagus nerve leading to a relaxation response. It has also being described as "internal jogging." It releases muscular tension and creates positive immune and vascular effects.

Norman Cousins cured himself of debilitating ankylosing spondylitis by watching funny movies, described in his book - Anatomy of an Illness. 

 “Humor is the beginning of faith and laughter the beginning of prayer.” Reinhold Nieuber

"Joy is not only incidental to your spiritual quest, it is vital."

Rev Nachman

 

“A truly wise person is always joyful. The best way to live joyfully is to believe that life was given for joy. “

 

… When joy disappears, look for your mistake.” Tolstoy

A sense of humor goes a long way when things do not work out quite like they should. It's good to laugh at oneself.

“Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, you may as well burst out laughing.” Lonchenpa

Cuddling a Happy Hyena || ViralHog - YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch

… don't think this transformation is about having the perfect life or the perfect job or the perfect mate or the perfect marriage or the perfect friendship. This is not about perfection.; it is about wholeness. It is not about having things exactly as we want them, but about having things exactly as they are. When we allow things to be, a sense of harmony develops…” Adyashanti